I have a small circle of artist friends, and we were discussing this at a Brooklyn rooftop over beer (of course.) They were a group of illustrators who work in publishing, and talking about the frustrations of getting feedback from authors who didn't "get" their illustrations.
One person then brought up a point: "If you only created art for it's own sake, rather than for people," she said, "you'd be in the fine arts. And if that is what you want to do then awesome. But what we do - making art that people will use, because that's what we value - is different."
And I think that is the point here. If the goal is to make a novel that people will want to read and share and enjoy, that necessarily means foregoing your own idea of what the writing ought to be. And that is a completely okay motivation to create art!
I liken the idea of alpha readers to the popular tech concept of failing fast. Why not fail early in front of a smaller audience (with a chance to pivot and improve) than wait to fail late and run out of runway (or motivation).
In my case, I thought I had told a different story than the alphas perceived, so, in truth, I hadn't told the story I set out to. Making changes was a natural part of the process to correct issues "lost in translation" as it were.
PS: rooftop conversations sound awesome, by the way.
One person then brought up a point: "If you only created art for it's own sake, rather than for people," she said, "you'd be in the fine arts. And if that is what you want to do then awesome. But what we do - making art that people will use, because that's what we value - is different."
And I think that is the point here. If the goal is to make a novel that people will want to read and share and enjoy, that necessarily means foregoing your own idea of what the writing ought to be. And that is a completely okay motivation to create art!