On August 3rd, three days after I’d hoped to have it done, I wrote “The End” on Dead Weight.
Breaking the deadline by three days isn’t so terrible, so I’m counting this as a win-win all around. The book will need at least two more rounds of revision, but I won’t be touching it for the rest of the year.
Normally at this point, I would track down my wonderful Beta Readers and beg them for their time to read and give feedback on the draft. Some of them require a pint of blood for this transaction, but I’m happy to pay the price if it means I’ll get solid critiques to work with.
However, this year I’ve been studying my craft a bit more and I’ve come to the conclusion that I send the drafts out too soon.
This would be the difference between the Alpha Reader and the Beta Reader. I do have one Alpha Reader who gets my work almost as soon as it’s done. He gets me excited for my work even when I’m frustrated and can’t figure out what’s broken in the manuscript, which is invaluable for a writer.
If you’re a writer and you don’t have an Alpha Reader who happily (or sometimes just politely) listens to your ideas, and then constantly asks if you’ve written that day, I encourage you to find one.
A Beta Reader, on the other hand, is supposed to see a more completed draft. They aren’t — or shouldn’t be — hunting for any huge problems in the plot structure. They look for the motivations of the characters, and the places where the description gets so scrambled they can’t quite picture what’s going on.
Some people can give a second draft to their Beta’s, but I have learned that I cannot.
Why?
Well, because with certain novels my second draft has a completely new ending to it.
Okay, so many of my novels end up that way. I get to the last five chapters of the book and then I have to step back. I go work on something else for a while.
And by “a while” I mean a couple of months.
Then, when I’ve been separated from the novel for long enough, I can sit down and do a “revision” of everything already written. This helps me see the promises and sub plots and themes that may have worked themselves into the manuscript so that I can create a more satisfying ending.
But that ending is still a first draft ending.
So … My wonderful Beta Readers, who I love so much, and who – hopefully – understand this plight, will not be receiving a request for feedback until after the next revision.
Which won’t be happening until January.
AJMaguire 