Beta readers may do a lot of things for authors, but aside from pointing out confusion in a manuscript and revealing aspects that are lacking in the story, the most important task they perform is to bolster the writer’s self-confidence. 
  
If you’re not using beta readers as part of your writing process, the reasons you should are many. I can’t imagine surviving the road to publication without them. But before I get to that, let’s talk a little bit about these people and where they fit in the editorial process. 
 
At their most basic, beta readers are the first responders to your manuscript. After you’ve toiled over your novel-in-progress for weeks or months or years, and you’ve deemed it ready for another reader’s eyes, betas step up to the plate. 
  
Anyone who likes to read and vows to be gently honest—emphasis on gently—about how they feel about your work will do: friend, relative, complete stranger. Writers in general make better betas than nonwriters do because they usually have a greater level of understanding of story structure. The more detailed a beta reader can be when giving feedback, the better.  

I have beta readers who provide very few in-line notes and instead respond to the book as a whole in an overview, and I have other betas who give me notes all the way through the manuscript. There is value in both methods, though I feel it’s imperative to obtain at least one detailed reading with many in-line notes. In my “pool” of beta readers (I use at least six per book), I make sure I have two who will provide comprehensive feedback.  

The best betas are amateur developmental editors in that they concentrate their suggestions on the larger parts of the story: the content and characters, and not the commas. They comment on plot, pacing, characterization, and setting, letting you know where you’ve gone astray. They tell you where a scene falls flat and where they’re confused.  

Why are they crucial to your process? 

As writers, we all do things in our writing that we think are just fine but that don’t, for whatever reason, work for readers. If no one points out these blunders for us, they remain in the story, potentially rubbing readers the wrong way. These may be small issues or large ones. 
  
The problem with self-editing is that our brain glides right over most of what we’ve written because it understands what we’ve meant to say (even if what we mean to say doesn’t exactly appear on the page). 
 
Our mind can visualize our characters and what they’re doing, so it may not think to raise an alarm and shout, “Hey, this isn’t working,” or “Maybe this isn’t a good idea.”  

The beta reader can guide our focus to these problem areas so that we can fix them before we spend a lot of money on a developmental editor (the next step in the editorial process), who will help fine-tune the deeper, harder-to-grasp issues that may linger below the surface—those a beta reader doesn’t likely have the skills to pick up.  

Beta readers clear away the lower-hanging fruit so the pro can more easily reach, and comment on, a deeper level.  

How do betas create self-confidence? 

If you ask your beta readers to, they will also tell you when you’ve impressed them with your storytelling or wordsmithing—and who doesn’t love that? The brain is equally oblivious to the “good” that we’ve done as it is to the bad.  

Pointing out the impressive parts of our novel—the lines that sing, the twists that blow them away, the delightful quirks you’ve given your character and how they bring those characters to life—may actually be the betas’ most valuable role. No one will comment more precisely on your book than those you enlist in the beta-reading task. In other words, it’s likely that you’ll never hear more from readers than you will during this phase.  
 
It’s gratifying to learn that what we’ve written moved a beta reader emotionally or made them stop and highlight our painterly turn of phrase. Of course, we want to know all that’s missing or wrong with our story—we rely on others to point out our missteps—but our beta readers’ happy or intrigued or thrilled notes build us up and remind us that we’ve made a lot of solid choices in our story in addition to making a few mistakes.  

Seeing what we’ve done right reminds us that we are good writers. That we have what it takes to impress a reader with our skills. That plenty of the scenes we wrote do work, and that the climax is both brutal and amazing.  
  
Betas are the first to let us know they’ve understood our jokes and humorous circumstances (which either made them LOL or grimace), our tragic love stories (which either made them cringe or cry), and our tender moments of reflection (which hit the nail on the head or missed the mark). 
  
The comments and compliments they provide are the gold that keeps us going through each manuscript revision, through every edit, through countless rounds of proofreading and fixes. Yes, we’ve made mistakes, and the manuscript has its weaknesses that we aim to work out, but the writing is worthy, moving, has potential. There is strong work here, and because you’re in the beta-reading phase there’s time to transform what needs help into something wonderful (or at least better).  

Your betas have reassured you of that.  

Down the road, when a reviewer leaves a few words about how disappointed they were with the story (every book gets a few of these), when they sum up your hard work with a couple of thoughtlessly scrawled phrases, they probably won’t add, “But, wow, this metaphor she wrote made my head spin in the best of ways!” There won’t be any specifics at all. The wonderful details that make up your book will not enter their critique.  

But thanks to the gold your beta readers gave you, you can remind yourself that you know your work is of value. Even if it didn’t resonate with this particular reader, it did resonate with others.  

No one can take that from you. Whenever you need it, it will be there, bolstering you up, protecting you from the damage those inevitable harsh words that come flying out of the blue can do to a writer. 

When you send your manuscript to your beta pool, give them a short list of tasks to keep in mind.  

1. Focus on the content: the story, not the commas.
2. Point out any confusion.
3. Make a note in any place that moves too slowly or any detail that seems wrong or off.
4. Feel free to mention anything you particularly like! 

With their “here’s what works, here’s what doesn’t” critique, betas are on your side. Think of them as the light—and the confidence—that shines a way to a better novel than the one you’ve written all by yourself.  

Where can I find beta readers? 

The best way to find a good beta reader is old-fashioned word of mouth. Aside from that, you can reach out and take your chances. All feedback that you receive has the potential to be valuable. It also has the potential to be damaging. If the comments are harsh or overwhelming, feel free to set them aside. What you want is helpful, constructive criticism that makes sense to you. If it doesn’t resonate, do not feel obligated to follow through.  

The post Beyond Feedback: Beta Readers Give Us Gold appeared first on Writer's Digest.

(Creating Space to Ponder Your Bliss and Relying on Your Inner Compass to Guide Your Writing)

Like most things worth doing, there is a kind of naïveté when you first begin about how easy and blissful the journey will be. And then, when you actually get into learning how to do anything new, there are mostly big challenges to meet and obstacles to overcome. The capacity to persevere, at least for me, is only accessible if the inner urge is strong enough to overcome all the reasons to stop before the journey is complete.

Is it helpful to know a few things up front before you begin, which might prepare you for the journey ahead? Perhaps. And perhaps not. I say perhaps not because every person’s journey will be unique, as well as the challenges and obstacles to overcome. However, in case my own experience may assist others in at least being prepared for what may lie along your road, here are a few things I would share.

It Takes a Village

One of the big paradoxes of writing that I had to become very comfortable with was the image of writing as a solo experience. Oddly, it is both an incredibly private and solo undertaking, and it requires deeply embracing the fact that you are ultimately not writing for yourself—you are writing for others. Although what you may have to share has personal roots and inspiration, the impact and meaning-making of others who will read the book also matters.

Once the manuscript is well on its way, there will be obvious village members like copyeditors, proofreaders, and book cover designers. There will be various challenges with these aspects of your “support team” for sure. However, the more daunting challenges come much earlier in the process when you are trying to land a workable structure and coherent organizing flow of stories and material. Having the courage to share drafts and chapters with people you can trust to give you clear and creative reactions is no small thing.

I shared the first draft of my book with my father, a well-known and successful writer, as well as a good friend. Both of them read the draft with meticulous care—all 290 pages. And they wrote very thoughtful reactions being sure to praise the many aspects of the draft that had merit and also essentially to say to me, “Nice try. You can do better!” In the words of my father, “The main problem I see is the fact that I count 72 key concepts. That is too many.”

IndieBound | Bookshop | Amazon
[WD uses affiliate links.]

They were the first of many people who gave me reactions along the way. And every time I got reactions with creative suggestions for improving the manuscript, I had to go through a very real and specific cycle of “fuming!” It was pretty predictable: first anger and indignation, then denial, then a long list of reasons why they were wrong and the manuscript was close to perfect, then some long walk in the woods and finally sitting back down at my desk and taking a deep, honest look at what I had written.

In all the drafts and thinking about all the feedback I received—and some feedback so close to the print deadline I thought I would implode—the number of things I left as they were written I could count on one hand.

What I realized was that it truly takes a village to get out a good book. The final product is the result of many people offering their time, love, and careful attention, as well as their willingness to share their personal experiences directly. Writing has a very real element of “reciprocity”—a dance between my creative way of putting thoughts, feelings, stories, and ideas down on paper and then being willing to let them be changed and revised even as they are being captured. This dance required me to shift the stories I was holding inside myself constantly.

Be Prepared to Change Your Inner Story

The main story I needed to shift was the one that says, “If I am really in the flow and know what I am writing about, the words will come onto the page perfectly the very first time I write them.” Now, this may be true for some writers—and if it is, more power to them. In my case, it was not true, and I had to come to terms with the idea that much of the writing experience is rewriting, revising, and being willing to totally let go of material that doesn’t work or fit. Although it can seem like such a simple concept to embrace, in my case, I had a more emotional attachment to the story of “out it flows perfectly” than I knew.

The more I let go of this one story, the deeper I had to go in embracing the fact that writing, like any skill, is something you learn how to do. Like any skill, it takes time, dedication, and commitment to learn how to write well. Story number two: I would simply be a good writer immediately. I would not have to learn how to do it. I would not have to meet and be honest about the levels of my incompetence as I practiced the craft.

Anytime you take up a new activity, you will always have to face the challenges of being a beginner. And it seems the older we get, perhaps the harder it is to take up something totally new and deal with the emotions that arise when you notice you are not as good at that activity as you might have imagined. Relaxing with this truth is the first step. In my case, the second step had to do with—once again—reaching out to those who have more experience and learning from their wisdom. I hired a “book coach,” a dedicated person who would help me work through chapters and stuck places and contextual leaps, which made sense to me but were too giant for someone else.

My book coach was exceptional. And just like my experience of getting input on the full manuscript drafts, most all of the feedback from my coach required me to go through my mini-cycle of “fuming.” And with practice, my fuming cycles also got shorter and, therefore, more efficient too.

Holding the Thread of Your Own Voice

Although the support team is vital to producing a book of quality and substance, having deep confidence in your own voice and the importance of what you are trying to convey is paramount. Keeping ahold of the authenticity of voice while receiving and being able to pivot with the writing can be as challenging as it is to embrace the feedback. A kind of steadfast appreciation for yourself in the midst of being willing to let go and make changes is the dance. I suspect if one is meant to be a writer and does it as their primary livelihood, perhaps it gets easier to know and hear your voice. I would be curious to know. For those of us first-time writers, I think it is harder to find this balance. A part of the balance seems to be about timing.

Listening for when it is time to share and when the process is too delicate and nascent is important. There are times to “let it flow” and not have anyone else’s voice in your head or heart. And then there are times to “let it go,” taking in others’ suggestions and getting rid of or heavily trimming ideas or content which simply doesn’t work. All of this kind of bookwork requires emotional resilience. The ability to feel the emotions and yet not have your feelings, whatever they may be, cloud your ability to see your writing with clarity.

With this kind of emotional resilience, it gets easier to receive input and make changes such that your voice comes more to life rather than less. And then, when you come to a place where you truly love what is written and don’t want to change it in any way, it will be because there is no better way to describe something, not because you are stubborn or egotistical.

Having a sense of reciprocity with those helping make the book as accessible and valuable as possible is not for the “faint of heart.” It requires a lot of guts and courage and the willingness to persevere even when you might feel discouraged or disheartened.

If You Do Not Seem to Have a Choice, Go For It

Luckily, the book I ended up completing just would not let itself be shelved. For some reason, it kept demanding I keep going, not give up, and find a way through. The book is out in print, much to my amazement. As I said at the start of this article, if I somehow could have been stopped, I would have been. But this little book seemed to have a life of its own and a real desire to see the light of day, so onward ho I went. And the finished product did, indeed, take a village to come to completion. One thing I would offer as you contemplate this journey is to remember this truth and learn how to lean into it and embrace it rather than lean out and run away.

Click to continue.

The post How Opening Ourselves to Other People Can Make Us Better Writers appeared first on Writer's Digest.

“Your writing voice is the deepest possible reflection of who you are. The job of your voice is not to seduce or flatter or make well-shaped sentences. In your voice, your readers should be able to hear the contents of your mind, your heart, your soul.” —Meg Rosoff, author

The writer was young, she had ideas; she wrote her required essay in a burst of enthusiasm, convinced it not only exemplified her voice but revealed the crux of her soul. She’d spent hours, days, weeks on it; dug deep, pushed hard, got feedback from trusted friends, parents, a favorite aunt who’d published several books. She polished and shined and edited and tweaked, and when she finally handed it in, excited to get her beloved teacher’s feedback and a hoped for “A,” she felt as if she’d just delivered the finest piece of writing she’d managed so far in her young life.

It came back with his scrawled note: “Where are you in this? Good ideas but the execution isn’t there. You sound like you’re trying to sound like someone else, and I know you can do better. You’re a good writer, but this is lazy. See what else you can come up with, and run it by me again.”

She couldn’t even remember the grade—it might have been a C+. All that stuck was the gut punch of having so badly miscalculated her abilities.

Or had she?

She came to me with the essay, and when I saw the teacher’s note, along with his scribbled red marks throughout, I grumbled to myself: “This is why I hate writing classes.”

Now, to be fair to writing classes and writing teachers, I’m know there are many good ones. Classes in which teachers are not literary demagogues indoctrinating students in the “my way/highway” school of thought. Teachers who nurture a writer’s voice, no matter what age, rather than inject their own. Teachers who don’t tell a student how they (the teacher) would write it, but help the student write it as they (the student) sees fit. Teachers who know how to critique without killing a person’s soul.

I’m sure there are many of those. Just not enough.

What bothered me about this girl’s experience was that there seemed so little about her voice that her teacher acknowledged: her originality, her tone, her unique twist of phrase and spin of sentence. Yes, it needed editing; I might have made different choices with some of the verbiage, surely the included dialogue had some clunky bits. But it also screamed of originality and literary irreverence, taking chances on ideas and expressions that made it refreshingly … fresh.

Since it was intended as her college essay, I offered her some minor notes and encouraged her to send it in largely as it was. She got into the college of her choice (not sure how much the essay contributed) and will, hopefully, continue to define and trust her voice in whatever mediums it speaks. Hopefully, too, she will learn the fine and precarious art of sorting out when, how, and from whom to take creative critique and guidance.

That’s a tough thing, that assignment. Particularly when you’re learning, when you’re a new writer still sorting out what your voice is. Certainly when you’re paying people to teach you the art and craft of writing. Because, as we all know, everyone has an opinion, sometimes very different opinions; sometimes even conflicting opinions, all of which can leave your head in a swirling eddy of confusion.

But here’s the thing: anyone trained in basic knowledge can teach you technique, grammar, and punctuation; the pros and cons of passive voice, who the omniscient narrator is, and why first-person tense can be tricky. You can subscribe to wizened rules that insist you “write every day” (you don’t have to), “don’t watch TV” (nonsense, Stephen King), or “sit and stare at the blank page until something strikes you” (go out and walk instead). You can imitate someone else’s style until you find your own, you can give your work to every single person who ever showed interest in what you had to say, and listen to, and attempt to implement, every single thing they offer in terms of critique and advise and feedback and … phew!

You can do all that. But no one, no one, can teach you voice. Can teach you talent. Can teach you style. Can make you an original, unique writer. That’s all you. All yours. Seek it, experiment with it, find it, then hold it dear.

“Holding it dear” is the challenging part, because writers will always get feedback that suggests we change what we wrote. Always. Make the protagonist more likable. Leave out the religious stuff. Change her profession. Lighten the tone. Give the father a girlfriend. Darken the tone. Set it in Vietnam instead of the American South. You know the drill.

And we are trained, early on, to graciously listen to that criticism, that feedback, appraisal, and commentary from our elders, teachers, mentors, even sometimes our creative peers. We are instructed to not be defensive, proprietary, obstinate, and intractable. We know we are wise to learn what we can from them, to glean from them every speck of wisdom and insight. In fact, we’d be foolish to squander those resources in lieu of ego, defensiveness, and amateurishly thin skin. All of that is true.

But, still. There is a point when the original, unique voice of an artist gets to assert itself and reject the opinions, advice, and feedback of others. When?

I don’t know. It’s unique to every experience. To every person. To every project. It’s a gut thing. You know it when you feel it. In my case?

Order The Alchemy of Noise today.

Bookshop | Amazon
[WD uses affiliate links.]

Example 1

As a young songwriter, I walked away from a music publishing deal with a very big company because the guy offering it (the head guy, mind you) had, in my one-on-one meeting with him in his office, laughed at my lyrically-oriented songs, saying, “Great voice, but see, we don’t need all those words. No one listens to words. What I need is more stuff like, ‘Pour a Little Sugar On Me.’ Do you think you can do that, sweetheart?” I didn’t. Was it stupid of me to walk away, sweat pouring down my back and stomach tied in knots, feeling as if I’d just saved my children from imminent death? Probably. But I couldn’t see how signing a deal to speak in someone else’s voice made any sense at all. I still don’t.

Example 2

I hired a well-respected literary consultant (who’d been an agent) to read and consult on my first novel. It had, by this point, been arduously content-edited by two brilliant editors, been through a team of advanced readers and was copyedited, proofed, formatted, designed, and ready to go. And she hated it. She didn’t like the female protagonist or the secondary characters; she didn’t like the plot, the voice, the heart and soul of the book. She basically suggested a page-one rewrite. After pulling my head out of the pit into which it fell after reading her notes, I thought long and hard about what she had to say. I sat and re-read the book. I cried some, ate potato chips in ridiculous amounts, and I came to realize this: I didn’t agree with her. I was terrified to reject the advice of someone with such literary gravitas, but I felt, in my gut, that we were simply two very different people with two very different, subjective perspectives, and while I honored hers, my own was wildly disparate and undoubtedly my priority. And, unlike the denouement with the music publishing company, this one turned in my favor: I stuck to my guns, the book went on to win several awards, garner amazing reviews, and is even being used as a teaching tool in a European writers’ school. And the odds are good that the literary consultant still wouldn’t like it.

The message I want to spread from these two examples is to trust your gut. This can be an intimidating thing to sort out: knowing when to trust your gut and when to shut up and just take the notes. So, when you get a critique that sizzles the first several layers of your skin, do this:

First, scream. Then put the work down, sit for a minute and percolate. Simmer. Do a power walk with Adele blasting in your ears. Don’t think about it at all. Then think about it a lot. Mull it. Reach back to when you first got inspired to write this thing, what energy and creative frisson got your fingers tingling, demanding that you “put it all down.” Remember what you felt compelled to say, who your characters were as they sprang into your head and how their thoughts, words, and actions led you and pulled you in the direction the story evolved. Once you’ve reassembled all that and it’s fresh in your mind, decide how far you’re willing to tailor your voice to suit someone else’s perspective. Sometimes it’s a ways; sometimes, as in my case, it’s not far at all.

I had a mentor once tell me (and I’m paraphrasing, albeit, I think, quite brilliantly): “You can give your work to 10 people, and you’ll get 10 opinions. More people? More opinions. In fact, you can gather opinions until the day you’re so weighted down by the voices of others you lose your own, and then you put your work down, enervated and confused, and sometimes don’t pick it back up again. Bad idea.”

His alternative? He suggested I identify five people I trusted whose expertise and creative sensibilities most closely aligned with my own, whose editorial ideas most frequently impelled my enthusiasm to get back in and make changes; whose voices seemed to ring in harmony with mine, and trust those people to read and give me feedback. He didn’t believe in beta readers, online community input from strangers, or open group critique. He felt those things diluted the singular voice of the writer, and often reduced a truly original work to a collaborative patchwork of disparate ideas.

Is he right? Many would say he isn’t, that there is much to gain from the diverse opinions of a wide range of readers. Me?

I have my five people (it sometimes goes up to eight)—all skilled writers, editors, or directors whom I trust implicitly and whose creative and editorial contributions to my work have been both brilliant and invaluable. I don’t use beta readers, I don’t widely disseminate “early pages,” and I don’t open my work up to community contribution. It’s a choice; I realize this. I know others who implementthose tools and swear by them. But my personal journey has led me where I am, and it has encompassed a deep commitment to learning my craft, honing it over years in a wide variety of mediums, adapting and expanding along with growing trends and platforms, and evolving to a state of absolute trust and faith in my own voice.

It’s a heady place to be.

Anyone who gets there will feel a certain freedom that allows you to generously welcome the feedback of others with utter confidence that you’ll know what you can use and what you can’t. You’ll know what resonates and what doesn’t. You won’t doubt yourself. You won’t quibble. You’ll revel in good critique to help make your work the best it can be, but you’ll always know where the line sits for you. That comes from experience, and trust … in yourself.

Click to continue. 

The post In the Chorus That Surrounds Every Writer, Listen to the Voice That’s Your Own appeared first on Writer's Digest.

To make matters worse, my critique group accepted only 20 pages every two weeks (math again). I had to switch to using beta readers, which was scarier. It seemed like the difference between a few papercuts every few weeks to an ice pick in the jugular. But thanks to my ill-advised optimism, I had no choice.

Below is my definitive, quintessential guide to selecting beta readers. Let’s get right to it, shall we?

A beta reader should be…

• a reader in regular life, preferably in your genre. The reader should know the genre tropes and conventions.
• someone whose judgement you trust in general. Does this person date jerks? Answer emails from Nigerian princes? That’s a no.
• scrupulously honest. Does this person point out when you’ve got kale between your teeth? Disagree with prevailing popular opinions? Tell the truth even when it hurts him/her? Winner.

A beta reader should not be…

• one of your usual critique partners. If you’re in a regular critique group and this person has already seen one or more iterations of part or all of your manuscript, run in the other direction. That’s because this person already knows what you’re trying to do and is now blind to what works and what doesn’t.
• your mom, or any other person who “just wants you to be happy.” I don’t really need to explain this one, do I?
• a writer, if possible. Whatever the opposite of rose-colored glasses is, that’s what we wear, and we’re no good as betas. We tend to read books while muttering, “If I was writing this novel, I would…”

To cull the weeds, here are some refining questions to ask:

• Do you find flaws in published books regularly?
• Can you be brutally honest with me?
• Do you have enough time to go over the manuscript thoroughly?
• Would you be willing to read the book again after editing?

Beta reading is an arduous, time-consuming task, so be willing to offer incentives, with the express caveat that this is not a bribe to be told how brilliant you are. In fact, it’s the opposite. You’re bribing them to kick your ass. Here are some ideas.

• A signed copy of your published book
• A mention in the acknowledgements section of your published book
• Swag related to the book
• A gift card

Clarify your expectations and needs. Below is my list of instructions:

1. You’ll receive a Word document of my manuscript. All correspondence will be conducted via email.
2. You’ll have four weeks to read and comment on the manuscript.
3. Ignore bad punctuation, misspellings, missing words, or other errors. A copy editor will take care of those items. I’m interested in high-level comments only: plot points, characters, events, quirks, causes that DON’T BELONG. If anything feels false or out of place, make a note of it.
4. Use the Comment feature in Word’s Review mode and mark specific problematic areas and offer any clarifying commentary.
5. When you’re finished, please save the document with your name attached to the title, i.e., BOOKTITLE LS HAWKER EDIT.doc.

Let them know what to be on the lookout for. Below is a list, but you probably have your own of issues you routinely struggle with. Include them here.

Order LS Hawker’s The Throwaways today.

Bookshop | Amazon
[WD uses affiliate links.]

Questions to ask beta readers:

1. Were you clear on where and when the book was taking place?
2. Where in the story did you first feel a pull to keep turning pages (if any)?
3. Was there a point or points in the manuscript where you felt it was easy to lay the book aside?
4. Were there any scenes you didn’t feel grounded in, not sure where you were?
5. Did you notice any POV shifts within a scene?
6. Did you find the main character sympathetic? Did you relate to him/her? Were you ever confused by his/her motivations?
7. Was there enough scene-setting?
8. Too much/not enough description of people, places, and things?
9. At which points did you feel like you had to go back a few pages to understand what was going on?
10. Did you notice any discrepancies in character details, settings, time, sequencing, etc.?
11. Were any characters superfluous, unnecessary? Was it difficult to keep characters straight?
12. Was the dialogue stilted or unnatural? Enough dialogue? Too much?
13. Any plot points too convenient or coincidental?
14. Were there any scenes that were lacking in tension or interest?
15. Were there any genre tropes/conventions that were missing or incomplete? Any elements that seemed incongruous to the genre?
16. Was the plot wrapped up to your satisfaction? Were there any lingering, nagging questions at the end that should have been resolved?

With your beta readers’ brutal, thorough help, you can achieve writing goals faster and more efficiently. Just watch out for the ice picks.

Click to continue.

The post The Quintessential Guide to Selecting and Working With Beta Readers appeared first on Writer's Digest.

(The 7 Deadly Sins of Editors According to Novelists.)

Reading them I became lost, unsure which direction to take. My solution was to employ their suggestions only on the rare occasion when several students had the same comment. I came to consider the whole exercise a waste of paper and as I continued my writing career avoided writing workshops and groups.

NO ONE AGREES ON ANYTHING

As a journalist, I became adept at self-editing and even more convinced of the uselessness of outside criticism. Don’t get me wrong, I have had some great editors and they have done a stellar job in helping to craft my stories. But I have also witnessed what happens when a story is edited by several different editors, each of them determined to leave their mark. 

(When Is My Novel Ready to Read: 7 Self-Editing Processes for Writers.)

I have had one editor remove a section only to have another put it back in. I have read stories so thick with markings that I once again lost track of what I was originally trying to say. I developed strategies to avoid multiple editors, turning work in close to the deadline so there was less time for it to be passed around. In my personal writing I sent my work to two close relatives who I knew would challenge me but also trust my skills.

Then my publisher sent my original manuscript for Bluegrass Baseball: A Year in the Minor League Life to two of my peers for review. The first review was glowing, the second damning. Both came from authors of books on Minor League baseball. They had experience crafting similar manuscripts and understood who my audience was and what I was trying to accomplish. I considered their recommendations carefully, employing the ones I felt would enhance the story I wanted to tell.

THE PEER REVIEWS HELPED MY WRITING

When the book was finally released in summer 2012, it received positive reviews, a fact I credit partially to the insights provided by those two peer reviewers. Nevertheless, I was not fully won over by the process until I started teaching.

Around the same time Bluegrass Baseball was released, I took a position as a journalism workshop instructor at U.C. Berkeley Extension. During the workshop, I led group critiques of my students’ work, allowing me to see the merits and shortcomings of peer reviews from an outside perspective. The students had many suggestions for their peers, but the ones that proved most helpful were those that came from writers who understood their classmates’ subject matter and style. 

It may seem obvious, but it hadn’t occurred to me before that I needed to share my writing with a peer who understood my style and subject matter. And that that person would probably be different for different projects.

SEEK QUALITY, NOT QUANTITY

I understand now that reviewers are best when picked for quality not quantity. And just as you would not submit your writing to an agent or publisher without researching them first, you must research the reviewer you want to read your work. You have to find a fellow writer who understands at core what you are trying to do and can help you accomplish it. 

You don’t need a bunch of people who will tell you what they would do. You need one or two people who can help you do what you want to do in the best way possible. So I guess I am still not convinced of the merit of mass peer reviews, but I do believe in the value of targeted peer reviews. The key is to take the time to find and identify your reviewers.

*****

Are you ready to take the next step toward a final draft of your novel? This course is for you! Join Mark Spencer in an intensive 16-week coaching session focused entirely on your novel in progress. You’ll work with Mark on your choice of up to 60,000 words of your novel or two drafts of up to 30,000 words each.

Click to continue. 

The post Peer Reviews: Seek Quality in Your Beta Readers, Not Quantity appeared first on Writer's Digest.