How To Get Feedback On Your Novel That Will Actually Help

Gary Smailes | 4 February 2026

Decide What Kind of Feedback You Need (And When You Need It)

Most feedback problems aren’t people problems. They’re timing problems.

You hand a rough draft to a smart reader. You ask, “What do you think?” They circle commas, complain about a character’s tone, and suggest a different opening scene. You leave the exchange with two feelings. Gratitude and the urge to crawl under a table.

The issue is simple. You asked for “feedback” like it’s one thing. It’s three things, at least. Big-picture story feedback. Scene and prose feedback. Proofreading. Each one uses a different part of the brain. Each one belongs at a different moment in the draft.

If you match the feedback to the stage, you get notes you can use. If you don’t, you get noise.

Early draft feedback: stop polishing wet paint

Early drafts are for finding the story. The goal is not pretty pages. The goal is a book-shaped object with a working spine.

So in the early stage, you want feedback on issues like:

• Is the premise clear, and does it hold attention past the first chapter?
• Does the genre promise match what’s on the page?
• Do the main characters want something specific?
• Do stakes rise, or do scenes reset to neutral?
• Does the middle sag because nothing changes, or because the change is blurry?
• Does the ending feel earned, or does it feel like the author ran out of runway?

Notice what’s missing from that list. Line edits. Word choice. Tiny continuity errors. Spelling. Those are real issues, but they are not the first fire.

Here’s why. If a reader tells you the protagonist has no clear goal in Act Two, and you fix that, you will rewrite scenes. Whole chapters. Maybe the ending. If someone spent hours copyediting those pages, you just threw their work into the recycling bin. Nobody wins.

A quick rule from the trenches: if you suspect you might delete a chapter, do not ask anyone to fix the commas in it.

What to ask for early, in plain language

Instead of “Any thoughts?”, try questions a reader can answer without becoming your co-author.

• Where did you feel pulled in?
• Where did you feel lost, or start skimming?
• What did you think the main character wanted, scene by scene?
• What felt too easy for the character?
• What felt like it happened because the author needed it to happen?
• What do you expect the book to be about after chapter three, and were you right?

Those questions produce useful notes because they focus on reader experience and story logic, not personal taste.

Late draft feedback: now you earn the polish

Once the structure holds, scenes are in roughly the right order, and you are no longer rewriting the book every weekend, shift your feedback target.

Late-stage feedback is about execution on the page:

• Does each scene have tension, or does it drift?
• Is the viewpoint steady, or do we pop into other heads by accident?
• Does the voice stay consistent, or does it change when the plot gets busy?
• Are sentences clear on the first read?
• Do dialogue beats sound like the character, or like the author?
• Are there repeated beats, repeated explanations, repeated emotions?

This is where line-level feedback starts paying off because you are improving pages you plan to keep.

And proofreading? Grammar and typos come last. Always. Proofreading is the manicure. Do not book a manicure while you’re still building the house.

Write a feedback brief, or prepare for chaos

You want better feedback? Give better instructions.

A one-paragraph “feedback brief” does two things. It saves your reader from guessing. It saves you from drowning in comments you never requested.

Keep it short. Specific beats thorough every time.

Here’s a template you can steal:

Draft stage: Second draft, structural changes mostly done.

Genre: Adult fantasy, 110k.

What I need: Please focus on pacing in the middle (chapters 12–20) and whether Mara’s motivation feels strong enough to support her decisions. Also tell me where you felt confused about the magic rules.

What I don’t need: Grammar, spelling, word choice, or suggestions for rewriting sentences.

You will feel rude writing the “don’t need” line. You are not rude. You are saving everyone time.

If you want to be extra kind, add one sentence about format and timeline.

Google Docs comments are fine. Two weeks is perfect.

Simple. Professional. Clear.

Sort notes into buckets before you touch the manuscript

When feedback arrives, your job is not to start revising in the margins like a frantic squirrel. Your job is to sort.

Use three buckets:

1. Developmental (story-level): structure, character arc, motivation, stakes, pacing, logic gaps, missing scenes.
2. Line-level (page-level): clarity of sentences, voice consistency, rhythm, dialogue, repetition, scene tension.
3. Copyedit (surface-level): grammar, spelling, punctuation, consistency of names, timelines, small continuity.

Then address them in that order. Developmental first, because it changes the most. Line-level next, because it improves what you keep. Copyedit last, because it should be the final pass on pages you are done moving around.

A small exercise I give writers who keep getting overwhelmed: take all feedback and tag each comment with D, L, or C. Do it fast. No arguing with the note. No defending yourself. Only label.

When you’re done, you’ll see the shape of the work.

• If your notes are mostly D, you need story work, not polishing.
• If your notes are mostly L, your book is standing and now you strengthen the prose.
• If your notes are mostly C, congratulations, you’re close to the finish line and you should stop asking people to rewrite your plot.

The hidden benefit: protecting your confidence

There’s a quiet emotional reason to match feedback to draft stage.

When you’re early, line edits feel like judgment. They hit before you even know what the book is. When you’re late, developmental notes feel like someone asking you to rebuild the foundation after you’ve painted the walls.

Both scenarios make writers panic. Panic leads to bad revisions.

Right feedback at the right time keeps you steady. You get notes you can act on. You make decisions with a clear head. You move forward instead of circling the same three chapters for months.

Ask for the kind of help you need today, not the kind of help you’ll need three drafts from now. That’s how feedback starts earning its keep.

Choose the Right Feedback Sources (Critique Partners, Beta Readers, Editors)

Feedback is not a single product you pick up off a shelf. The source changes the note.

A romance reader will flag the slow-burn timing. A thriller reader will complain you spent three pages on the wallpaper. Your poet friend will underline a sentence and write “gorgeous” in the margin, then skip the part where the plot goes missing for forty pages. None of them are wrong. They’re answering different questions.

So before you hand your novel to anyone, decide what role you need filled. Think of feedback like a small team. Each person has a job. When you ask one person to do every job, you get a mess and a tired friendship.

Critique partners: the gym buddy, not the judge

A critique partner is for the long haul. You swap pages, often chapter by chapter. You talk shop. You learn each other’s habits. If you stick with it, this is the fastest way to improve your writing, because the feedback arrives while you’re still building the book.

What critique partners do best:

• Spot recurring issues in your scenes, not a one-off wobble.
• Catch logic gaps early, before they spread.
• Help you get unstuck when you’re looping on the same chapter.
• Keep you honest about deadlines, because someone else is waiting for your pages.

The catch is compatibility. You want someone who reads your genre, respects it, and knows what good looks like inside it. A partner who hates fantasy will “fix” your fantasy by removing the fantasy. A partner who doesn’t read romance will keep asking why the characters are talking about feelings instead of solving the murder.

You also want a match in commitment level. If you’re sending 5,000 words a week and they vanish for a month, you won’t build momentum. If they send ten single-spaced pages of notes and you reply with “Loved it!”, someone will resent someone.

A quick screen before you commit: swap ten pages. Then ask two questions.

1. Did their notes make you want to revise, or want to argue?
2. Did they notice what you were trying to do, even when it wasn’t working yet?

A good critique partner doesn’t try to write your book. They help you write your book with fewer wrong turns.

Beta readers: the audience, not the workshop

Beta readers are for reader experience. They are less interested in your technique and more interested in whether they stayed up too late reading. This is gold, once the draft is stable.

A beta reader answers questions like:

• Where did you get bored?
• Where did you get confused?
• Which character did you care about, and when did you stop caring?
• Did the big moments land, or did they slide by?
• Did you trust the ending?

Notice the difference from critique partners. Beta readers are not there to train you. They’re there to react. You want their honest “I didn’t get this” or “I started skimming here” because those reactions point to problems on the page.

Timing matters. If you send a messy draft to betas, you force them to do editorial work. Most will either ghost you or give you soft, vague notes because the problems feel too big to name. Do your own pass first. Fix the obvious stuff. Make sure the story is roughly the story you plan to tell. Then bring in betas.

How many? More than you think, if you want patterns.

One beta reader is an opinion. Five beta readers are data. Ten beta readers are a trend report, and trends are what you revise for.

A practical approach: aim for 5–10 beta readers, then look for overlap. If three people point to the same chapter as a slog, you have a pacing issue. If one person hates your protagonist and nine are fine, you have a taste mismatch or a single execution glitch, not a mandate to rewrite the character from scratch.

And yes, pick betas who read your genre. Always. If you write cozy mystery and your beta wants “more gore,” the note tells you about them, not your book.

Professional editors: the diagnosis and the plan

An editor is not a fancy beta reader. A good editor gives you a structured assessment and a revision path. Think of it as paying for clear sight.

There are different types, but for novels the two big ones are:

• Developmental editing: story structure, character arc, pacing, stakes, scene function, market expectations.
• Line editing: clarity, voice consistency, flow, repetition, rhythm, paragraph-level effectiveness.

When an editor is worth the money:

• You keep revising and the book keeps staying “fine” instead of turning “strong.”
• You get conflicting feedback and you can’t tell which notes matter.
• You suspect deep issues but you can’t see the source.
• You’re aiming for publication and want the manuscript to compete.

What you get from a solid editor is often relief. Not because the notes are gentle, they might not be. Relief because someone has pointed to the wall and said, “This is the crack. Here’s why it formed. Here’s how to repair it.”

One warning, said with affection: no editor can save a draft you’re not ready to revise. If you’re still in love with every scene because you wrote it at 2 a.m. in a trance, wait. Do your own revision first. You want to meet the editor halfway, with a draft you’ve already tried to solve.

A smart mix: small team, clear roles

If you want a setup that works for most novelists, use layers.

• 1–2 critique partners for ongoing skill growth and accountability.
• 5–10 beta readers for reader experience and pattern-spotting.
• An editor when your goals and budget support it, or when you need a clean diagnosis.

This mix keeps each person in their lane. It also protects your time. You’re not trying to process twenty sets of line edits on a draft that still needs a better midpoint.

Recruiting: choose readers like you choose tools

You don’t need “people who like books.” You need people who like your kind of books.

When you recruit, be specific. “Looking for beta readers for my 95k adult fantasy with a political plot and a romance subplot. Ideal readers enjoy X and Y.” Give comps if you have them. Tell them what you want back, and when.

For critique partners, look for:

• Genre familiarity
• Similar seriousness about deadlines
• A feedback style you can absorb without spiraling

For betas, look for:

• Habitual readers in your genre
• People who finish books
• People who will tell you when they’re confused, bored, or emotionally checked out

For editors, look for:

• Experience with your category and length
• A clear description of their process and deliverables
• Sample materials, testimonials, or a sample edit when offered

One last note. Your mom might be your biggest fan. She might also be a terrible beta reader. Not because she doesn’t love you. Because she does.

Pick sources who will help you see the book on the page, not the book in their head. That’s where the useful feedback lives.

Ask Better Questions to Get Usable Notes (Feedback Prompts That Work)

If you ask a reader, “So, what did you think?”, you’ll get one of three answers.

1. “I liked it!”
2. “It was good.”
3. A long, nervous paragraph where they apologise, circle the point, then land on something like, “I’m not sure, maybe the middle?”

None of those helps you revise. They’re polite. They’re human. They’re also useless.

Your job is to make feedback easy to give and hard to dodge. You do that with questions. Specific ones. The kind that point a flashlight at the page.

Here’s the secret most writers miss. Readers often feel a problem before they can name it. They know they got confused, bored, or annoyed. They do not know whether the cause was pacing, exposition, character motivation, or a missing scene goal. So stop asking them to diagnose. Ask them to report their experience.

You don’t need them to be your editor. You need them to be your witness.

The problem with “What did you think?”

It invites summary. People reply with theme, vibes, and compliments about your “writing style.” Nice, sure. Not revision fuel.

Also, vague questions nudge readers into rewriting. They’ll toss out plot fixes because they have no other way to be helpful. You’ll end up with notes like, “What if she was secretly his sister?” and now you’re staring at the ceiling at 2 a.m. wondering if your book has been wrong all along.

Better questions keep the feedback grounded in what happened on the page.

So instead of “Any thoughts?”, try “Where did you feel lost?” Instead of “Did you like the characters?”, try “What did you think the protagonist wanted in this section?”

See the difference? One invites opinion. The other produces evidence.

Give readers categories, so you get patterns

Strong prompts do two things.

• They target common failure points in novels.
• They translate reader reactions into revision clues.

Below are the categories I lean on when I want notes I can use the next morning, with coffee, and without despair.

Clarity: where did you get confused?

Confusion is the quiet book killer. Readers often won’t tell you in the moment, they simply stop trusting the story. Then they skim. Then they quit. Then they say, “It wasn’t for me,” which is polite code for “I got lost.”

Prompts to use:

• “Where did you reread a sentence or paragraph?”
• “Where did you feel unsure who was speaking or what was happening?”
• “Was there any point where you stopped and thought, ‘Wait, what?’ If yes, mark the spot.”

Ask them to mark the location. Chapter and scene, or page number, or a copied line. Confusion without a pinpoint is a ghost story.

Mini-exercise for your reader: tell them, “Highlight any sentence you had to read twice.” This feels simple, even for timid betas, and it gives you a map of where your prose or sequencing tripped them.

Engagement: where did you want to skim or stop?

This is the question writers avoid because the answer stings. Ask it anyway.

When a reader wants to skim, something is off. Often the scene lacks a goal, the conflict is soft, the stakes are unclear, or you’re delaying the part the story promised.

Prompts to use:

• “Where did you feel tempted to skim?”
• “Where did you put the book down, even briefly?”
• “Which scene felt longest?”

You’re not asking them to insult you. You’re asking them to point to the dip. Every novel has dips. Your job is to shorten them or make them earn their page space.

A useful follow-up: “When you wanted to skim, what were you hoping would happen next?” Now you’re learning reader expectation, not collecting shame.

Character: what did you think the protagonist wanted?

Most “I didn’t connect with the character” notes come down to one issue. The reader cannot track desire.

If your protagonist wants ten things at once, or wants nothing for long stretches, the story drifts. Even quiet novels need clear want, clear pressure, clear choice.

Prompts to use:

• “What did you believe the protagonist wanted in Act 1? Act 2? Act 3?”
• “When did you start rooting for the protagonist? If you didn’t, where did you stop?”
• “Which character felt most real? Which felt least clear? Point to a moment.”

Here’s why this works. If three readers describe your protagonist’s goal in three different ways, the goal is not landing on the page. If they all describe it the same way, you’re in good shape, even if one reader still doesn’t love the person.

You can also ask a blunt question, the one editors ask each other:

• “If the protagonist vanished from the story for three chapters, would anything change?”

If the honest answer is “not much,” you have an agency problem. The character is being carried by events rather than pushing against them.

Stakes and tension: did consequences feel real?

This category separates “nice writing” from “I couldn’t stop reading.”

Tension is not constant action. Tension is consequence plus uncertainty. If your scenes feel flat, the reader often senses no cost. Nothing is at risk, or the risk is abstract, or the story keeps promising consequences later.

Prompts to use:

• “Did consequences feel real and escalating?”
• “Where did you think, ‘So what if this goes wrong?’”
• “What did the protagonist stand to lose in the middle of the book?”

A strong question here is also a diagnostic tool:

• “At the midpoint, what changed for the protagonist?”

If the reader can’t answer, your middle may be a long hallway with doors but no turning point.

Payoff: did the ending solve the story problem?

Endings get blamed for a lot. Often the ending is fine. The setup was fuzzy, so the payoff feels small.

You want to know whether the reader understands what problem your story promised to solve, and whether the ending solved it in a satisfying way.

Prompts to use:

• “What did you think the main story problem was?”
• “Did the ending solve that problem? If not, what felt unresolved?”
• “Which moment in the ending hit hardest, or fell flat?”

Here’s a quick gut-check question I love:

• “If you had to describe the ending to a friend, what would you say happened?”

If they describe a different climax than the one you thought you wrote, you don’t have an ending problem. You have a focus problem.

Build a short questionnaire, and give permission for messy notes

You want structure, but you also want freedom. The sweet spot is a short questionnaire plus inline comments.

Aim for 10–15 questions. More than that and readers start speed-running, giving you thin answers to everything. Fewer than that and you miss key areas.

A simple format:

• “Please leave comments in the document where you react.”
• “Then answer these questions at the end.”

And give them permission to be imperfect:

• “Short answers are fine.”
• “If you don’t know why something isn’t working, mark the spot anyway.”

Those two lines increase honesty overnight.

Force prioritisation: top 3 strengths, top 3 problems

If you ask for “any issues,” you’ll get a list of twenty minor preferences. The cure is forced ranking.

Ask:

• “What are the top 3 strengths of this novel?”
• “What are the top 3 problems holding it back?”

This does two things. It tells you what to protect during revision, and it stops readers from burying the lead. If someone thinks your opening drags, you want that in the top three, not hidden under a note about comma splices.

One more useful twist:

• “If I fixed only one problem, which fix would improve the book most?”

Now you’re getting a revision target, not a pile of pebbles.

A sample prompt set you can copy

If you want a clean list to paste into an email or Google Doc, use this:

1. Where did you get confused or reread? Mark the spot.
2. Where did you feel tempted to skim or stop? Mark the spot.
3. What did you think the protagonist wanted in Act 1, Act 2, Act 3?
4. When did you start rooting for the protagonist, or when did you stop?
5. Which character relationship felt strongest? Which felt weakest?
6. Did the stakes feel clear in the first 30 pages? If not, what felt missing?
7. Where did tension drop? What did you want to happen instead?
8. Which scene felt most necessary? Which felt least necessary?
9. What did you think the main story problem was?
10. Did the ending solve the main story problem in a satisfying way? Why or why not?
11. What are the top 3 strengths?
12. What are the top 3 problems?

Plenty. Focused. Answerable. Hard to dodge.

Ask better questions and you’ll notice something. Readers stop trying to be nice and start being useful. They stop proposing wild rewrites and start pointing to the page. And you, lucky you, get to revise with evidence instead of vibes.

Create a Feedback System (So You Don't Drown in Opinions)

Feedback arrives the way clutter does. One harmless comment at a time, then suddenly your draft is buried under highlights, margin notes, and five different people using the word "slow" to mean five different things.

If you treat every note as equal, you'll either freeze or start "fixing" random bits. Neither helps. Your job is to turn a pile of reactions into a short list of decisions.

A feedback system does two things.

• It helps you spot patterns.
• It stops you from revising on impulse.

You don't need fancy software. You need a place where notes go to be sorted, weighed, and either used or ignored on purpose.

Not all feedback is equal, and that's fine

One reader hates first-person narration. Another reader thinks your protagonist is "too mean" because she refuses to apologise after being stabbed. Someone else wants more dragons, fewer feelings.

None of those notes are automatically wrong. They're also not automatically your problem.

Feedback has levels.

• A clear confusion point ("I didn't understand why he agreed") carries more weight than a taste note ("I don't like stories with politics").
• A repeated note from multiple readers carries more weight than a single strong opinion.
• A note tied to a moment on the page ("Chapter 7, I got lost in the timeline") carries more weight than a general mood ("The middle dragged").

Your system should make those differences obvious.

Put every note in one place, even the annoying ones

Do not revise while you read feedback. Don't. You'll start patching sentences to soothe your ego, and you'll lose the larger signal.

Instead, collect everything first. One doc. One spreadsheet. One notebook. Pick your container and commit.

If you're using a spreadsheet, keep it simple. Columns I've seen work for years:

• Reader (name or initials)
• Chapter/scene (or page range)
• Issue type (clarity, pacing, character, worldbuilding, prose, continuity)
• Severity (low, medium, high)
• Suggestion (what they proposed, if they proposed anything)
• Your decision (accept, reject, test, later)
• Optional, but useful: Note text (paste the exact comment)

Why paste the exact comment? Because your brain rewrites criticism into something louder. A note like "I was mildly confused here" becomes "Your plot makes no sense." Keep the original wording. Let the feedback stay the size it was.

If spreadsheets make you want to take up pottery, use a plain doc with headings for each category and paste comments underneath. The format matters less than the sorting.

Tagging: the fastest way to find the real problems

Most manuscripts don't have fifty unrelated issues. They have five issues showing up fifty times.

Tag each note with a type:

• Clarity: confusion, missing info, who is where, why something happened
• Pacing: slow sections, rushed sections, too much setup, scenes that feel long
• Character: motivation, likability, consistency, relationships
• Worldbuilding: rules, setting logic, stakes tied to the world
• Prose: voice, repetition, line-level awkwardness
• Continuity: timeline, contradictions, names, facts

Here's what happens when you tag. You stop panicking about the total number of comments and start seeing clusters.

Ten notes in ten chapters marked "clarity" is not ten problems. It's one bigger problem, you are not consistently orienting the reader in scene transitions. Now you have something to work on.

Conflicting advice: pattern beats passion

You will get contradictory notes. You should. Readers bring different histories and preferences to the page.

Here's how to handle the clash without turning your draft into a committee project.

1. Look for repetition.
   If five readers mention confusion in the same scene, the scene is confusing. If one reader complains and everyone else sails through, you still look at the scene, but you don't rebuild the book around it.
2. Weigh expertise, but don't worship it.
   A genre-savvy reader who knows your kind of book often gives sharper notes about expectation and pacing. A general reader often gives sharp notes about clarity and boredom. Both matter. Neither gets the final vote.
3. Separate "I want" from "I need."
   "I want more backstory" often means "I don't understand her choices." Fix the understanding. You might not add backstory at all.

Symptom vs cause: learn to translate reader language

Readers rarely hand you the cause. They hand you the symptom.

• "This part is boring."
• "I didn't connect with her."
• "The dialogue felt off."
• "I kept forgetting who was who."

Those are not insults. They're vital signs.

Your work is to translate.

Here are common symptoms and the causes I see most:

• "Boring here" often means: no clear goal in the scene, low consequence, too much explanation, conflict arrives late.
• "I'm confused" often means: missing context, unclear timeline, unclear physical staging, pronouns without anchors.
• "I don't care about the protagonist" often means: unclear desire, choices feel forced by the author, reactions don't match events.
• "This feels rushed" often means: emotional beats skipped, the decision lands without pressure, consequences are told instead of shown.
• "Too slow" often means: scenes repeat the same function, exposition is doing the heavy lifting, tension resets to zero too often.

When you log notes, add a quick "suspected cause" in your own words. One sentence. No spiralling. You are building a map.

Example:

• Reader note: "Chapter 9 dragged."
• Your translation: "Scene goal unclear, lots of travel and recap, conflict arrives on page 8."

Now you know what to test in revision.

Do a triage pass before you touch the manuscript

Once everything is logged, step away for a day if you can. Then come back and triage like a calm adult who has never loved a sentence in their life.

Start with three passes:

1. Mark duplicates.
   Highlight notes that repeat across readers. Those go to the top of your list.
2. Mark high-severity notes.
   High severity means the story stops working, not that the reader used bold text. Confusion at the climax is high severity. A "this line is wor

Communicate, Set Boundaries, and Protect Your Draft

Writers avoid “the logistics talk” because you don’t want to seem needy or difficult. So you hand over your novel with a breezy, “Any thoughts welcome!”

Then your beta reader returns a file full of rewrites in a voice that sounds like a customer service email. Your critique partner gives you three pages on why your genre is inferior. Someone else disappears for two months, then messages you at midnight with “Sorry, life got busy” and one note: “Loved it!”

None of those people are villains. You simply did not set the job.

Clear expectations do two quiet things. They raise the quality of the notes, and they keep you from resenting the person who gave them.

Start with the boring details, because they stop drama

If you ask for feedback without a timeline or a format, you are asking people to guess what you want. Readers guess wrong.

Give them three basics up front:

• Timeline: when you want notes back, and what “late” means.
• Format: where comments should live.
• Bluntness level: whether you want gentle reactions or direct problem-spotting.

Here’s language you can steal:

If you’re up for it, I’d love notes by March 15. If that’s not realistic, no worries, tell me what date works for you.

Google Docs comments work best for me.

Please be direct. I’d rather hear “I got bored in this scene” than polite silence.

Notice what’s happening there. You’re giving them a clean exit. You are also giving them a standard for honesty, so they don’t feel like they’re being cruel.

If you want kindness over bluntness, say so.

I’m early in revision and still figuring out what this book is. Please keep notes focused on confusion and pacing. Light touch on line edits.

The point is not to control them. The point is to prevent mismatched expectations.

Decide what kind of help you want, and say it out loud

Many feedback disasters come from one simple mismatch.

You wanted problem-spotting. They gave fixes.
You wanted reader reaction. They gave grammar notes.
You wanted big-picture plot. They corrected commas.

So choose, then tell them.

Two useful options:

Option A: Problem-spotting only

• “Mark where you felt confused.”
• “Flag any scene where you wanted to skim.”
• “Tell me if the ending felt earned.”

Option B: Suggestions welcome

• “If you have an idea for how to fix the issue, leave a suggestion.”
• “If you’re unsure, problem-spotting is enough.”

If you only want problem-spotting, be clear. Some readers love rewriting. They think they’re being helpful. If you don’t want rewrites, don’t hint. Say no.

Please don’t rewrite sentences. I’m trying to keep the voice consistent. If a line trips you up, tell me where and why.

That one sentence saves friendships.

Set “off-limits” areas without making it weird

Boundaries sound formal until you remember you’re asking people to comment on something personal. A novel has your taste, your fears, your sense of humour, your private obsessions with abandoned houses or doomed romances.

So protect the work, and protect yourself.

Three off-limits categories worth naming:

1. Personal comparisons
   • “This reminds me of X author, and you’re no X” is not feedback. It’s a dominance display.
   • If you’ve had readers do this, head it off.

   Please avoid comparing the book to specific authors in a way that ranks me. I’m looking for what works on the page and what doesn’t.

2. Style policing
   • Some people treat every manuscript like a school paper. They will try to scrub out your voice.
   • You are allowed to want notes on clarity without turning your prose into beige.

   Notes on clarity are welcome. Style changes only if something feels confusing or out of character.

3. Sensitive topics
   • If your book touches trauma, identity, religion, violence, or sex, people bring strong opinions.
   • You may want sensitivity notes, or you may not. Either way, decide.

   If any content feels harmful or mishandled, please flag it and tell me why. No need to debate the topic, I want to know the reader impact.

If you’re working with friends, boundaries matter more, not less. Friends tend to either sugarcoat or overstep. Both are avoidable.

Send a “how to comment” guide, short and concrete

Readers want to help, but most have never been taught how to give useful notes. Give them a little training. Keep it short enough that they read it.

Here’s a simple guide you can paste into your email or doc header:

How to comment

• Mark confusion. Tell me what you thought was happening.
• Flag pacing dips. Where did you skim, or feel tempted to stop?
• Note strong reactions too. Laughing, anger, dread, relief, surprise.
• If you dislike a character, tell me what you wanted from them.
• Focus on your experience as a reader. “I felt…” beats “You should…”

What I’m not looking for

• Line rewrites unless I ask
• Grammar cleanup
• Advice about market trends
• Notes based on “I don’t read this genre”

That last one is important. A reader who dislikes your genre will try to turn your book into a different book. If you let them, you will spend months revising toward someone else’s bookshelf.

Protect the relationship, and protect your head

When notes come back, your first urge might be to defend the draft. To explain. To argue. To send a six-paragraph text beginning with, “What I was trying to do was…”

Don’t.

Debating feedback rarely improves the book. It often trains your reader to stop being honest. Next time they’ll go soft on you, and you’ll wonder why the notes are useless.

Do this instead:

1. Thank them. One or two lines.
2. Ask one clarifying question if needed.
3. Step away.

A clarifying question sounds like:

• “When you say the middle dragged, do you mean chapters 10–14, or a specific scene?”
• “In the dinner scene, were you confused about who knew what, or about the timeline?”

A debate sounds like:

• “But she has to do that because in chapter two we established…”

See the difference? One invites precision. The other invites an argument.

If a reader gives you harsh notes, you still thank them. You do not punish honesty. You also do not keep working with someone who takes pleasure in being cruel. Critique and contempt are different animals.

One last boundary: you decide what stays in your book

Feedback is an input, not a verdict. You are not collecting votes.

So give yourself a final script, the one you say in your own head when a comment hits a sore spot.

“Interesting. I’ll log it. I’ll decide later.”

That’s how you protect your draft. Not by ignoring feedback, but by refusing to treat the first reaction as a command.

Turn Feedback Into Stronger Revisions (Without Losing Your Voice)

Feedback feels like a pile of opinions until you treat revision as what it is, a series of decisions. You are not taking orders. You are listening, sorting, choosing.

If you don't claim authority over the rewrite, two things happen. You either freeze because every comment sounds urgent, or you rewrite the book into a committee document. Smooth. Correct. Forgettable.

Your job is simpler and harder. Keep what's yours. Fix what's broken.

Revision is triage, not a makeover montage

Most writers blow up their draft in the wrong order. They fuss with sentences while the plot limps along, they polish dialogue in scenes that will later be cut, they proofread chapter one while chapter twenty still makes no sense.

So work from the top down.

1) Structural fixes first (the bones)
This is where you deal with the notes that change the shape of the book.

• The premise is unclear.
• The middle sags.
• The protagonist has no real goal.
• The ending doesn't pay off what the opening promises.
• Whole scenes are missing, or present for no reason.

Structural work is not glamorous. It's also where most books get saved.

A quick diagnostic you can run: write one sentence for each of these and see where you stumble.

• What does the protagonist want, in plain language?
• What stops them, in plain language?
• What do they do about it, in plain language?
• What changes by the end, and what did it cost?

If you cannot answer without qualifiers and footnotes, you found your next revision target.

2) Scene-level fixes next (the muscles)
Once the structure holds, go scene by scene. This is where pacing and tension live.

A functional scene usually has three parts:

• Goal: what the viewpoint character wants in the scene.
• Conflict: what blocks them, pushes back, complicates.
• Outcome: what changes because the scene happened.

If a reader says, "I got bored here," the issue often hides in one of those three. The character wants nothing, the obstacle is soft, or the outcome resets to zero so the story does not move.

Try this mini-exercise on any scene you suspect:

• Write the goal in eight words or fewer.
• Write the obstacle in eight words or fewer.
• Write the outcome in eight words or fewer.

If you can't, the reader's boredom is doing you a favour.

3) Prose polish after the story works (the skin)
Now you earn the right to fuss over lines.

This is where you look at voice consistency, clarity, rhythm, and the small frictions that make readers reread for the wrong reason. You cut repetition, tighten flab, sharpen verbs, clean up dialogue tags, and make sure your narrative distance stays steady.

4) Proofreading last (the nail clipping)
Typos matter. They also return the moment you restructure or rewrite scenes. Proofread when you are confident you are near the end, not when you are panicking.

Fix the problem, ignore the proposed solution

Readers often give you the wrong fix for the right problem.

You'll hear things like:

• "Cut the love interest."
• "Make it first person."
• "Move chapter five to the beginning."
• "Add a prologue."

Sometimes they're right. Often they're diagnosing by swinging a hammer around the room.

Your move is to translate their suggestion into the underlying problem.

Example:

• Reader suggestion: "Cut the love interest, she's annoying."
• Possible real problem: The love interest blocks the plot without adding pressure, or her motives are unclear, or she steals scenes without earning them.

You do not have to cut her. You have to solve the issue.

Another example:

• Reader suggestion: "This needs more action."
• Possible real problem: The stakes are abstract, the goal is muddy, scenes end without consequences.

Adding a chase scene won't fix that. Clarifying what the character wants and what they lose often will.

Here's the one sentence I want you to write for every major note:

The real problem is ___; I'll fix it by ___.

Force yourself to fill those blanks. No fluff. No venting. A problem and a plan.

If you can't name the real problem, park the note. You're not ready to act on it yet.

Keep a "voice bible" so you don't sand yourself off the page

Voice doesn't disappear in one big betrayal. It disappears through a thousand "better" edits.

You take a punchy line and make it polite. You replace a weird, specific word with a normal one. You smooth the rhythm until every paragraph reads like a brochure. You do it because someone circled something and wrote "awk."

A voice bible is a small document that reminds you who you are on the page, especially after you've read twenty comments and your confidence is chewing gum.

Keep it simple. One page is enough. Include:

• Tone rules: dry, intimate, formal, comic, bleak, whatever yours is. Use plain labels.
• Diction rules: what kind of words you reach for. Short and blunt, lyrical, technical, slangy, old-fashioned.
• Sentence habits: long sweeps, short punches, fragments, questions. Pick three.
• Taboos: what you avoid. Maybe you don't do fancy metaphors. Maybe you avoid italics. Maybe you don't write snark.
• Character cadences: a few sample lines of dialogue for key characters, so their voices don't drift into each other.

Here's a quick way to build one. Pull a page from your draft you love, the one you'd defend in court. Paste it into the document. Underline what makes it sound like you. That's your standard.

Now when a reader suggests a rewrite, you can ask a better question: does this change fix the problem while keeping the standard?

Don't revise while you're still bruised

Some notes sting because they are wrong. Some sting because they hit the truth.

Either way, you are not at your best right after reading them.

Do a clean pass first. Sort notes. Identify patterns. Pick your 5 to 10 revision targets. Then start working. Revision goes better when your nervous system is not running the show.

A practical guardrail: when you open the manuscript to revise, you should already know what you're trying to fix in that session. "Make chapter seven better"

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