I Thank God for My Beta Readers

 

I am currently revising a middle-grade historical novel to incorporate my beta readers’ comments, and I just received the evaluations back on another one. The responses highlight how important beta readers are to the writing process.

It’s been a while since I was my readers’ age, and when I write for boys I have the further disadvantage of never having been one. So it’s extremely helpful to get feedback from members of my intended audience. Fortunately, a local school has been responsive to my request for beta readers from the third through sixth grades.

One of the questions on my evaluation form asks if the beginning of the story makes the evaluator want to keep reading. Most of the time the answer is “yes,” although the reason might be fairly vague. Each of the last two times I asked for feedback, however, I got a couple of “no”s, and I am taking them to heart.

The book I am currently revising begins in Oklahoma during the dust bowl and started with fears of losing the farm to foreclosure. One of the “no”s said it didn’t grab her attention, but the other was more explicit, stating that “it sounded like a very old boring story that grandparents would tell you.” I hadn’t thought of it that way at the time, but now I have images of the old silent films where a villain with a handlebar mustache is attempting to foreclose and ends up tying the farmer’s pretty daughter to a railroad track. Or maybe she is referring to the type of story where the grandparents walked five miles to school every day and it was uphill in both directions.

Based on those beta reader comments, I revised the first chapter so that the book now starts with a dust storm. The foreclosure subplot still exists but is less dominant, with more emphasis on the physical dangers from the dust storms.

That book has a female protagonist and, therefore, less appeal to boys, so I didn’t have any male beta readers. I did ask for them on the one I just got back, however, since it has a male protagonist and is intended to attract boys.

That story has Matthew and his family traveling to the California gold fields in 1850 using a route that takes them over the Isthmus of Panama. It begins on a farm in New York and, although Matthew is restless from the start, the first chapter is used primarily to set the scene. One of my male beta readers said the beginning did not make him want to keep reading “because it sounded boring to me, like more actionpacked themes.” I assume that he meant he wants more action packed into it, and I will try to do that when I revise the manuscript.

Not that I can accommodate every beta reader comment, however. The other boy who answered “no” to wanting to keep reading gave “it was sad” as the reason. Matthew’s mother and dog die before the story begins, and the farm constantly reminds him of them. That’s part of the reason he is restless, and I think the story will be weakened if I get rid of that motivation. Still, maybe I can tone the references down a bit.

One of my major concerns with that book is whether 14-year-old Matthew’s selfishness will turn off readers, and male readers in particular. I didn’t ask that specific question because I didn’t want to put it in their minds if it wasn’t already there, but I hoped that several of the questions I routinely ask would clue me in. One of those questions asks if the beta reader would want Matthew as a friend. The majority of comments said he seems nice, although one boy described him as “disloyal but nice.”

Two other routine questions can also help me discover the readers’ feelings about the protagonist’s selfishness. One asks if Matthew acted like a 14-year-old boy. One male beta reader said he acted too young, while the other readers classified him as “just right.” More telling is the question whether Matthew sounds like a real 14-year-old boy and asks for reasons. The beta reader who said he acted too young also said he didn’t act like a real 14-year-old boy, but the reader must not have felt Matthew was too far off the mark. As the comment put it, “He sounds 13 so not that big of a difference if he sounded a little more mature he’d make the cut.”

I’ll go through the next draft with an eye to making sure I’m not overdoing Matthew’s selfishness, but I was encouraged by the evaluations.

Beta readers provide valuable feedback that helps me improve my stories, so I literally thank God for them.

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The image at the top of this post is from the 1925 edition of Little Men by Louisa May Alcott. The illustrator was Clara Miller Burd, and the illustration is in the public domain because of its age.