I have a primary irl writers group, an online writers group, and interested friends reviewing my draft. The first concern would be: with som many points of view, wouldn’t I get overwhelmed by detailed critiques? Yes, however! Critiques are like product reviews. You have a look at them, gather their commonalities and adjust based on what lots of people need for the work to be better.
Even people who don’t like my genre can help! Heck, even people who didn’t like the book at all can help.
How? First, for those people who bailed on reading, ask “where in the plot did you lose interest?” Chances are they lost interest where an enthusiastic reader would: at exposition, or dialogue which held no benefit to the story, or at a stylistic darling which jarred the tone. They may bail out if the stakes aren’t clearly described, so like I always say, summarize the stakes before or at the 20% mark of the complete work.
That was for the non-genre readers. For readers already fluent in speculative fiction, what questions can you ask them?
- Does this draft remind you of any other existing work? A resemblance to existing books or media may be a good thing, in that you may not realize you wrote “Moby Dick In Space” (did not write that) and people like both Moby Dick and Space. Or it may be bad because It’s Been Done and This Ain’t Fresh. For that reason, if someone tells me one of my drafts reminds them of another work, I seriously consider abandoning the project. I am a snob and this being a snob has made my life difficult. But it forces me to come up with better ideas.
- Can you relate to the characters? Not “do you like the characters”, because like actual people, characters exist for their own benefit and on their own merits. Your friends annoy you sometimes, and That Guy can be admirable sometimes. Judge the characters on the clarity of expressiveness and motivations.
- Is The Science too easy? Whatever powers warp drives or werewolves needs to be inconvenient in proportion to the benefit.
- I aim for three sensory details per page. I forgot to check for that before I sent out the draft.
- The Clean Silhouette. Characters need to be easy to imagine. Not stereotypical, because that is LAAAAAAZZYYYY. But if you were to turn off the lights so that you could only see their outline, could you tell one character from another?
- The Gut Punch Image/Good Kill. In “The Flesh Sutra”, I had a man birth himself from the tumor in another man’a brain. In “Saints of Flesh”, I’m going after cosmic horror (which I did somewhat satisfying) and body horror (yeah, some good stuff). Both present strong images.
Do any of you have questions you ask your readers?
Yes. I ask readers if I made things too easy for my protagonist, who will obviously survive to the final chapter. Were there enough struggles & challenges for him?
That’s key to the writing experience. For me, I’ve found that if I’m wondering if I’ve been too easy on my protagonist, the answer is usually “yes”. It’s said that if you write something that surprises you, the reader will be surprised. I think it’s the same for experiences. If writing something is emotionally difficult, the reader will be drawn in by that struggle. Whenever I put something personally ugly on the paper, an editor usually will like it.