I’ve finished the latest rewrite of my BROKEN THINGS project, and it’s on its way out to beta readers now.
(Okay, it’s not actual endless writing like I’ve been joking about, but I have been hammering away at this thing in stops and starts since February. Glad to be done with it, and happy with the massive improvement made on the first draft, but I’m also eager to TEAR IT APART ANEW once beta feedback starts coming in.)
Here are some things I’m going to do to celebrate finishing the rewrite:
- Sleep more
- Start watching an anime called Nozaki-kun about a comic book artist. A lot of my artistic and anime-watching friends have been raving about it.
- Watch Haikyuu!!, as recommend by my anime BFF.
- Pre-order Hatoful Boyfriend on Steam, a ridiculous pigeon dating sim game that’s been highly praised by everyone who plays it, and then play it. (Might need to wait until next payday for this, though.)
- Finish Dramatical Murder, a less pigeon-y Japanese visual novel that’s just had an anime adaption.
- Spend a month first-drafting the HellaFunWIP I mentioned earlier.
- Maaayybeee play Persona 3 or Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies if time allows.
- Keep up with my existing TV shows: Doctor Who, Great British Bake Off, Free! Eternal Summer, RWBY, Ergo Proxy and Black Butler: Book of Circus. I guess I watch a lot of telly sometimes?
- Blog aimlessly about being done because OH MY GOD IT’S DONE IT’S DONE IT’S FINALLY DONE
- LET’S IMMEDIATELY START SOMETHING NEW
HOOOOOOOOORAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!
*dances with you* :D
:D
Whooo! I’m so happy for you!
And those animes you mentioned sound pretty neat! I might check those out, if university life permits it!
Hi again Emma,
First off, congratulations on reaching this coveted stage! Though it will be some time before Millennium 4 gets there, I’m very interested in your advice on the beta-reading process; do you circulate your manuscripts to your close friends, or to others online (on the AbsoluteWrite forums, for example)? Personally, I don’t know if friends would be impartial, but on the other hand, it’d take some time to cultivate strangers (and gauge whether they’re the sort who might plagiarize – it does happen, apparently), there’s nothing really to commit them to reading it/giving you feedback, nor to ensure that the feedback is well-thought-out/a decent length. With these misgivings, I’m basically just soliciting your experience with this matter. We’ve had manuscript assessments done in the past, and found them a worthwhile investment, but if beta-readers can be a useful complement to this then I’d like to know how to get past the hurdles they present.
Kudos to you for this website; I love how it’s a neat little hub for you and your hobbies, and as I use WordPress at work as well as for our blog, I appreciate how finicky it can be, but everything seems pretty seemless here – how much of your IT prowess have you needed to invoke to get it so? (I’ve noticed a lot of media integration, including a spinning chicken, which had me cracking up.) I ask because I’ve been considering switching to Wix or a competing platform, but your site has given me the reassurance that WordPress can be worth the effort!
Kind regards,
Calum
Hi Calum, great to hear from you.
“Do you circulate your manuscripts to your close friends, or to others online (on the AbsoluteWrite forums, for example)?”
I don’t send my work to close friends, they’re not impartial enough for a valuable beta response.
When I first found myself looking for beta readers, I went to AbsoluteWrite — they have a forum specifically for requesting beta readers. I honed the first chapter and query with the forum first (the Share Your Work section has places for first chapters, and places for queries) and then used that query and a link to the chapters when requesting beta readers.
It worked well, and I met some excellent beta readers there… and some ones I didn’t quite click with. I’m still close to those original beta readers, many of whom are now published writers themselves, and I also have a few published writer friends (and friends out on submission to agents) who I regularly trade work with.
A lot of finding a good beta reader is just time: you need to find beta readers whose writing is a high enough quality (though some excellent betas barely write themselves!), and whose beta styles fit with yours.
I have “classes” of beta readers: one I know will be gentle with an early draft, ones that focus on ‘big picture’ plot rewrites, ones that are better with catching typos and sentence structure issues, ones who know the market etc.
There’s quite a few reputable manuscript assessment services out there, and I can link you to them in needbe, but beta readers are a better (and cheaper!) starting point.
WordPress is very, very simple to use. It updates regularly and gets easier and easier each time. Most of what I’ve got set up here in using inbuilt features, like the media manager (used to add GIFs and pictures) and the power templates system (this site uses the default 2014 theme). If you have any questions about it, ask away — I’m very fond of the system, it’s extremely powerful and useful for writers. :)
Hi Emma,
Thanks for your informative reply. I’m impressed with the extent and diversity of your beta readers! I’ll be sure to check out said page of the AW forums when the time comes. When you say that beta readers are a better starting point, do you mean that you would still think an appraisal worthwhile afterwards? Or do you find that your beta readers give you enough feedback to take the manuscript from first to final draft? I can see how this might be possible, particularly if they’re willing to look at several versions of the manuscript.
I do like WordPress and find it user-friendly, but I think I’ve just been a little offput by the layers in which it’s been integrated at my work (our website spans several domains and sometimes WordPress doesn’t cooperate with the other services. That said, I don’t have much experience using it independently and it’s probably better-behaved on its own.)
Kind regards,
Calum
Hi Calum,
Most manuscripts don’t need a paid appraisal service–good beta readers should suffice. However, if you plan to self-publish, a good editor is a must. And if you want to publish traditional, a paid appraisal can sometimes push a manuscript up to that next level…. but it’s rare, and a good literary agent can suggest a revise & resubmit which would be just as useful for free.
In most situations, I’d say save your money. The Emergents organisation offers excellent free appraisals (the ‘Work In Progress’ scheme) for Highlands and Islanders writers, there might be a scheme local to you that does something similar. Check with your local arts council organisations.
Beta readers are all I generally need to get a manuscript polished. I’ll never ask the same beta to read a manuscript twice over (from beta-ing myself, I know it’s boring to do).
My rewrite schedule goes a bit like this:
— Quick, messy first draft. Very dialogue-heavy, very choppy, still working a lot out as I go along.
— Write the query (cover letter) and synopsis. Gives me a good general overview of the plot.
— Rest manuscript for at least a month, but no more than six months.
— Rewrite the query, have it looked at by various writer friends. Good way to spot large issues with the story.
— Second draft: fix issues with the first draft, get the story readable. This is a major rewrite.
— Third draft: print the manuscript out or copy it onto a Kindle and re-read it for sentence structure issues and typos.
— First beta reader: a reader whose style I know and love, we’re good friends and fans of each others work. Catches typos, gently provides feedback. Rewrite based on her feedback.
— Second beta reader: a reader who’s not a fan of my current WIPs genre, or of present tense. Rewrite based on her feedback, using personal judgement.
— Third beta reader: a reader who makes big, story-altering suggestions and is distant enough from me to be brutal. Rewrite again.
— Fourth beta reader: a reader deeply familiar with the YA/teen fiction genre and present tense, unafraid to be brutal. Rewrite again.
[The beta reads don’t necessarily happen in this order–it depends on whose available, and who’s tied up in other commitments. It’s also not necessarily these specific betas, but that’s the sort of range I look for.]
— Rewrite the query again.
— Send out on submission to agents.
— Start writing a new project.
Then, in the shiny far-off future:
— Revise if requested by agents.
— Hopefully, get picked up by a publisher.
— Revise as requested by publisher.
Hi again Emma,
Thanks for going to the trouble of putting all that down – it really clarified things for me. I think what you say in the opening paragraph is key; we’re coming at this issue from different angles – you from the traditional route, and myself intent on self-publishing. I think this is one of the stages where you traditionalists get an easier time of it, with the benefit of editorial input from your agent and, provided your manuscript makes it through the submission ring of fire, your publisher. (Digitally) self-published authors only get one shot; you can in theory modify a published book to correct typos etc., but it shouldn’t go out with even that much in the first place, and retroactively making larger editorial changes will at best alienate your readership. So as you say, for me good editorial input is a must, if only because it’s my only chance to get it.
Thanks for the tip – I hadn’t heard of free appraisals before, and although I’m centrally-based in Edinburgh now, I’m going to search for any local organizations which may offer this. And you’re right, paid appraisals are expensive, which is why I’m trying to get an idea of what I’ll need to budget for now. Self-publishing has all sorts of associated costs (cover design, typesetting, and copyediting, to name but a few more), but once that’s out the way you get most of the profit – so high-risk, high-reward, I guess. That said, the distribution networks of publishing houses is still a key asset, so a print deal on the side is ideal. We can all dream!