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Richard Sutton

What Digital Apocalype? Why Print Isn't Dead...

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Jay Aitch

A query about Beta Reader requesting

  • Jay Aitch
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Thanks for all the welcoming messages! Sounds like I'll fit right in.

@Robinne Weiss Entomofiction? That sounds really interesting. Does that mean you write stories with a focus on insect like aliens? Personally, I write heavily in the science fiction category, though a few of my new novel ideas that I'm about to do outlines for draw heavily from the psychological and thriller genres. My biggest weakness right now is that I'm kind of writing blind. I've only been at it for a few years and have almost zero critiques on what I've put to paper so far...for all I know, it could all be terrible! :p

Again, thanks to all for welcoming me. I look forward to getting to know each of you in the forums!
 
Jason Byrne said:
Friend of mine saw those in Iraq. Said he's the very back-most pair of legs in this picture of two of the little nightmares fighting, but he did like to tell a good tale.
Camel-spider.jpg


He also told tell of the tiny, purple and red North-Okinawan Insanity Hornet, in jungle training. About about 903 Thai hooker stories. And... we come back around to cake.
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Those things are mean; said to have the biggest jaw:body ration in the animal kingdom. I used to catch them when I was a kid; once I had one in a jam-jar, up in my bedroom, and was poking a pencil at it to see how deeply it could score the wood with its fangs [deep enough to be worrisome, let me tell you]. Damn thing jumped out of the jar and ran across my bare chest before disappearing behind the bed. Still makes my flesh crawl.
 
Yes, but scary or not, they're actually pretty harmless. Less dangerous than your household cat. We had them in our house in Panama, and I loved the way they walked--like they were doing their absolute best to creep you out, just to see how you'd react! Ha! Gotta put those babies in a story one of these days! Them and the viudas (tailless whipscorpions). Awesome!
 
Marc Joan said:
Those things are mean; said to have the biggest jaw:body ration in the animal kingdom. I used to catch them when I was a kid; once I had one in a jam-jar, up in my bedroom, and was poking a pencil at it to see how deeply it could score the wood with its fangs [deep enough to be worrisome, let me tell you]. Damn thing jumped out of the jar and ran across my bare chest before disappearing behind the bed. Still makes my flesh crawl.
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The picture makes my skin crawl and I've never seen anything like it before.
 
Robinne Weiss said:
Yes, but scary or not, they're actually pretty harmless. Less dangerous than your household cat. We had them in our house in Panama, and I loved the way they walked--like they were doing their absolute best to creep you out, just to see how you'd react! Ha! Gotta put those babies in a story one of these days! Them and the viudas (tailless whipscorpions). Awesome!
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Depends what you mean by harmless. They won't kill you or bite off a finger, but still unpleasant to have one chewing on you.
 
Well, yes, but they're not poisonous or anything--they just want you to think they are! Mwahahaha! You know, when you've got coral snakes living on your front porch, and scorpions in your roof, and you've been nearly killed by ants that live in the dirt floor of your house, a solifugid is really nothing.
 
Chase Gamwell said:
Let's not mention the heat...it makes me so cranky that there are no seasons here. 93F in October is beyond the realm of reasonable!!!
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*sigh* yes, but unfortunately not terribly unusual. BUT last night (and like right now) it's actually been stupid awesome outside. Cool with a slight breeze. I love it. Now if only the trees would change appropriately this year instead of going from green straight to brown....
 
Nicole Wilson said:
*sigh* yes, but unfortunately not terribly unusual. BUT last night (and like right now) it's actually been stupid awesome outside. Cool with a slight breeze. I love it. Now if only the trees would change appropriately this year instead of going from green straight to brown....
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I grew up in Alabama, so cool with a slight breeze and beautiful leaves during the fall was the norm from August - November. And there were four seasons...HUZZAH!
 
Nicole Wilson said:
4 seasons? *sobs* I've been here for almost 15 years. Had I not been a travel bug, I would have forgotten what snow was. Or the actual cold. Since it almost never gets under 40 F.
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I've only been here since 2012. I came for work and have stayed since. Houston is not a terrible city, just crowded and hot. I spend most of my time inside because of it...I guess that's where all the writing came from!
 
Chase Gamwell said:
I've only been here since 2012. I came for work and have stayed since. Houston is not a terrible city, just crowded and hot. I spend most of my time inside because of it...I guess that's where all the writing came from!
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I love Houston, but the heat is ridiculous. 15 years, and I still can't deal with the heat during the summer. I also spend a good chunk of my time inside, except for my running, which unfortunately means swimming through the summer humidity. Yaaaaaaaay. Ah well. There's always a book to read or write. :)
 
Nicole Wilson said:
I love Houston, but the heat is ridiculous. 15 years, and I still can't deal with the heat during the summer. I also spend a good chunk of my time inside, except for my running, which unfortunately means swimming through the summer humidity. Yaaaaaaaay. Ah well. There's always a book to read or write. :)
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I hope that the city continues to grow on me, but I think my wife and I are destined for cooler skies at some (indeterminate) point in the future. Until then...inside and air conditioning for me!

Also, very VERY cool website. Is Deception your first novel? How long have you been working on it?
 
Chase Gamwell said:
I hope that the city continues to grow on me, but I think my wife and I are destined for cooler skies at some (indeterminate) point in the future. Until then...inside and air conditioning for me!

Also, very VERY cool website. Is Deception your first novel? How long have you been working on it?
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Hubby and I are also talking about moving in the next couple years to cooler climates. We're both travellers and I've been here 15 years, he's been here 8. We're kind of done lol.

Thank you! Deception is my first book; I finished it back in May, writing, editing, everything as finished as I could get it, and I'm currently sending it out to agents. I think it took me a total of 16 months--from inception to final edits--to finish.
 
Nicole Wilson said:
Hubby and I are also talking about moving in the next couple years to cooler climates. We're both travellers and I've been here 15 years, he's been here 8. We're kind of done lol.

Thank you! Deception is my first book; I finished it back in May, writing, editing, everything as finished as I could get it, and I'm currently sending it out to agents. I think it took me a total of 16 months--from inception to final edits--to finish.
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What was your editing process like? I know that for mine, I wrote the first two books before even going back to touch the first, then I did a first pass edit of it. I haven't had the chance to have anyone read it yet, but I've sent it to a few agents these past few weeks to feel out whether the work is ready or not. I guess we'll see when they get back to me...
 
Nicole Wilson said:
Welcome Chase! You'll find we're a pretty fun group and our threads almost never stay on topic. (thanks @Jason Byrne ;))
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Chase Gamwell said:
Good thing I passed on buying that Beamer...
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Hahaha, sorry — I had to.

My roommate in college — same guy with the camel spider and Thai hooker stories incidentally — said "it's because you're so impish and whimsical." Which basically became an excuse for anything, up to and including murder. Funny story about that (there's no story).

Chase Gamwell said:
This is the main reason why I split my story into three different parts. So far, the entire manuscript is around 233k words (and I'm not even done with the third part). The other reason is that the story had some spots that seemed like natural places to break off the story into a new book. Po-TA-To Po-TAH-To, I guess.

Either way, I started queries last week sometime. I figured since I have two whole books ready to go, I should consider getting the work out there. Never knew how complicated this whole business could be, however.

Thanks for sharing!
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Stephen Drake said:
My first book is 143K, or thereabouts. The second will be close to the same and I haven't even thought about what book 3 will be.
The Litopians are a diverse and irreverent group. Jason is always good for a laugh or two...
Just don't take us too seriously, we do like to have fun here. After all, we're all crazy...to some degree.
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You did the right thing Chase. I've queried for about seven months, round-about a hundred and fifteen or so, and any interest I've received has been tempered with, and in one case I quote "there isn't a snowball's chance in hell I will be able to sell a book this long by a debut author. Break it up, and send it again..." Three 85k-ers is a little short for fantasy, but perfectly acceptable. MontanaMan — er, Steve — sorry Steve — is right up there at the top end of a healthy length at 143.
 
Jason Byrne said:
Hahaha, sorry — I had to.

My roommate in college — same guy with the camel spider and Thai hooker stories incidentally — said "it's because you're so impish and whimsical." Which basically became an excuse for anything, up to and including murder. Funny story about that (there's no story).

You did the right thing Chase. I've queried for about seven months, round-about a hundred and fifteen or so, and any interest I've received has been tempered with, and in one case I quote "there isn't a snowball's chance in hell I will be able to sell a book this long by a debut author. Break it up, and send it again..." Three 85k-ers is a little short for fantasy, but perfectly acceptable. MontanaMan — er, Steve — sorry Steve — is right up there at the top end of a healthy length at 143.
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Yeah...I had the whole thing snowballed into a single work, but when I stepped back and looked at it, I could see that it needed to be broken up. Also, it just made more sense that way. After the first book, there is a 300 year time skip and after the second, another 500 (with a transition to a parallel world). Mashing all that together in a single MS seemed like it would be a bit jarring to the reader, so I split them all up. Biggest problem with the split, however, is that the first book leaves off at a massive cliffhanger. Because of that, I'm wondering if anyone will be willing to take the chance on it. Kind of hard to market a trilogy over a single novel, no?
 
Chase Gamwell said:
What was your editing process like? I know that for mine, I wrote the first two books before even going back to touch the first, then I did a first pass edit of it. I haven't had the chance to have anyone read it yet, but I've sent it to a few agents these past few weeks to feel out whether the work is ready or not. I guess we'll see when they get back to me...
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Right after I finished writing (and a week of space), I dove into my editing. I did one round of paper and pen edits, going back and adding sections and character development, then I inputted all those edits into my computer--which forced to me to do a second round of edits. Then I passed it to my hubby (also a writer) who edited it through, and then one more round of edits for me. I'm a member of a writers group, so I took it through there and gave it to a few beta readers. Inputted those edits and one final round of editing for me. That in itself was about 8 months of editing (since the writers group only does 10 pages a week).
 
Nicole Wilson said:
Right after I finished writing (and a week of space), I dove into my editing. I did one round of paper and pen edits, going back and adding sections and character development, then I inputted all those edits into my computer--which forced to me to do a second round of edits. Then I passed it to my hubby (also a writer) who edited it through, and then one more round of edits for me. I'm a member of a writers group, so I took it through there and gave it to a few beta readers. Inputted those edits and one final round of editing for me. That in itself was about 8 months of editing (since the writers group only does 10 pages a week).
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Wow...that's a lot of editing...not sure how that makes me feel about the 2 day first pass I did...lol
 
Nicole Wilson said:
Right after I finished writing (and a week of space), I dove into my editing. I did one round of paper and pen edits, going back and adding sections and character development, then I inputted all those edits into my computer--which forced to me to do a second round of edits. Then I passed it to my hubby (also a writer) who edited it through, and then one more round of edits for me. I'm a member of a writers group, so I took it through there and gave it to a few beta readers. Inputted those edits and one final round of editing for me. That in itself was about 8 months of editing (since the writers group only does 10 pages a week).
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Chase Gamwell said:
Wow...that's a lot of editing...not sure how that makes me feel about the 2 day first pass I did...lol
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I finished that book in about 8 weeks, and spent the next two years or so going over it again and a again, proofreading, adding sections, proofreading — random guess like 20-30 reads. Had my father do a proofread as well. Nicole can attest that there are still typos in there, that got through. That isn't completely eradicated until the professional editor passes through it. You want to get it to 99% — something you personally feel proud of.
 
Jason Byrne said:
I finished that book in about 8 weeks, and spent the next two years or so going over it again and a again, proofreading, adding sections, proofreading — random guess like 20-30 reads. Had my father do a proofread as well. Nicole can attest that there are still typos in there, that got through. That isn't completely eradicated until the professional editor passes through it. You want to get it to 99% — something you personally feel proud of.
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That makes so much sense. Personally, I feel like my first pass made the book much better. Editing it, I was able to clean up a lot of the language and make sure that my plot points agree from book to book. I'm not sure whether it's 100% or not though. A few friends who have read chapters say it's not bad, but friends are typically gentler critics than I would prefer.

After talking to a few of you here, however, I'll probably go back through and read the first book again. Once I do a second pass through, I'll probably hit part two with the editing stick for the first time.
 
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Richard Sutton

What Digital Apocalype? Why Print Isn't Dead...

  • Richard Sutton
  • Replies: 12
Jay Aitch

A query about Beta Reader requesting

  • Jay Aitch
  • Replies: 7
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