How to brief people reading a draft?

Ask them to write on the manuscript as they read it. Simple things like "What, why did she throw the chair?", "This is funny", "I don't understand this at all", "I simply love this part so much!" etc. Because you are writing for regular, first time readers in the long run and that will be valuable feedback.

My other suggestion is to get in touch with the other participants in your Intensive to see if any are in the same place as you are and would like to do an exchange with you.

Good luck!

Congrats on finishing your draft of a novel. What Mirka said seems sensible to me, though I might add that giving it to several people at once instead of one after the other may not be as helpful as, you know, giving it to one trusted, intelligent person, taking their advice, reworking the manuscript, then giving it to another person, etc. That way you won't be overloaded with input all at once.

Well, hello there. Remember me?

I think Mirka's hit this nail on the head.  If you give a draft to early readers and provide no coaching at all, you're not likely to get useful responses.  Readers who may be quite experienced as casual readers--just inexperienced in fulfilling this role--will have great first responses that they don't write down.  Then they'll start fretting after the fact about producting the sort of "critique" that will be most useful for you, and very few or maybe none of those first responses will make it into the notes they send.  Instead of just the vague, "Yeah, it was alright," you'll get the opposite thing, too... an exhaustive if amateurish attempt at playing editor and blueprinting the rewrite for you. 

You'll get comments like: "I don't think the character arc is complete for Ferdinand.  If he is your true protagonist, then he should be substantially changed by end of the second act/ start of the third (or your chapter 8).  He doesn't seem quite dynamic enough to carry the throughline of your plot.  In The Poetics, Aritstotle says that, blah, blah, blah." 

Now, that might be a great thing to hear from your editor, minus an academic exegesis into Aristotle, and especially if the other  observations are on the mark, but for early reader feedback it's abysmal.  It's much more useful if your reader simply writes: "I don't get Ferdinand."  Have her put that directly into the margin, at exactly the moment the thought occurs.  And at another moment: "Seems to drag a little here.  I'm not sure if anything important is happening in the second half of this chapter."  However casually or fomally, write an agenda for the kind of feedback you wish to receive.  Maybe it's a lighter touch to note these things in an e-mail to your reader, instead of on the manuscript itself.  But tell him or her to write on the manuscript itself, point out that the pages you've provided aren't sacred.  And show a few real examples, like those terrific ones Mirka thought up--margin notes that demonstrate a naive reader's confusion with a character's motivations, and so forth. 

Somewhere or other Max pointed out the very same things about gathering early reader feedback, but I'm not sure where it was.  Maybe in the general interview Dennis conducted with him for the Site.

Note: good point from Phil about considering how much feedback you want to wrangle with at once; however, with early readers looking at your manuscript on a casual basis, some will promise feedback and then never follow through with it.  So I'd recommend fanning your work to five at a time and expecting a true response from only two or three of them.  You can always ration yourself in how much early reader feedback you try to incorporate.

phil hit my reaction on the head. i know manuscripts go through many drafts. i would hate to have so many friends reading the same ms over and again, especially when the ms keeps improving. i would structure my feedback. 1st, it's great to have multiple friends willing and even wanting to read and comment on your ms. but the first draft shouldnt be for everyone.

ask more than one and less than several (i would stick with two) friends to read the first draft and comment on what doesnt make sense. if they missed something because you omitted a small story arc, or if a character doesnt make sense, whatever. look for plot problems, and to pay heavy attention to the opening and to the ending. nothing too much, not a line by line. that's what an editor's for down the road anyway. but that first feedback should be about a global comments overview for perspective and outrageous mistakes that are mostly inevitable in a first draft. then spend the time, rewrite a second draft. ask the next couple of friends to point out if anything blows them out of the narrative, and again how the ending and beginning were. then a third rewrite. get more professional feedback. offer a previous writing professor, or someone in your family who is well read. or what i'll more than like do: hire a writer of the local paper to read your book and give thoughts on it
those are my gut responses
best of luck
-kabol

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phil hit my reaction on the head. i know manuscripts go through many drafts. i would hate to have so many friends reading the same ms over and again, especially when the ms keeps improving. i would structure my feedback. 1st, it's great to have multiple friends willing and even wanting to read and comment on your ms. but the first draft shouldnt be for everyone.

Oh, the first draft definitely isn't for everyone.  When Max Barry uses early readers for one of his novels, it's already gone through several drafts and feels more or less complete.  He isn't engaging the early readers for each successive draft.  He's saying, Here, this feels about done to me, but taste it and see what you think.  And he's fanning it out to five or so acquaintances far and near, just like Dennis was an early reader on Company.  So he isn't tapping his nearest family and friends, and he isn't tapping the same people over and over again.  Otherwise, I think we're looking at this the same way.  The key distinction is about getting early readers not for your first draft, but only for something you're about ready to stick a fork in.

Early readers aren't early into the manuscript, they're early compared to the Barnes&Nobel customers.  So in the context of Max's novel class, we're talking about something very different from a writers group, critique circle, or ongoing workshop. We're talking about pie tasters and not fellow bakers.  The final major revision comes just after the early reader feedback.  That final major revision becomes the galleys, and it's only nip and tuck copyediting after that.

Hey, great advice folks. Thanks, I just wanted confirmation that I wasn't being a control freak in wanting to do a brief pep talk. I think I will do a small intro mainly to tell people to always read it with a pen to hand and to write whatever they feel strongly about - positive or negative - and without having to justify or greatly expand upon their initial reactions. Brief sentences; my job is to write, not theirs.

V.Puppy - of course I remember your superb organising of the course! Max didn't do too bad either (shame the vids have disappeared). I'll take up mirka's tip and ask if any others on the course fancy doing a reading swap or just a one-way read of mine. If you fancy it, just let me know.

Was this the Max Barry interview you were referring to? - http://chuckpalahniuk.net/features/essays/max-barry

Was this the Max Barry interview you were referring to?

http://chuckpalahniuk.net/features/essays/max-barry

Oh yeah, that would be the one.  The essay he wrote for the site, rather than the interview.  Thanks for helping me in my never-ending quest to not feel I've gone completely mad.

I'll have to get back to you about giving notes on a full novel manuscript when I'm a little less swamped - I've got the full workshop revamp going on right now, plus I'm cast in a play and busy with blocking rehearsals and getting the lines.  I do hope it's going well for you.  Very exctited to know that you're pursuing the work you started during our intensive.