Editor & Beta Reader
I have trust issues. Part of the reason for this is rooted in my self-doubt and disbelief that people will like who I really am, or what I can create. It has taken me a long time to build up the courage to hand over my heart to an editor. I say heart, as I poured my heart into The Perilous Road to Her. I was afraid that whoever ended up editing my story would not like it. Plain and simple, they would read and think, “What is this?” or, “This is not very good.”
I was very fortunate to have a friend who is a part-time editor, and a full-time awesome mother! When I started out on my writing journey I did not know that she would be the one to edit my work. As such, my fears grew, until I finally got the courage to ask her if she would be willing to help out this first-time author. Thankfully she said yes! I was grateful that I could hand my heart to someone I trusted.
For those who don’t have an editor friend, I encourage reaching out to writers you know and ask for recommendations. You want to make sure that the person you choose is someone you can work with, will provide you the services you are looking for and is worth their fee. Referrals are a writer's best friend here. I have seen a lot of stories where a writer paid an editor who completely ravished the work, or did very little editing. In the end, they had to hire another editor and spend more of a starving author's salary.
Editors can perform many functions and it is up to the writer to have a conversation to set expectations. Are you looking for:
PROOFREADING: Read through the book, correct typos, spelling, punctuation and word usage errors.
COPYEDITING: Edit for sentence structure, story consistency, grammar/syntax, and basic interior formatting, and also proofread.
EDITING: Review/edit text for substantive edits, content, continuity, and cohesiveness, polishing the book. Identify storylines that need closing, threads that are left hanging, plot points that need clarification, etc.
For me, my editor was doing the whole package. I took my work out of Scrivner and composed it into a Google Doc. I compiled a Table of Contents to assist in navigating to where she left off. What I loved about using Google Docs, was that I could go in and reply/update as the project progressed. I didn’t have to wait for her to finish everything, send it back to me, revise and send it back to her. I would keep her comments open and highlight any changes for her to review. IMPORTANT - make sure your editor is okay with this! They may not want you in the document during their editing process.
In addition to the book, I created a “Questions for the Editor” document. As a new author, I had quite a few questions. Is it better to use Canadian or American spelling (it doesn’t matter ;) ) to “I feel like the storyline goes A-B-C rinse and repeat a few times; is this working?. I started out with 12 questions and by the end of the process the document had about 30. I also provided the images of the plane and mansion where Olivia is held. I wanted to make sure my descriptions of the scenery accurately reflected what was in my head. This step isn’t necessary, however as it was my first novel and I hadn’t even written a short story before, I wanted the added level of comfort knowing my editor understood what I was going for. In the end, a reader will create a world inside their head based on the words on the page. It may never match what is in mine, and that is okay.
Everything is with my editor - now what?
Beta Readers
A beta reader is a test reader who gives feedback to the author about remaining issues, with the perspective of an average reader . For example, plot points that need closing, storylines that are confusing or unrelatable characters.
Some authors bring them in before they go to an editor to help flesh out the story. I brought mine in after. Part of my reasoning for this was that I wanted to provide the most polished story to the readers, and then have a conversation with my editor about their feedback.
For this first book, I used friends and co-workers. Remember how I said I had trust issues? Well, I did not feel comfortable giving my work to strangers and I hadn’t been a part of the Twitter ‘Writing Community’ at this point. There were people on social media who offered these services, but I had no guarantee that they wouldn’t take my work and publish it themselves. Yes, I can be that pessimistic sometimes.
If you don’t have a community around you that you can trust to be completely honest with you, and not just placate you, then I would recommend cultivating/joining a writing group. Get to know the people in the group as best you can, and then reach out for help. However, if you are a bigger risk-taker then go full throttle! In the end, you need to do what you are comfortable with.
This is also another service that may require payment or an exchange of work. As such, you need to plan accordingly.
As with the editor, you need to set clear expectations with your beta readers as to what you want them to do. If any are authors/writers they may be pulled to provide services similar to an editor (grammar, syntax etc.) If that is what you are looking for, great. If not, it may be discouraging to receive.
When I reached out to determine who would be interested, I clearly outlined what capacity they would need to have to provide the feedback I was looking for. They had one month and a list of 10-15 questions I wanted them to answer. Components I included in the beta reader package included:
A thank-you
Reiterated expectations
A Trigger Warning about the sexual violence and a request for them to let me know if they could not proceed with the review. I asked that they not proceed if their mental health would be impacted.
Feedback questions:
What did you like about the story?
Was there anything that didn’t make sense to you? May need to be clarified.
Did you find there were any plot points that could be improved upon?
Does the Book Blurb accurately describe the book and intrigue the reader? If not, what recommendations do you have for improvement?
Please describe the following characters (Ex. who are they, how did they make you feel. If they didn’t stand out to you/weren’t memorable - that is okay, just let me know that).
I then listed all the ‘relevant’ characters.
I asked for this, as if I wanted to make sure I properly portrayed my characters as I saw them in my head. For example, if I had portrayed Claire, a strung out drug addict, who lost everything, as happy and go lucky, I had done something wrong.
What is one thing that could take this story to the next level?
A beta readers’ feedback is their personal opinion, and usually based on their personal experience. They may wish to see a character be more sympathetic towards a cause/character due to an incident they experienced. This does not mean you should make changes to your story or characters if it is not how you feel the character/story should play.
I came across differing opinions on the same topic with my readers and needed to discern how their thoughts related to the overall story. I followed up for more clarification and then decided what feedback I was going to incorporate and what was going to be left out.
One more round with the editor and I was done!!
IMPORTANT - An author is never going to make every reader happy. Your job is to make you happy with the final product!
The story is written, edited and beta read. The next question is do you look to traditionally publish or self-publish?
Next week I will share how I decided to take the self-publishing road.
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N. L. Blandford
April 18, 2021
