The best three words ever from a beta reader …
I completely, totally and absolutely understand that it’s hard to give others feedback. It is. It just is. Especially to writers. Who wants to say ‘your story sucks’ or ‘I loved it’ without being able to give details? And who wants to say that when the writer is in her 30s and the reader is in her teens?
Trust me. Feedback, in any form, is as valuable as gold (ok, not really, but you get my point).
In fact, just the words used to tell us that you’ve finished the story are feedback.
Case in point… First Kiss(es) has been out with what I call Beta Readers for a few weeks. I know everyone’s schedules are nuts, and I didn’t expect feedback to come quickly. (but I hoped!)
My 14 year old Beta Reader, Mckenna, is the first to respond on First Kiss(es) and while she said the story was ‘engaging’, the story smooth and made sense, she wasn’t sure how to ‘critique’ and didn’t know really what to say to me. Just those three words were enough, but what came next was even better:
From Mckenna’s Mom (via Mckenna):
Mckenna did read it right before Christmas – finished it in a day as she couldn’t stop.
She. Couldn’t. Stop. <-- the best three words of my life. 🙂