Over the span of a year, I gave about twenty-five people
copies of Infused (either copies that I had printed at home, in a PDF, or in
an ePub file) before it was published. Out of those people, fifteen of them read it and I received a
very interesting range of feedback.
A few of the responses were not a great deal of help to me
as they were basically just, “It was good.” But I did appreciate them reading
it and liking it. I had one friend who was an English major that had started
taking notes on my grammar issues (before the final editing was done), but
started enjoying the story so much that he didn’t want to be distracted by the
note taking, so he stopped – that was a nice compliment.
It was very interesting to hear the different opinions.
Infused is not a normal hero story, I strove to make Geoff’s actions realistic,
so there was no built in way that the reader was expected to feel. If a social
outcast that felt powerless to react to the world was suddenly given immense
power, I believe that he would most likely abuse that power in some ways.
Luckily, Geoff is hopeful and really does want to do good in the world. But of
course, not everyone’s idea of what is good is the same.
Some of the test reader’s opinions turned against Geoff
early on, while some waited until later in the story, and others were still
rooting for him through the end. However, everyone loved Kevin, well, almost
everyone; one person didn’t like him.
Some of the other things that I heard was that it was “more
of a story for guys”, that there was too much sex in the book, that the writing
was very easy to read, that I should have used more elaborate wording, that the
story really makes you think, that the ending is poignant, and that the ending
is “like you got tired of writing”.
The interesting thing was that all of the criticisms that I
heard were countered by other readers. This story really is a different experience
for each person that reads it because of how they interpret it is based on their
own beliefs and values.
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