Use reader feedback to improve your writing.

1. Quotes from current reviews on Amazon.com
Beta readers, reviewers, and
editors say ...
In other words ... Kind of (self)-
editing your
manuscript needs
To get help, key
these terms into
Google
“It looks like the author started
with one idea, put down the
work for a while, and when he
came back forgot where he was
and what he had set up for the
reader.”
“There were so many minor
characters that I couldn't
remember them, one from
another.”
“Pace of story line picked up as
the book progressed however
background information was
repetitive.”
The plot doesn’t hold
together — it’s
confusing.
The plot has holes and
inconsistencies —
things don’t add up.
The story strays off on a
tangent that’s hard to
follow — it’s
frustrating.
The reader is led to
expect one thing then
gets something entirely
different — tricked or
cheated!
Too much background
information = Infodump
— and this is connected
to pace.
Big picture, or
developmental
Outlining
Plotting
Story beats
Story arc
Timeline charts
Infodump
“The characters suddenly acted
in ways that didn't jibe with the
previous actions and
descriptions.”
“It appears the author grabbed a
bunch of real-world jargon
without knowing what it means
and inserted it into his story.”
Characters aren’t
believable because their
behaviour is
inconsistent.
They seem two-dimensional.
Too many terms and
jargon are inauthentic
and don’t really belong.
Paragraph level or
stylistic
Dialogue
Characterization
Character charts
POV
“There were far too many
sentence fragments, and as an
obsessed reader, it truly puts me
out of rhythm to have to read
something poorly written
mechanically.”
“The tense and person are
inconsistent. Very distracting
and leads to awkward prose
which detracts from the story
being developed.”
The prose is choppy —
needs smoothing!
The reading process is
bumpy and unpleasant.
Frustrating!
Inconsistent tense and
point of view are
distracting and make it
hard to follow the story.
Sentence level or
copyedit
Grammar
Punctuation
Style
Tense
*Typos, etc.
Wrong word
Missing punctuation
Misspelled words are
distracting
Confused homonyms
Periods and quotation
marks are missing
Word level, or
proofread
Proofreading
Formatting
Layout