Beta Readers; Learning from the pros

In searching around for how published authors run their websites and blogs, I came across a woman who invites most anybody to be a beta reader -- to read the first or second draft simply by signing up on her website (also a nifty manner for accumulating an email list).

I'm not that brave, yet. But I do, now, have a few trusted friends reading the chapters almost as I produce them. I am keeping a few chapters ahead.

I am working on the first story, "Seeking Sirius," which was badly in need of a rewrite in the first part, because of the risk of people dying of boredom.

The rewrite is moving along nicely, I think. No beta readers have perished.



Something I like about this whole fiction-writing experience is all the generous support of other writers available. Some free. Some paid. But all offered. Not hoarded, so that only their books get published.

I've learned a huge amount -- all the easier because I made the mistakes, so can recognize when an answer comes my way.

One example is a recent decision to move a scene. Actually, kind of turn it into a spoiler.

But by moving this one scene, from right after the climax, to comprising the whole of Chapter 1, I think -- I hope -- the tease will make readers want to read on, to find out HOW did that happen.

I learned about this technique from a book by James Scott Bell ("Revision and Self-Editing for Publication, 2nd ed").  And was prompted to use this particular technique, out of the many in his book, by my father, who read in 2012 about 300 novels. He's retired, and a speed reader. And he's also a pretty good judge of what works.

He will be a beta reader for me, at some point. We've agreed to be gentle about that, me being his daughter, and all that. But, Dad, I heard you, and I acted on one of your comments.

By Laure Edwards Reminick

52,097 words: 30 Days: First Draft through Climax

Just finished the climax of this story for NaNoWriMo.   Something I've noticed, if you include a word like "climax" in the title or body of a blog post, you get a few more hits. No mystery there, eh.

Zoomed past 50,000 words on the 29th. My fingers got into a groove, and more than 3000 words flowed.

As stated earlier, all pretense to literary excellence was abandoned in this first draft.

But. It's done. In 30 days.

Haven't produced that much writing since my days at Bloomberg. And without an editor in the background, yelling for a new quote.

My husband got me a framed and mounted Certificate of Completion. He's the best a girl could ever want.

Climax Achieved! Whoo Hoo!

First draft of the story is, as of 10:26 pm tonight, officially written up to and including the Climax!

Moon walk. Slam the football down in the end zone. Yeah, baby. Yeah, baby.

I have been thinking and planning this part of the story -- I almost am willing to call it a book, now -- since before I wrote the first words of the beginning.

It has morphed, changed locations, and changed characters, but always with the same outcome.

At one point, this evening, I was running around outside with the stopwatch on my phone, timing how many seconds it would take to get from point A, to point B, and then to point C. The raccoons, I'm confident, are convinced that the human living here is quite nuts.

That total time, you see, had to mesh with what was happening in the shack, with this person going to this corner, and that person going to that spot, and the like.

After I clicked the keys for the last word on the document, I called my husband, who is on a business trip and who got up early this morning and has been driving to meeting after meeting after meeting all day.

I read the length of the last scene. I put all the drama into every shout and whisper. I performed brilliantly.

And he fell asleep before I finished.

He assured me when I woke him up that it wasn't because of the quality of the prose. The climax was good for him, too. (tee-hee)

Home stretch to the Climax!

Alexa is back on Earth, and racing to the climax. And I am scrambling to find that perfect wave to carry her -- and the reader -- to the pinnacle.

Very exciting. Yes, it is just the "crummy" first draft. But this is the FIRST instance for me to approach completion of the "crummy" first draft.

Whereas on the space station the workings of the scene came down to physical placement (rock-outcropping post), in this scene or series of scenes the element of urgency comes down to timing of events. The situation that creates the pressure is an event that will happen in x days, then only x hours, then only x minutes: i.e., time.

The setting is in India, basically because India is timeless. One of the main characters is Indian. But the country also provides a fairly predictable societal location in the future, more so than, say, the ever-changing society of North America. If the India of now is very much like it was  hundreds of years ago, it will probably have very similar recognizable elements even many years into the future.

I have been to India twice. My second visit included a race to get somewhere before a certain event, and I admit to borrowing elements from that visit (just like I may someday include memories of Paris, London, or Sao Paulo, or even Bartlesville, Oklahoma).

Anyway, I began this journey for Alexa about two years ago, and she and I are finding our way together to the ordained climax. I don't know how ordained is my own path, but whatever it is, I'm having a rollicking good time discovering it.