(#4) Manuscript feedback – getting it and sorting through it – my thoughts

I did share (in a secure manner) my manuscript with a good variety of people and learned a series of useful tidbits. It did require separating a lot of wheat from chaff in that feedback.

When I said good variety, what I really meant was that for my YA fantasy genre title I shared it with a handful of kids from 12 through 18 yrs old. I had my 9/10 year old kids read it as well, even though they admittedly are below the target demographic age, they already read Terry Brooks’s Shannara series along with Tolkien.
I managed to con a few people who were not fantasy genre readers who were adults to read as well. To tell you the truth, I was not expecting much in those reviews, but I did get some valuable insights.
Here is my theory on the value of getting people who don’t normally read your genre to read your manuscript.
“If you have a well written and engaging story, anyone can pick up the book and enjoy the story. They can appreciate the same emotional roller coaster that makes the reading experience enjoyable.”
In fact, I tested this theory out. My wife was not much of a recreational reader at all. She’s a school teacher, but in reality she probably hasn’t read more than a handful of books for herself in the couple decades since graduating college. The few books she read were little anthologies like a book written by Paul Reiser (the comedian). Not exactly challenging on the storyline.
I had her read some past and present classics. Books outside of genres she ever read or wanted to read. Titles as varied as The Outsiders or more recently The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. She, to her own surprise, realized she was enjoying the reading experience.
So, that being said – the feedback I got from some of these patient souls was not quite kind, yet extremely valuable.
Some of the free form feedback I got along with the numeric averages (see my prior post) on a per chapter basis told me a quick story.
I had a long way to go. Some of these things were things I suspected myself, but as an author, you are often too close to the phenomenon to trust some of those opinions. You really do become blind to certain things. This is also why it is sometimes helpful to put manuscripts down for a while and look again when you are fresh.
In truth, I am typing on this blog partially to document for others my experiences in the hope it helps others, but to give myself time away from my second book’s draft. [Yes – I have two books in a series written, but no more to say on that until book 1 is put to bed in a publisher’s hands.]
So what did i learn from the feedback? First the good:

  • There was a point in the middle of the story where the averages spiked and most people really enjoyed the story.
  • From the middle through the end the enjoyment was fairly steady for my sample readers
  • Everyone loved the ending. Since the ending was an epilogue which gave hints of events in the future, many wanted to know about the next book. Admittedly – that was the intent. It’s called a hook/tease to make folks want to get the next book.

So those are all nice things. However what came back as bad?
Well, the beginning part was deemed to have the following flaws:

  • “I loved your prologue, but it took forever for something ‘cool’ to happen afterwards”
  • “It was hard for me to understand whether your characters were in a new world or not. I didn’t truly figure that out until chapter 2 or 3”

Since the above is summarized versions of the feedback, it clearly indicated my weak spots were in the front portion of my manuscript.
The author rolls his eyes as he laments his fate and complains to nobody in particular, “Great! I want someone to pick the book up and get into it, and the part that sucks is the first part he reads. Ugh!! That has to be fixed.”
Needless to say, I had a problem.
Since this blog entry is getting oversized as it is, I will post another soon that talks about what I did. Admittedly, I think getting people engaged right away is probably a REALLY important thing – and many people might have those issues when introducing a new world in the fantasy genre.
Stay tuned….
-Mike Rothman