How to handle feedback on your novel

A guide based on my own experiences

Sending your novel out into the world, to friends, family, other writers, or maybe even editors and agents, can feel incredibly anxiety-inducing. This is your child, your book that you have worked on for months or years, have edited again and again, whose characters you have come to cherish.

Then the feedback trickles in: some ‘I would change this’, ‘That doesn’t make sense’, ‘???’, maybe some ‘Love this’, ‘So real’, ‘This character speaks to my soul’. While it’s easy to appreciate the positive comments, it can be devastating to be confronted with flaws in the novel, especially if it is something that more than one person pointed out.

‘They just don’t get it.’

‘That’s not what I meant.’

‘Why did they suggest this?’

Sounds familiar?

Apart from being part of a critique group, I have gone through the beta-reader process with two novels to date and know a thing or two about how to handle feedback in a way that doesn’t send me into a spiral. Hopefully, this tactic will help you as much as it helps me!

1. Take your time

Sit with the feedback for a little. A couple of days, maybe a week, maybe more, if needed. In that time, allow yourself to feel what you need to feel, to talk about it with others, and reflect on the feedback. Comments can feel deeply personal, and it’s totally normal to need some time to distance yourself from them.

Remember: your beta-readers took their time to read your story, and their comments mean they want you to succeed! Accept that. Be thankful. Be proud of that.

2. Reflect

Once you are in a place where you can read through the feedback without a big emotional reaction, consider the following questions.

- Do you see where the person is coming from?

- Did more than one person mention the same thing?

- Do you think a change will make your story better?

It might be that comments that seemed massive and plot-changing turn out to be things that can be fixed with as little as a word or a sentence.

3. Ask questions

Now, this should be an easy one, but it can be challenging to reach out to talk about the feedback you have gotten and clarify any questions you might have. But believe me, it’s worth it. If you aren’t sure what someone meant with a comment and it feels relevant, ask!

I had a one-hour call with one of my beta-readers after they gave me feedback for my current novel, and it was an enlightening conversation that brought me more ideas and motivated me to move forward.

4. Notice discrepancies

Does the feedback align with your intentions for the characters? If not, why could that be? Or maybe, do people even have completely opposing opinions, even though your intention was supposed to be clear?

For my first novel, I received the feedback that my main character’s mother is a horrible person, and the beta reader felt bad for my main character because of that. That would have been fine if my intention hadn’t been for her and her mother to have a good and loving relationship! Comments like this show you where something obvious in your head didn’t translate the same on the page

5. Questions can be a good thing

Chances are, you want your readers to have questions while reading that will be answered further down the line. If someone asks a question you have intentionally placed, good job! It’s working! But sometimes things need to be revealed earlier to stop the reader from going down a path it’s hard to come back from.

In my current WIP, the main character changes from an indoctrinated soldier to seeing what has really been going on, but the change in the first draft happened in a way that made my readers furious with her. When she does the right thing eventually, it was difficult for my readers to empathise with her and see her reasoning. So what did I do? I made her change her mind more gradually. Of course, she can still struggle to let go of beliefs she has been taught her entire life, but now she questions things quicker, and does the right thing earlier.

Unlikeable main characters can be a good thing, but only if that’s the intention in the first place!

6. You don’t have to listen to everything

Now, this isn’t me trying to say ‘Ignore your beta-reader feedback’, because that would be detrimental. What I mean is:

At the end of the day, it is your story.

Reading is subjective, and opinions differ. If there is something in the novel that’s important to you, you might want to keep it, even if some feedback says otherwise. (That being said, again, if more than one person mentions something, there might actually be an issue that needs fixing in some way.)

You get to choose what to keep and what to change; you are the author.

At the end of the day, a novel can never be ‘perfect’. Perfectionism is a myth, and every reader has a different understanding of what they like or dislike in a piece of writing. I do think, however, that you can always learn about and improve your craft, and hearing feedback from others can help immensely with that. If you sent your novel to beta readers, you did that because you were looking for feedback and therefore should be willing to work with it.

But don’t forget that you are a human being who shared something deeply personal, and you are allowed to feel all the feels.

What stage of your novel are you currently in? Have you worked with beta-reader feedback before? If yes, how did that go for you?

Let me know!