Reading Groups!
Or, I used to fear reviewers, until I discovered...
I visit reading groups. I don't even wait to be asked. I'll ask myself.
I go because they are readers; and not just readers but people who like their reading and want to talk about what they've read. It may interest them to meet the author of the book and to hear what lay behind the writing of it. It certainly interests me to hear what they have to say. And I don't want them to be polite.
Well, of course I want them to be polite. I want them to have loved the book and recommend it to all their friends. But mostly what they will want to do - even if they did love it - is tell me how they think it could have been improved. That's natural. In reading, the reader re-tells the story to themselves, using the materials the author has given them. Sometimes it'll work for that reader, and sometimes it won't. Where it doesn't, they'll want to say so.
The first trick is not to say too much myself. Readers who would normally talk volubly may go tongue-tied in the presence of the author - especially if he starts by giving a lengthy presentation and is allowed to go on and on until he dries up. It's important to get the group talking as soon as possible.
One way,
assuming some of the group haven't managed to finish the book, is to get someone
who did, (assuming there's someone who did!) to outline the plot. It takes nerve
to do that in front of the author, but so far when I've tried it it's worked.
With any luck the speaker will start to inject their personal reactions; then
others will respond and you're away.
The second thing is that a reader is never wrong. They did the reading, after all. They may have read the book differently from the way I intended. They may be irritated by things I thought clever. I've had chunks of my work read back to me in tones of mild scorn, followed by the question 'why did you write it like that?' And once one starts others will join in. About half way through a session I'll probably be thinking 'Oh my God, none of them liked it!' But all readers are different. What one doesn't like, another will. Sometimes I'm left defending myself, but at others some member of the group will come to my rescue before I've had a chance to open my mouth.
All readers are different. So too, are all reading groups - at least the ones I've come across. Young mothers, retired couples, work colleagues, groups dominated by a few powerful individuals or others that are more collegiate. Some like romance but have little time for politics, others prefer it the other way around. You don't know what you are going to get when you go in. But if the session goes well I'll be left with a buzz, and maybe they will be too. And although there'll be little than can be done to improve the novel they've dissected, I can return to the work that I'm writing at the time and think, as I sit in front of my screen - 'now, how would I interest that lot in this?'