WRITING is in many ways masochistic. You have an idea, you put it on paper, and then you sit back and let the wash of criticism and disappointment hit you full force for the rest of your life. Because trust me, no matter how much time goes by someone will still find your book, story, or article and send you a note forming you of all it’s flaws. It’s fun! And exhausting.
And sometimes it’s purposeful. Writers engage with Beta Readers differently — at different points in the writing process, and to different degrees. Personally, I use Betas very sparingly, as I am an overconfident doofus who often tells himself that if someone doesn’t like my first draft they’re just not getting it1. But when I do route my work through an objective third party or two in order to garner feedback, I know two things: One, they probably won’t love everything in the book, and two, that’s great. Because you should irritate your Beta Readers.
You’re the Worst
A big mistake some writers make when they’re routing a manuscript through Beta readers is trying to please those readers. Any criticism, anything the Betas don’t like or immediately understand is worked on, dealt with, smoothed away until they get an enthusiastic endorsement from all involved.
The problem, obviously enough, is that you’ve just pleased a very, very small audience. If your goal was to sell three copies of your book, congrats, job done. If you want to write something great, be ready to irritate your Beta readers — especially when you ignore their complaints. And if you’re doing your job as an author, you should be irritating the hell out of your Betas, because part of your job is challenging your readers.
Admittedly, this can be a difficult line to toe. At some point you irritate your readers too much and go full Season 8 of Game of Thrones and you’re lost. And not irritating them enough leaves you with the literary equivalent of Wonder Bread — inoffensive and forgettable. There’s no precise formula here, but there’s one fundamental lesson to keep in mind: Your job is not to please your Beta Readers. Your job is to use their feedback as you see fit, and that will sometimes mean ignoring it aggressively.
Of course, most of my Beta Readers these days are cats, who like to sit in front of my screen and block my work when they don’t like the direction I’m taking. The good news is, they’re cats, which means they’re irritated literally all the time. Which means by this logic my writing is amazing.