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Unpopular opinion: a good beta reader says "I got bored here" instead of "maybe reword this sentence"
I finished the first draft of my middle grade novel about a kid who moves to a small town in Ohio two weeks ago, and I handed it to three people I trust. Two of them gave me line edits. Stuff like "this comma feels off" and "maybe change this word." The third one, my friend Dana from my Tuesday writing group, sent back a note that just said "page 47 is where I put it down and made a sandwich." I sat there kind of annoyed for a minute, then I read page 47 out loud and she was dead on. It was four paragraphs of my main character describing her bedroom furniture and nothing happening at all. That one boring sandwich comment did more for my draft than 30 pages of comma notes, and now I ask everyone for the moment they wanted to quit, not the sentence they'd fix. So what's the bluntest note you ever got on a rough draft, and did it sting at first or was it kind of a relief?
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harper_gibson220d ago
Something nobody talks about is how the boring note tells you where the problem is, and the comma notes just tell you the reader got to the end. When Dana said page 47, she basically handed you a map. My bluntest one came from a guy in my critique group who said he skipped from chapter 2 to chapter 9 and didn't miss anything, which stung for about a day, then turned into me cutting 40 pages.
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