The Feedback Avalanche
In my last blog, I talked about self-editing your work. So, let’s skip ahead a few steps. Let’s say you’ve completed a self-edit, sought out some critique partners and/or beta readers, sent your book out to them, and now you’ve gotten a good amount of feedback to sift through.
This part of the editing process can be overwhelming for an author, because where do you even start? If you’re lucky, you’ll have all your readers giving similar feedback about what works and what doesn’t, but more often, opinions are all over the place. You may have one reader who says your villain is boring when everyone else loves to hate them, different readers reacting to a twist in three different ways, or even completely opposed opinions – someone might say the book’s pacing is too fast, while another says it’s too slow, for example.
How is anyone supposed to know which feedback to keep and act on, and which to toss in the dumpster? I’ve been through the process now with three books, and here are my thoughts.
Make Sure You Have A Good Sample Size
One of the most important things you’re trying to determine when receiving early reader feedback is if there are any trends you can pick up. These could be positive, such as a joke everyone likes or a hero all your readers root for and empathize with. A trend could also be negative – maybe most people feel that a plot development comes out of nowhere, or that the decision your heroine made was out of character. Remember, you’re trying to simulate how readers in the target audience might react to this book once it’s released, on a smaller scale and while you can still do something about it.
It’s tough to spot trends amongst your readers if you just don’t have that many to start with. Some authors don’t want to hear this, but you’re going to want to have, at a bare minimum, ten people read your book in order to have any kind of actionable feedback. Twenty is better. The more reactions you get, the more you can get a good, holistic picture of what readers tend to think of the manuscript. Also, if you start off with a good, robust group of beta readers, you don’t have to sweat it too much if a couple of them flake or decide the book isn’t for them.
On the other hand, if you only have three people total beta reading your book, you could find yourself in a situation where one person gives you nothing but praise, another claims the whole thing is a mess and needs a complete rewrite, and the third person ghosts. The amount of feedback you now have is almost worse than nothing. You need enough opinions and reactions to be able to take a balanced look at what’s going on. Otherwise, you run the risk of missing important issues because no one called them out, or rewriting a perfectly good story from the top down because of one person’s personal preferences.
Avoid Putting Too Much Stock In Outliers
One of the most agonizing decisions you’ll have to make as an author going through reader feedback is whether to consider an opinion when it’s coming from only one person. Now, if you have a decent sample size of readers, it’s easier to shrug off one person saying they were bored by the book’s climax when everyone else says it had them on the edge of their seat. But sometimes only one person brings something up that no one else has commented on. For example, I had someone beta reading The Case Of The Cheap Suit Plot claim that starting the book with the main character on a bus was cliched, and I should rewrite the opening to something more unusual.
The thing is, no one else commented on Chloe riding the bus at all. She is a working-class woman in 1938 who needs to gets somewhere in a big city – she’s going to take a bus. Sure, she could take a cab, but that would also be pretty ordinary, right? Are there even a lot of stories that start with main characters on buses? I spiraled about this problem for quite a while before realizing that I couldn’t rewrite the book’s opening just because this one person has a hangup about buses. If I rewrote parts of the book to please everyone, I’d go insane and move to a remote island where there aren’t any books, because the strain of trying to please everyone would be unbearable.
Generally, if only one person points something out and it’s a small fix, like a confusing sentence or a word echoed too often, I’ll just fix it without further thought. But if they’re indicating that you should change something big, like removing a character or rewriting the ending, and no one else seems to have a problem with the way things are, let that suggestion go.
Throw Out Junk Feedback
You’re going to get some feedback from readers that just isn’t actionable. This can take a few forms. Most obviously, there’s feedback that’s just mean-spirited. I’ve mentioned a couple of times in the past that a beta reader once DNFed a book because the main character’s name is Chloe. Authors sometimes get readers telling them a character sucks, or their book is boring, without offering any constructive feedback as to why. These readers either aren’t good enough at expressing themselves to be of help to you, or they’re just yanking your chain. Either way, don’t lose sleep over it. (Now, that doesn’t mean that any feedback you don’t like is automatically junk feedback. If a reader says your book is boring because it takes too long to get to the Inciting Incident, or not much happens in the middle of the book, or the characters are flat, then you need to consider it.)
You may also get feedback from readers who just aren’t paying attention. My books take place in the 1930s and 40s, and this is clearly stated, more than once, within the text. I once had a reader constantly asking me why the characters didn’t do things like use burner phones and put trackers on the bad guys’ cars. I had never indicated at any point in the story that cell phones or tracker devices existed, and finally reminded the reader that it was 1938 with magic and some advanced tech, but nothing like what he was suggesting. He replied that he didn’t know it was 1938. Betas should be paying close enough attention to know basic details about your book, like who the main characters are, what the setting is, and what the basic goal of the story is. If everyone seems to be struggling with these things, you might have a clarity issue, but if it’s only one person, they need to be disregarded.
Lastly, some readers may give very well-meaning feedback, but it’s not actionable because they’re asking you to completely transform the story into something it was never meant to be. I’ve had a reader tell me I should shift the focus of my books to follow a supporting character instead of the main characters, and another one said I should move the whole series into third person instead of first. Beta readers should be advising you on how to make the book better within the framework you’ve already provided, not pitching their own fanfiction about how the characters should act or what would make a cool sequel. Now, again, if you’ve got a few betas all telling you the book would work better in first person or they think the story has the wrong main character, it’s time to listen, but don’t let the opinions of one person sway you into writing your book by committee.
Don’t Be Afraid To Follow Up
As long as you’re asking respectfully, most beta readers should be happy to clarify or elaborate on some feedback they’ve given you. It’s fine to follow up with them if you’re unsure how to proceed with implementing feedback.
And don’t forget that, if you’re really at a loss, you can bring up any lingering feedback concerns with a professional editor. You’ll need one whether you publish traditionally or self pub. They can offer their expert opinion on any particularly tough nuts to crack.
