How To Organize Beta Reader Feedback: A Practical Guide
With 4/7 of my beta readers’ feedback in my hands for my novel, I’ve turned my attention to the next challenge: What do you do with all this information without going crazy?
I got feedback in different ways — some with in-line comments, some with tracked change edits, and some with a summary of their feedback (and some with all three, I am blessed). Putting all of this together into a way that can help me process the information was vital to actually start working on my last draft. So I came up with a plan!
Caveat: This is my first foray into a Draft 4 post-beta-feedback.
I approached this from a problem-solving perspective.
The Problem: Scope and Focus
I get overwhelmed by ambiguous goals and there’s a lot of actionable parts to feedback that I need to organize.
To solve this problem, I’ve got to:
- Turn the ambiguous goal into something(s) concrete (SMART objectives), and
- Organize the actual content of the feedback in a way my brain can process without going haywire.
(Aside: SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timely. Making your goals SMART helps keep you accountable and makes big goals feel doable.)
