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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

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Robinne Weiss said:
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.
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So, are they dangerous or is it just a matter of degrees (to you, they aren't because you have coral snakes, etc.)? I don't think I'd like anything like that around me.
 
Jason Byrne said:
MontanaMan — er, Steve — sorry Steve — is right up there at the top end of a healthy length at 143.
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I don't care what you call me, just don't call me Shirley or late for dinner.

 
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Chase Gamwell said:
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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I think it was @Alistair Roberts that told me beta readers should only get your book after 8 revisions. Everyone's different. Pretty sure Lee Child (author of Jack Reacher thrillers) only edits a couple times and even then, they're not substantive edits. I am a perfectionist, so that editing process I mentioned earlier works for me.
 
Nicole Wilson said:
I think it was @Alistair Roberts that told me beta readers should only get your book after 8 revisions. Everyone's different. Pretty sure Lee Child (author of Jack Reacher thrillers) only edits a couple times and even then, they're not substantive edits. I am a perfectionist, so that editing process I mentioned earlier works for me.
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I think the reason I'm so light handed with the editing process is because of how hard I tend to be on myself. I want everything to be perfect, but tend to get in my head about the whole process if I think too much. That's why writing short fiction has been so hard for me this past year. I've submitted multiple stories to multiple magazines with nothing but rejection to show for it. On one hand, the more I write the more I feel like I'm getting better, but on the other, a long string of form rejections with nothing more than "it didn't grab me" doesn't do much to stoke the fires of creativity.

Of course, it's all part of the process of growing and adapting.

Right now, I'm waiting on about 10 queries to come back from agents. I'm sincerely hoping that I get a personalized response from one or two of them that gives some indication of where my work stands.
 
Chase Gamwell said:
I think the reason I'm so light handed with the editing process is because of how hard I tend to be on myself. I want everything to be perfect, but tend to get in my head about the whole process if I think too much. That's why writing short fiction has been so hard for me this past year. I've submitted multiple stories to multiple magazines with nothing but rejection to show for it. On one hand, the more I write the more I feel like I'm getting better, but on the other, a long string of form rejections with nothing more than "it didn't grab me" doesn't do much to stoke the fires of creativity.

Of course, it's all part of the process of growing and adapting.

Right now, I'm waiting on about 10 queries to come back from agents. I'm sincerely hoping that I get a personalized response from one or two of them that gives some indication of where my work stands.
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I feel your pain. But there are some magazines which do make the effort to personalise their rejections with useful feedback. For example, I have had very valuable comments from the great people at Black Denim Lit, and it sounds like you write the kind of material which they might be interested in, so why not give them a go? But, obviously, only if a good look at the magazine suggests that your stories would fit with what they are looking for, otherwise everybody's time gets wasted.
 
Marc Joan said:
I feel your pain. But there are some magazines which do make the effort to personalise their rejections with useful feedback. For example, I have had very valuable comments from the great people at Black Denim Lit, and it sounds like you write the kind of material which they might be interested in, so why not give them a go? But, obviously, only if a good look at the magazine suggests that your stories would fit with what they are looking for, otherwise everybody's time gets wasted.
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Thanks for the suggestion, I'll definitely give the magazine a look! Science fiction is a hot topic right now and there are SO many good writers putting stories to paper. I only hope that my writing makes it to the point where it has true merit to be read by many!
 
Chase Gamwell said:
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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It will never be 100%. There will always be that one thing you'll wish you'd done, but there will be a point of "good enough." Once it's good enough, it'll go to beta-readers and get better. Then it'll go to the agent and get better, and they'll send it to an editor and it'll get better, and then it'll publish and make money.

And it is just that easy.;)
 
Jason Byrne said:
It will never be 100%. There will always be that one thing you'll wish you'd done, but there will be a point of "good enough." Once it's good enough, it'll go to beta-readers and get better. Then it'll go to the agent and get better, and they'll send it to an editor and it'll get better, and then it'll publish and make money.

And it is just that easy.;)
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Yep - I always call my works the "final draft" bc I know it's not done. Just as done as I can get it.
 
Beta readers aren't supposed to offer help with proofreading — an editor will do that better anyway — but once you have it just the way you want, they will offer an experienced eye for spotting plot holes that you missed, because you were too close to your own work. And things like pacing, theme, voice, characters... "I thought this dialogue was a little flat." "This scene doesn't further the plot in any way." "I really like this character. I hope he dies well." Things like that.

Editors and agents are your mentors; beta-readers are your peers — your contemporaries; and then you can have your neighbor, your mom, and your postman read it just to see how it will go over with the general public (just a tip — if you give it to your mom to read, you'll never hear back her, about what she thought of it. Best to pick someone else).
 
Jason Byrne said:
Beta readers aren't supposed to offer help with proofreading — an editor will do that better anyway — but once you have it just the way you want, they will offer an experienced eye for spotting plot holes that you missed, because you were too close to your own work. And things like pacing, theme, voice, characters... "I thought this dialogue was a little flat." "This scene doesn't further the plot in any way." "I really like this character. I hope he dies well." Things like that.
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That kind of insight sounds invaluable. Did that kind of stuff help with your novel?
 
Hahaha, in all seriousness, I got critique from five or six beta readers here — what we now do only in the Houses — and one editor.

I haven't integrated all that feedback into my manuscript yet — I have to finish all the beta reading I promised I would do, before I go back to my own. I'm writing book 3, and trying to get book 1 published.

I've written a couple dozen bad novels, since I started at 11, but this is the first time I've thought one of them was good enough to publish.
 
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Beta readers invaluable. My betas catch things like "you can't pull $25K out of an ATM" (oh right) and "why is the military taking so long to respond?" (Because I want them to lol) and some even offer great hand to hand combat techniques to spruce up your fight scenes (looking at you @Stephen Drake). BTW, I write thrillers so I hope that offers an explanation for why I get asked those above questions. :)
 
Nicole Wilson said:
Beta readers invaluable. My betas catch things like "you can't pull $25K out of an ATM" (oh right) and "why is the military taking so long to respond?" (Because I want them to lol) and some even offer great hand to hand combat techniques to spruce up your fight scenes (looking at you @Stephen Drake). BTW, I write thrillers so I hope that offers an explanation for why I get asked those above questions. :)
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Which brings us to our next topic — the value having beta-readers from multiple disciplines...:D
 
Chase Gamwell said:
Yeah...probably going to need a lot of those to make up for the traditional science fiction writers that will want to blow me out of an airlock...

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Must be a rude person to want that. I've read lots of sci-fi and some isn't worth the paper it was printed on (and it was a published book). I've found some that should have been publish and wasn't and the opposite. Not everyone sees things the same way (Star Trek vs Star Wars).
 
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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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