Recently a friend of mine had a little extra time on her hands and was looking for new things to read.
I, sheepishly at first, suggested one of my stories on Amazon. Specifically, I picked A Better Way, because it had always been a favorite of mine, it was difficult to classify and I wanted an honest take on it. It had been up and published for a while with no reviews. (That, sadly, is still the case).
It had been a while since I wrote it, too, and that gave me the chance to experience it again through fresh eyes — hers.
“You’ll have to let me know what you think,” I told her via text. “Even if it’s stupid. You won’t offend me, but I’ll ask you why.”
Because A Better Way, while being a favorite, is a bit of an odd story. Conceived and written post 9/11, it is about government overreach and how we are all, at the end of the day, beholden to the corporations that employ us and under the suspicion of the government that oversees us. The main character, Darryl Johnson, is based in name on one of my cousins, may he rest his soul. His name is the only similarity. In the story, Darryl has a rather convoluted thought process; he’s a bit of a wool-gatherer, with thoughts the circle and meander like Billy walking around his neighborhood in those old Family Circus cartoons. Good for character (I hoped) but not necessarily good for advancing the plot–and, of course, you are not supposed to waste a word in a short story.
Darryl becomes under suspicion from a shadowy branch of the government because he’s a bit of a clueless yoke and he placed one too many American flag stamps on his envelopes upside down. It gets a bit more bizarre from there. It probably doesn’t help that it was initially based on a fart joke and a ‘word of the day’ that came across one of my social media apps.
Anyway, a tough story to market.
My beta reader, in many ways, validated what I tried to do.
“We’ve all been Darryl a time or two, haven’t we?”
“I love his thought process. Funny how we’ve all thought things like that; some so off the wall you kinda catch yourself like: ‘that’ll be five seconds I never get a back.'”
And, most importantly, “OK, I wanted more. You need to add to it!”
I forget who said it, but someone once described a short story as a prelude to a novel. That’s what Darryl’s story is to me. He was so much fun to write, with an occasional universal truth sneaking out of his macaroni and cheese mind.
Beta readers can be a hit or miss proposition. Many of them, your friends in particular, are afraid of offering honest feedback because they don’t want to hurt your feelings. I say: tell them not to worry about it and then do your best to keep up your side of the bargain. If you don’t agree with the criticism, you don’t have to apply it to your work. If they tell you they think it sucks, put aside your ego and ask what doesn’t work.
You can always learn something from a fresh pair of eyes (even if it’s not to use that particular fresh set of eyes again…) and you may inadvertently validate the hard work you’ve put into your story.
Write on!
Scott Spielman 
Good to see you back in the blogosphere! You’re right: it’s really tough to find someone willing to read a work in progress who is also able to offer actionable feedback.I find that if I tell readers what specific areas need their feedback, they’re more honest: “I am trying something different with Biff’s dialogue. After you read this, what kind of a guy do you think he is? What would make that clearer for you?” And hey, I often have some free time on my hands – send me some pages sometime.