Now that I'm about to send my WiP out to some Beta readers, it made me wonder what sort of feedback do I like. I'm all about story while I'm writing, focus on plot, action, and characters, but I also know my weakest thing during the first draft is the character relationships. I usually have a great main character, while the rest of characters are only partially complete.
I also know that I can get into a passive voice at times, which is hard to notice while writing and is usually picked up on subsequent readings.
My plot usually flows pretty well, I think I enjoy moving from one action to the next without much in the ways of missing parts, however, for a first draft some of the things that show up later need to be introduced a bit earlier.
If you're following, when I send it out for readings, I like a lot of feedback, nothing is too small or too big. I also feel that I have a thick skin, meaning lay into me, I won't mind, because I'm of the mindset that if one person notices it, its just that person, if two people notice it, it's something that needs to be looked into and if three people notice it, then it's something wrong.
What sort of feedback do you like when you are getting read?
Oh yeah, next step, thanks to comments on Wednesday's post is the query letter and synopsis.
I've developed a thick skin and although I hate it, I want honest feedback--as thorough as the reader will give.
ReplyDeleteI used several Beta readers--some readers, some writers, and some in the same occupations as a few of my characters. I've found I've gotten something different from each of my readers. Some looked at the big picture. Some found a misspelled word that everyone else missed. Some questioned the likelihood of something happening as I wrote it. Each set of feedback was as different as the people sharing their opinions. I agree with your theory of how to react when one, two and three readers point out the same thing.
Another thing I did was print out a hard copy and do an edit on it myself. It was interesting how I could see things in the written word that I completely missed on the computer screen.
Back to your question: I think the more honest, thorough feedback we get from our critique partners and beta readers the better position we are in to look for an agent/editor/publisher. Good luck!
BTW, I did a post on this same subject on June 20th :-)
Thank you. Feedback is always a tricky thing to handle, but once you get used to it, you take it for what it is, people trying to help.
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