Tag: beta readers

Hiatus is Over

Laura Highcove

My hiatus is now over, as by the time you’re reading this, the Show Team is back from the National Appaloosa Championships and Youth World Show. Because of the extra hours I put in to make up as assistant manager while the manager was gone, I took the past two and a half weeks off from writing, and let myself play lots of Disgaea 5. But now it’s time to shift back into work mode. First thing on the list is to start reading the comments from my wonderful beta readers for the Law of the Demon King. Looking forward to the inside I get there, as well as regaining some of my motivation for working on that story.

There will be a few days of reading comments during which time comes one of my favorite parts of revision, making the list of edits! Even though this list ends up being extremely long, especially at first, it always encourages it because it’s tangible. Lists also help me organize the story in my mind since I’m looking at the whole thing at once, instead of piece by piece. I even color code the list items based on how much work I estimate it will take, which usually determines in which order I will tackle each item. In addition, my beta readers are both coming to Otakon with me this year, which will afford us more talking and brainstorming time. Mwahahaha!

Once I have a list, I’ll be able to estimate my timeline a little better. I’d like to get through with this book by the end of the year, but right now I have no idea if that’s feasible, or way too easy. And who knows, maybe I’ll get some more done on the Wizard in between bursts of revision.

My Beta Readers

Laura Highcove

So with The Storyteller, I had my first real set of beta readers. It was the first time I ever had a complete book to hand to anyone. I was really happy with the people who agreed to beta read my book and it was a tong of fun to be able to see each of their personalities reflected in the notes they gave me.

Overall it was a wonderful learning experience and I am so grateful for each and every one of them. The feedback I got back was really invaluable. And I know how time intensive it is to read a novel, but they did that as well as giving me feedback on it. I love them all.

Getting Ready for a New Draft

Laura Highcove

This past week I spent most of my time going through and making changes brought about by feedback from my beta readers. So there were a lot of non-connected pieces that I worked on, but I do feel like I’m moving forward well.

I think my plan after this is to finish making a few minor changes and then I’m going to shift to the next draft number, meaning I will go through and read, smooth, and make a whole new set of notes.

Back from Beta Readers

Laura Highcove

So this past week was a delightful collection of both wonderful and completely horrid moments. As you may have guessed, I got my story back from my beta readers! It ultimately ended up going pretty much as well as can be expected from sending your baby out into the world for the first time. All of the comments were positive or the helpful kind of critique.

However, there was a misunderstanding about part of the story, and the comments regarding that section left me in three days of misery. Both beta readers jumped to the same conclusion and since it was an emotionally charged scene, it left a rather deep emotional impression on them that was not what I was going for. It took some dwelling on comments and reading between the lines to figure out that they had reached a conclusion that was not the one for which I was aiming.

Once I figured out the misunderstanding and had talks with the both of them, things turned out much better and all of the critique they gave me was entirely manageable. I mean, sure I’d love for it to have already been perfect, but then making mistakes is how you learn.

This is the first time I’ve ever had a person besides my alpha reader husband, read through a whole story of mine, and it was an amazing experience. One of my beta readers had trouble with names, since different characters call each other different names. It didn’t occur to me, since I live with these characters. The other was much more in tune to how information was parsed out to the reader, pointing out places I had done it well and places I had done it poorly. After reading the comments and seeing the way both of the beta reader’s minds worked through the story I feel like I was able to see the story in a new light.

Anticipation

Laura Highcove

I spent last week working through some things with my story, ‘The Colors Of’. It started off as a pokemon fan fiction back when the first pokemon movie came out in 1998. It has changed a lot since then. I spent some time on brushing off the world building. It is set on a planet that was ravaged by war, such that the world started to turn metallic and the only animals are computers that are built to look and act like animals, some of which serve people, and some of which have escaped into the wild. The story is about what it takes for people to survive in this world.

However, I knew I was only going to work on that long enough to get back my story from my beta readers, and the first of those came in this week. I’m scared, but I’m trying to convince myself to be excited too. Hopefully this will help me to get a better insight on how others see my story and thus be able to improve the book. Also, chalk it up to a new experience. This is the first time someone who is not my husband has gotten to see one of my stories in its entirety. (Unless you count the really bad version of Shifting Winds, which technically didn’t have an ending, I just didn’t know it at the time.)

I’m not sure what I am expecting. I know points of the book are weak. I know some of the prose is messy. I think I’m more scared to find out about things that are wrong that I don’t know about yet, that I may not be able to fix? I’m not sure if that’s possible, for something to be unfixable, but then most of the time we worry about inane things anyway.

Out to Beta Readers

Laura Highcove

So this week I finished up my rough draft of The Storyteller. I then went through and did a quick read of the entire book, fixed up a few things, held myself back from fixing other things, and then compiled and sent it out to my beta readers. There’s not much more to my week than that, except in that reading the story in its completion, I got the sense that maybe the bad parts aren’t quite as bad as I thought they were. It needs work, sure, but it might actually all be there. Now I just have to wait for my beta readers to get back to me. Hopefully they’ll have some helpful advice that will help me improve the story even more.

Now My Rough Draft is Really Done?

Laura Highcove

I finally completed the last fight of The Storyteller. However, it’s hard to give myself credit for it when I know how much more work there is to do. I know I should give myself credit for finishing, but when I say it’s done, I feel like it really should be done …you know?

At this point, all of the plot is there. According to my own ranking system, now the rough draft of my story is officially done, as all of the prose is there. No more unwritten scenes that need to be added. Well at least not that I’m aware. I’m confidant there is still a lot of work to do. My next step is to go through the story in reverse scene order. My hope is that it will help me greatly with foreshadowing because I’ll know the things I need to foreshadow before I get to the scene where they should be foreshadowed.

Technically this draft is supposed to be ready for beta readers by the end of the month. That’s still my goal. After this next week I should have more of a plan of how much actually needs to be done. I have a feeling my timeline may end up needing to shift. That’s okay, because it’s getting better.