How to Request Feedback on Your Writing
Finding readers to give you feedback on your writing can be incredibly helpful, but if your questions are confusing, that can make it hard for them to provide useful feedback. Here are a few ways to help your readers help you!
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How to Improve the Questions You Ask Readers
The quality of the feedback you receive on a piece of writing depends heavily on the question you ask! Readers can't be expected to evaluate your entire story at once, or intuit exactly what type of feedback you’re looking for. Specific, focused questions will lead to clearer and more helpful responses.
But what makes your question easy for a reader to reply to? It comes down to clarity: the clearer and more focused your request is, the easier it will be for readers to give thoughtful and useful feedback.
A good question usually does these three things:
Clearly explains the type of feedback you're looking for
Gives the necessary context to your readers
Pinpoints specific sections of your story you want them to focus on
What Type of Feedback Do You Want?
There are many different ways a reader can approach feedback. You could always request general feedback, but that leaves it up to the reader to determine what they’re looking for. If you’re looking for feedback on a specific aspect of the story, tell them! The more specific you are about what you need, the more useful their response will be.
Characterization
Characters are such a major part of every story. If you’re not confident about yours, you might ask: is this line of dialogue in-character? Does this reaction to the situation make sense with my character's motivations?
Real-World Accuracy
Sometimes, it’s important to verify the facts of your story against reality. Ask your readers if the science, history, or technical detail believable?
Foreshadowing
Foreshadowing is a common and fun part of all stories! If you’re looking to improve this aspect, ask if you’re making the future plot twist too obvious, or if you’re revealing too much too soon. Or, ask them after theyve read the story what they thought of a twist, and if they saw it coming.
Sensitivity Reading
For sensitivity reading, you’ll want to try to find somebody who is a part of or involved with the community your story references. For example, a story containing LGBTQIA+ characters might seek readers from that community, who can help advise on the way it’s represented. You might ask that person: is this offensive to the group that you're a part of? Is this a respectful portrayal of your lived experience?
Grammar Edits
Grammar edits are typically most helpful when a piece of writing is finished or near completion. Grammatical edits tackle issues like typos and consistent language. If you’re requesting this, you might ask your reader: did I use the right punctuation here? Does this sentence read smoothly? Does anything feel grammatically off in this sentence?
Giving Context
If you’re just handing readers one chapter of a book, or asking them to read a small part of a series, they may be missing important context. Remember that on StoryForge, readers are not required to read your entire book before responding to a Feedback Bounty, and they shouldn't have to. If you're asking a question about something like the plot or characters, you'll need to provide context on what's happening in the story and who the relevant characters are.
If there's important plot, setting, or character information that they need to know in order to properly answer your question, explain it succinctly in the question.
Pinpointing Specific Sections of Your Story
Be clear about exactly where readers should focus their attention. If you need them to look at a specific paragraph, reference the opening words so they can find it quickly. If you'd like feedback on the entire chapter, state that explicitly.
Avoid vague requests like “What do you think?” without pointing to a specific moment. Thoughtful, valuable feedback should help you move the story forward, resolve doubts, and prepare for deeper revisions. Broad questions tend to produce broad answers, which rarely give you the clarity you need.
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If you’re looking for a space to share your story and get feedback on it, create a free account with StoryForge and publish your project there! Once you do, you can create Feedback Bounties to ask readers for their thoughts on a chapter.