The Two Sides to Beta Reading

You've spent weeks, months, sometimes years perfecting your manuscript.  With your finger hovering over the delete key, you have taken out entire chapters, re-written complete scenes, and even red-lined some of your favorite lines. You’ve spent so much time with your baby that you can no longer see the forest through the trees. Your next step is a beta reader.

It is a rare occasion now for aspiring authors not to use a beta reader. Not only are they fantastic at finding redundant phrases, kindly explaining to you the appropriate use of a hyper dash (thanks Natalie!), and pointing out plot inconsistencies, but they have an uncanny knack for pushing you the extra inch that takes you ms from great to amazing.

I myself have beta read countless manuscripts from middle-grade fiction to adult, paranormal romance (the later was an experience and a half ) But, there is a flip side to beta reading . . . at least for me.

Sure reading other people's manuscripts has made me a stronger writer, and God knows my education in comma use and proper formatting came from a well polished ms I read a while back.  But to be honest, I have a more selfish reason for taking on multiple beta reads at a time – it frees my mind!

I'm in the middle of two WIPs, polishing up one while cranking out chapters of another.  The first one, Seven Shades of Crazy, was written well over a year ago, but never queried.  It’s actually a series of five books all of which are completely finished.  I just can’t seem to wrangle it into the story I envisioned.  I play with it every day then toss it aside, go back to the new WIP I started three weeks ago.  I am 41,000 words into it and still no title.  I love it, and I hate it, and there is something missing in the characters that I just can’t put my finger on.

So, when my WIPs refuse to cooperate I beta read.  Immersing myself in somebody else work frees my mind, enables my muse to settle down a bit while keeping me occupied with the craft of writing.

So next time you ask me to take a peek at a manuscript you are working on, don’t thank me.  It’s a two way street.  Your WIPs help me immeasurably on days like today when not an inkling of creative thought is flowing from my mind.

Straight YA vs. Paranormal -- Which do you write?

I was reading a recent blog post by my agent last night.  After a rather lengthy tit for tat about the number of aspiring authors referencing, or rather comparing their books to some highly reputable, award-winning manuscripts, some of us got to wondering what the most common query words/themes were. Being efficient and as curious as we were, she went ahead and did a quick search of her query database. Below are some stats she posted on her site http://agencygatekeeper.blogspot.com/

• Harry Potter: 73 (13 were just "J.K. Rowling" without mention of title)
  
• Twilight: 111
  
• Eat, Pray, Love: 104
  
• Vampire: 118.
  
• Werewolf: 35. I imagine most people do not use this much except when referring to the moon-inspired beasties.
  
• Angel: hundreds. Seriously hundreds. But keep in mind that one often uses the word "angel" or "angelic" without directly referring to their own work. Some even have the name of Angel, and it pops up, too.
  
• Demon: 113. Subtract a few (probably 10) for writers simply referring to something non-paranormal as "demonic."
  
• Dragon: 98, though a number of these referred to dragon statutes and other dragon objects that were within the story and mattered but did not refer to living, fire-breathing dragons.

 I am curious to see which, if any, of these words/ references you utilized in your own queries. I’ll start my saying that I used none. Then again, I write straight YA with a dystopian feel so angels, demons, etc . . . didn’t apply to me. I asked her to do another quick search for me . . . determine the skew between straight YA and Paranormal. I’ll let you know those numbers once I get them.

Rejection -- the Necessary Evil

So you have finished your baby. She’s been edited, beta read, hacked to pieces and re-assembled. You’ve doubted yourself, hated and then loved your characters, and if you’re like me, wondered from what dark, disturbed crevice of your mind they surfaced. Now you’re ready to query!

It always amazed me how writers, myself included, could churn out a 70,000 word masterpiece and then crumble when it came to the 250 word query. The task is so dauntless that I can actually name three people with finished manuscripts sitting in the closet for fear of the dreaded query . . . or the inevitable rejection that even the most polished author must endure. Even I put off querying my own novel Cedar for so long that I actually had time to write a completely different manuscript in the mean time.

I, like most aspiring authors, did my research, read countless blogs about the proper length of a query, the form and the placement of the pitch, how to maintain an active and engaging voice while trying to summarize your entire plot into three action-packed paragraphs. Needless to say, I failed miserably, came away from my research more confused then when I started.

My first attempt was poor to say the least. It got shredded by my friends in AW Query Letter Hell. One of them actually questioned whether my manuscript was even viable – all from my 272 word query alone! I went at it again . . . and again . . . and again . . . until I found my saving grace in a trusted beta reader, one who’d read each revision of Cedar, knew the characters as intimately as me, but wasn’t as attached. She came at if from an objective perspective, and with the same supportive criticism she had attacked my manuscript, she took my query letter from blah to amazing. Hats off to you Julie Duck!

And yes, rejection stings. Just last week I got my signed contract back from my top-pick of agents, was silently celebrating the end of my query days when I opened my email and in pops another rejection . . . from a query I sent over five months ago! I’d like to say I laughed, that I thought “your lose,” but I didn’t. It stung just as bad as the first one. I filed it in my huge query rejection folder, ate an entire sleeve of chocolate chip cookies, and then, after dissecting each of my 15+ rejection letters again I moved on.