Sci-Fi, fantasy and speculative Indie Authors Review discussion

I have almost finished my current draft of my novel. But I am considering having it "looked at" by beta readers or an editor. My question is this.

Should I let them see this current draft? Or do some work on the draft then let them see it? I really have little idea how to get beta reads or editing, so...

The more work you do to get it in acceptable shape, the less difficult it will be for your reader. If you're paying for editing, they'll charge you less. If you're looking for beta-read swaps, you're more likely to get one.

Thank you for your reply, Richard. I have a pretty readable draft as it is (I rarely turn out bad drafts when I have taken this many runs at a story). But I will give The Raven and The Ruby a once-over before asking someone else to look at it, too. There are a few parts that I think need a little further work. :)

Dean,

I tend to have to go through a draft a few times myself as I often tend to pound keys to get it done, though often it's less of an editing nightmare when I am able to take a slower pace. I did a prequel prompted by the questions a reader had, and since I did it while the Wife was on maternity leave in a time frame of two weeks, it's not bad but I have a lot of schtuff to go back and tweak into shape.

If you think there are a few parts that could use a little work, odds are anyone who reads the draft will zero in on those parts.

This depends on what you are looking for from your beta readers, and the degree you are willing to revise a draft based on their input.

We do give beta readers a reasonably clean draft, but we don't submit it for editing until the beta readers have had their say.

We also try to compile a list of specific items we'd like the beta readers to address, and include that at the end of the document, along with more general guidance when we contact them.

We tell our beta readers the editing/proofing status and that they are not required to check grammer and spot typos.

In my experience, beta readers cannot be relied upon for anything but the most rudimentary proof reading. They'll usually catch the obvious spelling errors and cut/paste errors.

But don't rely on them for substantive editing. For that you either have to train and trust yourself to do it...and spend nearly as long editing as you did writing in the first place...or pay a professional.

Obviously the latter is the preferred choice.

But even then, you should not let anyone see the manuscript until you've gotten it to the point that you're personally happy with it.

With me that usually takes three to seven full editing passes.

There's no point giving someone a rough draft. Especially if you're not paying them. If I got one, I'd probably give up on it after a few pages (or paragraphs). The rougher the draft, the more effort anyone reviewing it is going to have to put into it. That can be a lot of work if you're not being compensated for it. And, no, getting to read a really rough copy of a novel for free isn't any kind of payment or perk.

Rob wrote: "I really don't subscribe to the idea of not letting anyone see the manuscript until you've gotten it to the point that you're personally happy with it. In fact, I've gotten truly valuable input by ..."

I suppose it depends on how good your rough draft is. I mean, Jack Kerouac's refusal to revise is one thing, but I've had cases in my own work where upon finishing a rough draft and going back to re-read the book...I've found characters who began as totally different people than they ended up being. Had I given that to anyone, they never would have looked at my work again.

So I think it's important to ensure that what you've written is as close to what you meant it to say before having anyone review it. You just have to not be married to it. You still have to be willing to rethink, revise, rewrite if other people find things you think would improve the story.

We all work differently, so the thing is to find what works for you. How clean or how rough and ready your beta is depends on your and your beta-readers' preferences. I'm happy to send a first draft to some, but to others I know I have to give them something clean enough not to distract them from the story. I will say that I believe one definitely needs more than one or even two beta readers!
And, as Micah just indicated, it's also important to be ready for the critical feedback on your beautiful, perftect prose.

I wrote a short article on editing on my blog, but the highlights are:
- as Richard said above, do as much as you can first, then,
- build relationships with other readers and writers in the Indie community, giving at least as much as you take, so that
- you are able to find partners who are right for you, who can help with beta-reading, editing, etc.
I had to learn that this is a process that requires some time, and to accept that I can't demand instant results!

Good luck, and if you think I can help, feel free to message me!

E.,

Good to see another Andre Norton fan.

I like to use beta readers for finding places where the plot isn't coming across clearly or where imaginary things I made up are more confusing than helping the story. I try to get all the oblivious errors out before handing out something because I think the harder it is to read something because of structural problems the less likely it will be thoroughly read. Only if the reader is more interested in ideas rather than the grammar would I give them a first round draft.

Where I am at right now is that I am going to do a rewrite and then try to solicit a beta read. There are a lot of things in this book that need smoothing out, in my opinion.

I really do not enjoy reading my own work. *puts gas mask on and dives in*

I suppose I'll add that it's important not to get wrapped around the axle with beta readers' feedback. Obviously, they will not all agree (but if they do, it's good to listen), but it's your story and there are things that are critical to your vision and things that are less important. It's generally bad to start second guessing the key things, unless you basically want to start over.

And what some beta readers consider important may not be something you're interested in exploring. There are always people who want your book to be the book they imagine, rather than the book you want to present.

Take all advice with a grain of salt (except this advice, of course, because it's totally 100% true in all cases **shifty eyes**) and select what you think better advances your aims.

Part of the reason I am asking is because so far, sales of my previous two works have been so flat it makes me wonder what I was thinking when I made all the effort.

Maybe I should offer the book for beta reading now. Anyone who is interested and has already replied to this thread can of course put up their hand if they wish.

A little late to the discussion, but my 2 pesos...

I would clean up a book as much as you can before getting an copyedit done. Every hour that goes into their confusion or typing notes or whatnot is money out of pocket.

There are editors (like mine) who offer critiques; this type of service is best applied early into the writing experience.

Beta readers? I'd say it is personal taste. You want somebody you can trust that understands that the book is not ready for general consumption.

Lastly, I would definitely use beta readers after the editor is done, because even the best editor can miss something, but readers miss nothing... :) I had four sets of eyes on my book and we will missed a handful of typos. Very frustrating.

If you have friends who are writers that are willing to read your book, be sure to give them some idea as to how you want them to read it, i.e. like a reader vs. like an editor. A friend of mine sent me a few chapters of his book, and I ended up getting so caught up in trying to restructure running sentences and add commas that it took away from the magic of the story. Going back and reading it as a reader made it much easier.

I've derived a lot of benefit from friendly beta readers, but still, just before my most recent book was irrevocably sent to the world, I discovered that I had the same character in two rooms in one scene. Just one small phrase put him in a dual location.

Regardless of how many beta-readers you have, you just have to be paranoid and re-read your manuscript right through for the 19th time as a final continuity check.

My experience has been that even with an editor, a proofreader, alpha-readers, beta-readers, and so on, something will always slip through no matter how many eyes look at your work before release.

This is why it helps to keep a file for later corrections and make note of what others find.

R.F.G. wrote: "My experience has been that even with an editor, a proofreader, alpha-readers, beta-readers, and so on, something will always slip through no matter how many eyes look at your work before release.
..."

YES.

R.F.G. wrote: "My experience has been that even with an editor, a proofreader, alpha-readers, beta-readers, and so on, something will always slip through no matter how many eyes look at your work before release..."

Happens in all books, SPA or big publisher, doesn't matter.

And in every format you publish, the chances are new mistakes will crop up.

Take eBooks for example. Your book's manuscript could be absolutely perfect. No errors at all. However, when formatting it strange things can happen. I just found several cases where my auto-replace of double quotes with HTML special characters got confused. At the end of a line of dialog--which ended in an ellipsis instead of a period--the auto-replace put a left double quote instead of a right double quote.

Not a big deal, but looks screwy.

Micah wrote: "HTML special characters got confused. At the end of a line of dialog--which ended in an ellipsis instead of a period--the auto-replace put a left double quote instead of a right double quote...."

My word processing program does that when I end a sentence with —
I'm aware of it as I write, so I correct it as I type. It doesn't seem to be just a function of formatting to ebooks; it happens with the original doc.

Ken wrote: "My word processing program does that when I end a sentence with —
I'm aware of it as I write, so I correct it as I type. It doesn't seem to be just a function of formatting to ebooks; it happens with the original doc. "

That would likely be a background setting under Autocorrect.

I looked for it when I first started noticing it, couldn't find anything. I use Fn & Alt 0151 to make an em-dash, so that might be the problem.

Ken wrote: "I looked for it when I first started noticing it, couldn't find anything. I use Fn & Alt 0151 to make an em-dash, so that might be the problem."

If you look under where the auto-format / auto-correct lists replace one thing with another it can be tweaked there, as Function / Control Keys don't always work the same way in different word processors.

Tried it. Even tried to get it to replace -- with — and that didn't work either. I'm no doubt doing something wrong. I can input it on the auto-format, but it ignores it while I'm typing even tho it does make other corrections I've previously listed. I'm not sure it recognizes the character.

Ken wrote: "Tried it. Even tried to get it to replace -- with — and that didn't work either. I'm no doubt doing something wrong. I can input it on the auto-format, but it ignores it while I'm typing even th..."

Ken, I don't think you are. As you say, Word (2000 ands 2010) does not seem to recognize an em-dash as proper character, so if you put a curly quote after it, it points the wrong way. All I've been able to do is type the quote at the end of the word, and then insert the em-dash.

It's a similar thing with contractions. When you type 'em for them, the quote points to the right, when the convention is to have it point to the left. I think this is one of the more useless conventions and I wish the CMOS people (not the chip makers) would just ditch it.

To correct the quotation mark after the dash I always add two of them--the second one is correct. Then I delete the preceding one. I use LibreOffice, which apparently has some things in common with Word, including auto-correct and the em-dash.

Ken wrote: "The correct the quotation mark after the dash I always add two of them--the second one is correct. Then I delete the preceding one..."

That's a good point! I should've thought of that.

I use Word 97 and was able to set quotes and em-dashes.

I don't think I've had any of these issues with OpenOffice and Calibre. I haven't found any, anyway.

I am still trying to find a beta-reader for my book...

R.F.G. wrote: "I use Word 97 and was able to set quotes and em-dashes."

How are you making em-dashes? I use the extended ASCII character and I suspect that has something to do with it. (I prefer Word 97 in some ways, but it got twitchy on my machine, even with the service pack installed. Word 2000 has been more stable.)

*is now looking very unhappy and sad* beta... reader...?

Owen wrote: "How are you making em-dashes? I use the extended ASCII character and I suspect that has something to do with it. (I prefer Word 97 in some ways, but it got twitchy on my machine, even with the service pack installed. Word 2000 has been more stable.)
"

Under Tools Options go to Compatibility and set it to emulate WordPerfect 6.x, then under Tools AutoCorrect check how yours is set to deal with making em-dashes, and you can check it on the AutoFormat tab as well.

If you're working in an existing manuscript and you need to update prior entries, you can do a Find / Replace after checking settings.

I started out using em-dashes, and when I printed my first book they looked too long, so I went back to the standard Word dash. I think it's an en-dash, though I wouldn't swear to it.

I don't try to do the formatting while I create. For books published outside of Amazon, I use the nuclear method and end up running a bunch of find/replaces (Word 2010).

For my Kindle stuff I do the same thing, only my text is imported into NotePad++ where I run macros to tidy things up, and then build the eBook in HTML.

Once I isolate specific issues, I can add them to my macros. However looking at some of my older stuff lately, I still found some issues.

Oh, and just to be pedantic, en-dashes are the normal hyphen and should be used in words like en-dash. ;D

The reason em-dashes are longer is specifically to make them distinguishable from hyphons. I mean w/out that distinction it would be very difficult to understand some sentences!

"I use en-dashes-the short hyphon symbol in words like en-dash-instead of em-dahses because em-dashes are too long."

**head scratch**

"I use en-dashes—the short hyphon symbol in words like en-dash—instead of em-dahses because em-dashes are too long."

**OH! Got it!**

Micah wrote: "Oh, and just to be pedantic, en-dashes are the normal hyphen and should be used in words like en-dash. ;D ..."

The en-dash ASCII character (U+2013, alt 0150) ~2x the length of a hyphen And an em-dash is ~3x the length of a hyphen.

— em-dash
– en-dash
- hyphen

I thought that was standard. Is it font specific?

R.F.G. wrote: "Under Tools Options go to Compatibility and set it to emulate WordPerfect 6.x, then under Tools AutoCorrect check how yours is set to deal with making em-dashes, and you can check it on the AutoFormat tab as well..."

And Word then sees the em-dash as a "valid" character? I've always used -- with autocorrect to alt+0151. That character seemed more tractible going between versions and into HTML (where I replace it with the HTML code).

Owen wrote: "I thought that was standard. Is it font specific?"

Huh...I think I was confused because the font I use and the screen size I use makes it difficult to tell the difference between the hyphen and en-dash unless they're right next to each other. But I just tried it and you're right.

Reading up on them, though, I find this (and I'm not sure if this varies between, say, the Chicago Manual of Style and other styles):

* An em-dash is typically used as a stand-in for a comma or parenthesis to separate out phrases

* An en-dash is used to connect values in a range or that are related: when you're expressing a "to" relationship, such as "in years 1968–1969" or "pages 18–20."

* A hyphen is used to join words in a compound construction, like "self-important" and "em-dash"...and of course, hyphenated names.

If em-dashes look too long in a printed book, it's probably the font's fault. They'll be fine in an eBook as long as you don't force a font on the text.

Very interesting. Thanks for the education Micah. Not sure when I'll use it, but it is good to know just in case.

So that's what you do with an en-dash. I've always wondered.

I once read some style advice (university English dept) that said em-dash tended to be used to emphasize a clause, while parenthesis tended to be used to "mute" it (that is, something you could leave out without compromising the sentence -- like this!).

I thought that was interesting and not bad advice, overall.

Looking back, I think I can confirm I had a font problem. I had used em-dashes for phrases -- like this -- and en-dashes in place of hyphens. In Times New Roman, that came out looking awful. I now notice that the hyphen is not just shorter but much more tightly kerned than the en-dash. Once I corrected that, it looked a lot better. But in Bookman Old Style (which I now use for print), the differences are a lot less marked. Anyway, the word defaults seem to work OK. I also decided I was using dashed phrases too much, and try to avoid them now.

Owen wrote: "I once read some style advice (university English dept) that said em-dash tended to be used to emphasize a clause, while parenthesis tended to be used to "mute" it (that is, something you could leave out without compromising the sentence -- like this!)."

Intuitively that's how I've been using it: parenthesis for an aside, em-dash for emphasis.

Oh, and I checked CMOS after my previous post and they agreed with the above, but also noted that an em-dash (or two, actually) are also OK to use at the end of dialog when the speaker gets cut off, or stops talking before they complete the sentence. Which is also something I've been using it for.

But I never realized about en-dashes. I wonder how many times I've gotten that wrong in the past (not that people will notice).

Micah wrote: "Owen wrote: "I once read some style advice (university English dept) that said em-dash tended to be used to emphasize a clause, while parenthesis tended to be used to "mute" it (that is, something ..."

My characters frequently interrupt each other (they converse like me) and I always used an em-dash for that, but I've gotten a bit of blowback for it at times. Glad to hear CMOS came down on my side on that one. : )

I'm pretty sure that use of a dash is correct. agrees, and that's my bible. I occasionally use an ellipsis too ... but that's when the first speaker fades out, rather than an interruption.

@ Richard: I agree. The ellipsis to me indicates the speaker trailed off at the end.

I am going to hope, like hell, that I can get this thread back onto what it was actually about.

I am dying inside not having any options in terms of an editor I can afford to get my first two books looked at properly (disability pensions, love em!), and I have a third book I would really like to get into "ready" mode soon. I honestly have no idea where to go from here. I am beginning to believe that self-publishing is not for me.

I have downloaded a trial of Scrivener and am going to experiment a bit with it, try to see if I can adapt to it and it to my writing style.

I am really not looking to publish a single short on its own at this stage. Given what it costs to get cover art, I would need a very serious change in my cash flow to even think about it.

Thing with short stories is, you can submit them to multi-author anthologies or magazines. Getting into a published one allows readers to sample your work without paying a lot, and should cost you nothing. A story in a published collection also qualifies you to join societies like SF Writers of America or similar. I can't imagine writing less than about 30k words, or I'd try it myself.

Richard wrote: "Thing with short stories is, you can submit them to multi-author anthologies or magazines. Getting into a published one allows readers to sample your work without paying a lot, and should cost you ..."

I think that is a good idea. I like short stories, both for reading and writing. I've written story that ended up being 120.000 words, but I like writing shorter stories. And I have read quite a few multi author anthologies, and I think it is a good way to get a sense for a writer without reading a whole novel.