On Monday, I did the last prep before sending the manuscript out to its beta readers. Since then, it has been a week of pretzels. Mental pretzels, sure, bending myself this way or that–trying to anticipate my beta readers’ complaints. But also actual pretzels, because they’re salty & delicious, and good-tasting gluten-free snacks are few and far between. I also had an interview with the Surly Muse which was far less surly than I expected.
I learned not to second-guess my betas. Think of it this way: if you could anticipate the sore spots of your work, you wouldn’t need fresh eyes on it, would you? Beta readers have their own set of expectations. They are the soft landing between the manuscript and the reading public. Poems I thought would be problematic flew by with flying colors. One poem was caught in their dragnet not for being bad, but merely for being a lesser copy of a poem directly following it. I would have never spotted the similarity.
What I have learned is how productive it can be to read with a beta in real-time. Dan kindly looked over the poems with me as we conversed through instant message. As he was reading, he provided a line or two of feedback on the ones that caught his attention. I read with him, imagining what he saw on each the page. It was as close to reading the manuscript with new eyes as I could get.
This line-by-line reading caught a few awkward phrases, revealed the ebb-and-flow in each section. If I could have read it with someone in the same room, we could have also talked about individual phrases. That kind of beta would be tedious (maybe even impossible) with an entire novel, but for a collection of poems, a short story, or a few important scenes in a novel–it is a good exercise. It helps you cut the superfluous, so your remaining words can strike right to the bone.
One interesting facet has emerged from the beta readers (as well as you, my blog commenters), is that the blackout poems are far more popular than I thought. I initially chose to provide the poem text in the opening sections, and provide a few photographed pages of the blackouts in the final pages of the book. With the upswell of interest in the actual blackout pages, I am going to add in 10 more blackout pages in the final section.
How did the work for the week go?
1. 2 poems, 314 words. Writing has been (as in past week) dominated by poems. I wrote two juicy rhyming poems to be included in Daniel Swensen’s fantasy novels.
2. 60 minutes / 300 minutes. Prepping the manuscript and reading-along with my beta are the only work I’ve done this week. With their feedback, I am confident that next week will be the last full week I work on Manifesto For All.
3. 167 minutes / 150 minutes. Starting next week, I am upping the number of minutes I spend sketching. My next project will include original artwork, so now is the time to refocus & refine my sketching skills.
Productivity tracking, as always, is a bit of a bear. I’ll save those thoughts for later. This week, I will work on posts on designing covers & prose poems. I have an exciting contest, in conjunction with Bullishink, to announce in the next two weeks.
Reading through my fellow ROWers status updates on Wednesday, it seems as though many of us have been beset by illness and other energy-sapping setbacks. To all of my fellow ROWers: hang in there, and good luck.
Interesting idea of reading along with a beta reader — but only feasible for poems, I fear.
I’m actually fairly close to “new eyes” on this editing pass, because before I started I hadn’t looked at Shadow of Stone for over a year. Believe it or not, there’s plenty in there I didn’t even remember anymore! *g*
Have a great week!
Ruth–Reading along with a beta really is only feasible for short sections. Sometimes there’s an emotional ooomph scene that I want to be just right. If it’s a few pages, I try to find a beta who will read it along with me. But that’s me–I’m very choosy about getting the sounds just right. It’s a poet thing, no doubt.
Wow, that’s impressive–a year without looking at your draft. I’m lucky if I can get a few months! It’s a wonderful feeling to get that much distance from your work; you can unrepentantly muck about with the draft without remorse.
And I just grabbed Never Ever After. My reading queue is growing long, but I’m excited to tackle Yseult & the Sauder Diaries this month.
Here’s hoping we both have good weeks!
Congrats on a week of great productivity! I’m in that in-between stage too, having just given my book to the betas last week., so I’m trying to use that time by getting ahead on launch tasks and marketing. Beta readers are invaluable – and you’re right, they often pick up on things we’d never see in our own work, both good and bad. But no reading with mine – my book is 140,000 words! Interesting to think about, for a short, pivotal scene. Here’s hoping this week goes as well as the last!
Giant soft pretzels. Yum. Great job on the progress. Reading it with the betas is something I haven’t heard of it before. That’s a neat concept. I typically make my computer read the story out loud and that allows me to catch quite a bit. I bet reading with a person is even better.
Pretzels are also good with honey mustard!
One thing I have done with another mystery writer is write inline comments to tell her what I’m thinking so she knows how her clues and red herrings are going down.
I put double brackets around what I have to say, and just have it right there in the text. You know, kinda [[kinda?]] like this. I’ll say stuff like “Uh oh!” and “Where’d he come from?” “I’ll betcha that’s significant.” “If the killer turns out to be him, this is too much of a giveaway.”
@Jennette — 140,000 words! I think my brain just popped out of my skull. As you say, there’s always the possibility of reading along with your beta for *that one pivotal scene where you want your readers to feel the weight of the story shift around them.* The emotional good stuff. Thanks for the well wishes! This week is already shaping up nicely!
@Ryan — Making your computer read your story. Fascinating! I would love to do so with mine. Sometimes I need the sound of a friendly robot to perk me right up. Thank you!
@Camille — Especially soft, warm, yummy homemade ones… pardon, I think I drifted off there for a moment. xD Inline comments are great. Especially if you have the eye to catch clues in her text that would seem like a dead give-away. Inline comments seem more immediate somehow than the on-the-side Word commenting features I used as an instructor.
Thanks you guys. This week is going to be a fun one, I can tell!