Are "non-readers" useful beta readers?
In my opinion, the best beta readers are fellow writers, partly because they may have insight others don't, but partly also because you can agree to trade beta-reading responsibilities. (This is far from a rare opinion; in fact, this special case has its own name, critique partners.) Failing that, bookworms at least know enough from experience about what they like or dislike to tell you where your WIP "doesn't feel like a real book yet".
But if you don't even know people who like consuming your chosen medium - novels, in my case - that leaves what I'll call non-readers. (This isn't meant as judgemental, because everyone has different media and genres of interest, and whatever you write there's such a thing as the "non-readers" that go with it.) And yes, I'm aware one can meet new readers and writers online, but this question concerns whether non-readers are also a valuable resource. It would be a shame if they're not, because every WIP needs several beta readers.
I've not personally had much luck meeting new potential beta readers online, or even at writing conferences, and this has turned my attention to friends or friends' friends. Among them, an interest in reading is hard to come by. I recently persuaded one to read quite a large body of my work, but I subsequently learned I had misunderstood their circumstances, and that they're not the bookworm I imagined, but instead a non-reader.
Although the feedback is in its early stages, it seems to often have unusual expectations for how novels would be structured, and the things they like or dislike and the reasons why are at odds not merely with the views of my previous beta readers, but also with what we're usually told readers look for. Of course, a non-reader may judge a medium with which they're unfamiliar by criteria more appropriate for what they normally consume.
Therefore, part of me feels I should take any critical feedback in their notes with a pinch of salt. To an extent, I could do that even if they were a bookworm; writers are sometimes advised to accept opinions two people agree on, be it themselves and one reader or two readers but not themselves. However, I worry that that takes too narrow a view of what advice to accept if one has only found a very small number of beta readers.
And another part of me feels that any excuse not to take someone's views too seriously, no matter how "logical" that excuse may be, paves the road to declaring one's writing already polished. I absolutely don't want to be close-minded; but I wonder whether non-readers' advice does more harm than good.
I'd planned on titling this question something like, "How can non-readers be useful beta readers?" I was advised this was so subjective it would likely be closed, so feel free to answer whichever question you prefer. And feel free to offer any mix of standardised advice and your personal experience. I'm sure I'm not the only person here who's tried getting feedback from non-readers, or light readers or whatever we call them. Can it work? Are there dos and don'ts, beyond what normally applies to getting feedback?
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/36683. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
2 answers
Are “non-readers” useful beta readers?
I don't think so. People that don't read, don't enjoy reading. They don't like that kind of fiction, they don't know what is good and bad, it is all bad from their POV because they aren't comfortable reading for that long, they need glasses they don't have (I know three people that don't read because it hurts their eyes, because they haven't gotten new glasses in over ten years). They don't have the time. And if they stopped reading on page 20, you don't know if this is because they reached their limit of tolerance there or the story bored them there.
The only people qualified to judge your book are people that like fiction, that have at least at some time in their lives, consumed a lot of novels.
You might as well be asking kindergarten kids for advice on a good romantic place to go on a third date. No matter how enthusiastic their advice, they don't know what they are talking about.
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Assuming that by "non-readers" you mean "people who are not fans of the genre you write", they can be useful beta-readers. Here are some points for you to consider, in no particular order.
- Being used to certain genre conventions, you might no longer notice when those conventions have some inherent logical failure. For example, being used to D&D, you might think of a fireball as dealing fire damage and then dissipating, where for somebody else it would seem logical for the fire to spread, if there's anything to burn.
- The Beta might be an expert in a field you're not sufficiently familiar with. For example, if an economist had read Harry Potter prior to publication, he might have explained to J.K. Rowling that money doesn't just lie in a bank, doing nothing until the owner comes to pick it up.
- Similar to the above point, but more deliberate: you might want a beta reader from a certain demographic, and struggle to find someone who's also a fan of your genre. Race, religion, sexual preference, etc. - you might be very familiar with the subject, but if you're not, it's preferable to run what you've written by someone who is.
- The person might surprise you and themselves by actually liking your book, despite not usually enjoying the genre. They would be able to provide you with feedback regarding what sets your story apart.
However, when offering your work to be beta-read by a person who doesn't usually enjoy this type of literature, be aware that they might not enjoy your work either, and provide you no useful feedback at all. Don't get discouraged by this. And don't force your beta to go on with something they don't enjoy. The last point is important: if a beta reader isn't enjoying your story from the outset, all their feedback is going to be coloured by this. @Amadeus is right about people who'd rather be doing something else.
A particular beta reader's feedback might prove useful, or not useful. Hear out what they have to say, consider it, but use also your own common sense - if a piece of advice strikes you as not useful, ignore it. But then, that's true of all beta readers.
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