4/6 of my beta readers could not get through my manuscript
This has never happened before. I've had people loving my work, I've had people hating it, but I can't recall ever inspiring so much indifference. Not to mention vague and contradictory feedback. What the comments seem to be boiling down to is "Your writing is gorgeous, lyrical, and engaging...but for some reason we still don't want to read it."
I'm absolutely certain the story itself has merit. My QL got a positive response in Hell, based on writing and premise. My prose is good. And yet it seems to be the prose that's bogging people down, or alienating them, or something. Nobody can seem to put their finger on why.
One person said she got about 62 pages in, and gave up because she still didn't care about the MC or her quest.
I have actually never been discouraged by feedback before. I've always had a thick skin, and I've gone unfazed by far more cutting responses than this. But for some reason I feel completely humiliated right now for even putting this manuscript out there. Worse, I don't know how to fix it because I don't even understand what's wrong with it.
Dejected, indeed...
This has never happened before. I've had people loving my work, I've had people hating it, but I can't recall ever inspiring so much indifference. Not to mention vague and contradictory feedback. What the comments seem to be boiling down to is "Your writing is gorgeous, lyrical, and engaging...but for some reason we still don't want to read it."
I'm absolutely certain the story itself has merit. My QL got a positive response in Hell, based on writing and premise. My prose is good. And yet it seems to be the prose that's bogging people down, or alienating them, or something. Nobody can seem to put their finger on why.
One person said she got about 62 pages in, and gave up because she still didn't care about the MC or her quest.
I have actually never been discouraged by feedback before. I've always had a thick skin, and I've gone unfazed by far more cutting responses than this. But for some reason I feel completely humiliated right now for even putting this manuscript out there. Worse, I don't know how to fix it because I don't even understand what's wrong with it.
Dejected, indeed...