Saturday, I held the Zoom meeting and discussion for the beta readers of my most recent novel.

Beta readers for those who may not be aware are people who are willing to read a work that is complete but may, nearly always, need additional editing or writing to correct flaws that were invisible to the author.

The discussion was fruitful and represented a diverse set of opinions, some things worked for some and not for others, but there was enough commonality to give me some direction in edits, alterations, and revisions.

The most difficult element of the process is also one I consider to be the most vital; never defend the work.

As an author you will not be present when an editor, agent, or person skimming books off a shelf is reading your work. The work stands alone, and you cannot expand or explain or clarify anything. When beta readers have comments that something was missed, that it might have worked better if you had established this or explained that you cannot stop the feedback and point out where you did exactly that. Whatever it was you did it clearly did not work and defending your choices, your text, or your edits will not change that. Also, once you start defending it is very easy for the conversation to turn into attack and defend as people construct fortresses of logic for their position. At that point all valuable feedback has been lost. An author who is out to be ‘right’ about an interpretation has stopped truly listening. Defending is the antithesis of hearing.

It is hard to be defenseless. Author often are opinionated people and as such used to vigorously supporting their position but when it comes back to a reader’s feedback it is more important to remember that no honest feedback can be wrong it is what they person honestly took away from the work and if that’s not what you intended then it’s your job to diagnosis why and to fix it.