Input Controversy

I like to get input from beta-readers.  Seeing how someone else reads my story is usually fun, and it provides insights as to whether or not the audience is reading something the way I intended.  I always remember that this is my story, and thus under my control(ie, readers don’t get to dictate changes), but I’m never too big a deal to recognize a potentially useful point, or to see if a trend emerges from the beta-readers.

Recently, though, I asked for input on my “Rules of Magic” for a new novel I’ve been working on.  I wanted to see what I’ve overlooked, or if the rules worked.  What I got instead was a bevy of controversy.

Since magical stories are an imbedded part of our world, everyone has an opinion about how magic should be employed(or how it shouldn’t be employed).  Some folks thought magic should be ubiquitous, varying not in the slightest for each race of creatures.  Others said that my rules were stupid because magic is magic, and so can do anything with no real limiting principle.  And as I brought up reasons why the rules were the way they were, the vociferous nature of the responses was surprising.  In fact, you’d have thought I stepped on a puppy or used ketchup on steak.  I was unprepared for the passion of those giving input.

Of course, me being me, I had to remind them that they were free to write their own story.  I wanted to gage if the rules would work, and, unfortunately, got no trends in how folks would modify the rules.  To me, a lack of trends means that folks simply have a mishmash of opinions.  Trends show me that there may be reader expectations; a smorgasbord of stuff just says that people are passionate readers.

I want to continue to ask for feedback, but perhaps I should limit it to the story rather than the boundaries around it.  Few readers get to see inside the foundations a writer lays before writing the story, and maybe there’s a reason for that.