A real interesting question I found while trawling YouTube a while back. ^^ If you want to treat it as open-ended and discuss it that way, by all means, but in this poll I'm only giving two options:
- Readers INSIDE your target audience
- Readers OUTSIDE your target audience
So, my initial response (and the viewpoint of the OP) was 'inside'...but after seeing the arguments for 'outside', I can't deny that there's benefits there as well. Basically, I think feedback from both groups is vital, but for different reasons:
Your target audience will understand what you're trying to do immediately-- rather than wasting your time with a lot of basic questions about the genre/medium itself, they can just dive right into the story and focus on how well you're executing your goals. BUT...this can also be a blind spot, as they may simply adapt to the complexity of your work instead of evaluating how well it's communicated. Being able to understand dynamics based on only vague tropes, or parse intense genre jargon-- this stuff is normal in fandom culture; not so much to the average reader just looking to enjoy a story.
People outside your target audience, on the other hand, will probably have a harder time settling into the story, and may need some help to understand your world...and they may not always give feedback you actually need. But they can help you gauge your story's potential 'reach', how well it can appeal to anyone looking for entertainment, not just your specific niche. They can also help you evaluate your story's clarity, if they ask the right questions: "why is this group called a 'coven'" is a question that might not mean much, but "why is this group trying to kill the protagonist" is a question that you do not want your readers asking in the middle of the story. Someone outside your target audience is more likely to ask that question, rather than just accepting that your villains are doing their 'jobs'.
...At this point, I probably seem very biased against the 'inside'. ^^; But tbh, I think it's definitely important to get most of your feedback from those in your target audience, as that will probably make up the majority of your readership anyway.
My disdain comes from the fact that I've seen a lot of """feedback""" from people supposedly in the target audiences of certain pieces of media, which mostly amounts to making excuses for why their favorite writers and directors don't actually need to write and direct because we should all be grateful they even showed up, OR, claiming that a story is bad simply because it's not the story they imagined in their heads, regardless of whether it has any of its own merits. Basically, a lot of self-centered and parasocial projection. =/
You would think these people would know the most about the intricacies of the storytelling that their fandom is built on...but in reality, it's all just surface-level appeal to them. At a certain point, they may not even care that much about the media they claim to love, they might just be 7 years deep into an obsession with a certain character or artist or piece of worldbuilding, and deluding themselves into believing that's the same thing as appreciating a story. They can't tell the difference, so they assume there isn't one.
And so, if I were to offer my own open-ended response to the title question...I think the most important type of person to get feedback from is one who loves storytelling, and loves thinking about it and asking questions.
I would rather get feedback from a non-fan who likes to analyze characters in general, than a "fan" who judges character strength on conventional attractiveness. Conversely, I would rather get feedback from a superfan who recognizes genre-defining tropes and thinks critically about how I use them, than an "impartial expert" who thinks all tropes are garbage that don't belong in "real writing".
I'll admit, it's not easy to get feedback at all, and most creators certainly don't have the luxury to pick and choose who they get it from. But, like the title says, it's more about whose is more important, learning to figure out whose comments should go in one ear and out the other, and whose will actually help you improve your work.
