Who, if anyone, helps you write and publish your stories?
In my last post I talked about how I didn’t think paid “professionals,” specifically editors, were worth their expense in indie publishing. The logical follow up question is, if not them, who? Who helps writers polish and publish their work? Or can you do it all by yourself?
Like in the previous piece, I’ll focus on the editorial side of indie publishing and ignore things like cover design and marketing. I’ll briefly discuss alpha and beta readers, critique and author groups. But what I, and I suspect other readers of this blog would really want to know, is who do you turn to, personally, for help in writing and publishing your stories? Please share your approach with us so that we can all learn. I certainly don’t profess to be an expert. Onward.
Alpha readers are people who read an unfinished, or unpolished version of the story and provide feedback on their experience. They are usually friends whose opinions the author trusts. Basically they are asked to say what, in their opinion works, what might not, and perhaps suggest ways to proceed. The YA author Alexa Dunn talks about submitting chapters of her work in progress to her alpha readers for feedback. And our own Mark Paxson has mentioned in a recent comment that he has exchanged the first 10 chapters of his WIP with another writer, to get feedback on it and how to proceed.
Critique groups, both in person and online are also a common way to get feedback during the writing process. I know of one self-publishing author who used an online critique group, however, it seems that she has settled on just one critique partner these days. I believe that our own Audrey Driscoll has at one time been a part of an in-person writer’s group that critiqued members’ work. I joined a discord group of mostly aspiring traditional authors with a scattering of published and self-published authors who will post their first chapters, or short stories and query letters for critiques, just to see how it works.
And then there are beta readers. Ideally these are readers who read a polished version of the story with the eyes of a regular reader. They can offer feedback on how a typical reader might find the book. They may suggest parts of the story that need clarification, or areas that are too wordy or unnecessary in their opinion. And they may also serve as proofreaders.
So how do you use these human resources, to help you produce the best story possible?
I’ll begin, just to start the ball rolling. I approach writing as a work of art, of personal expression, not as a commercial product. As with my painting, I want to create something that is as original and personal as I can make it. Though there are many cooperative and ensemble arts and complete originality is very rare, I view writing as a solo performance. Thus, no one sees my stories before I have written the first, second, and final draft, whatever that number turns out to be. In other words, the most polished version of the story I can produce. I write the story I want the way I want it, and assume that there are readers out there, somewhere, with similar tastes. Though please note, I don’t write to make money. If you want to make money, you need to create a commercial product, and you will likely need to write what your extensive market research has revealed about what your large target audience expects in its books.
Having produced my best copy, I then hand it off to my wife to proofread, knowing that, as my wife, she will feel free to criticize me, er, my work. And she does. Thankfully, not a whole lot, and I always find some way to address her concerns. For example she likes happily ever after endings for the romance elements of my stories, while I like to keep them somewhat open – life goes on after my story ends – and they keep open the possibility of a sequel. So my stories often imply an eventual happy resolution of the romance. However, in one case she didn’t think I had made that clear enough. I thought I had, and since I liked my ending, I added an additional scene with the couple after the original final scene with them, that better clarified their commitment to each other. In my most recent published work, she felt that I had ignored the fate of the other characters in the story at the end of it – the narrator should have been more concerned about them. While I didn’t think it was absolutely necessary, I did add a paragraph or two addressing her concern. In short, if she criticizes, I listen and usually find a way to address her concerns. She also finds the first 95% of my typos.
After my wife gets done with her proofreading, I send the story out to my beta readers. I have about half a dozen of them. Most, but not all of them, are readers who have taken me up on my invitation to email the typos they find to me so I can fix them, an invite I include in every ebook. They have stayed on and volunteered to beta/proofread my books before publication. As I have remarked before, their lists of typos rarely overlap by more than a couple of obvious typos. The more eyes on a manuscript, the cleaner it will be. And while I also invite comments and criticisms from them, perhaps because most are readers rather than writers, they rarely do make comments. But rarely is not never, and I consider any comments and suggestions they make just as carefully as I do those from my wife, and generally make changes to reflect their concerns. For example, in my yet to be published novel Berthold Gambrel suggested that I used a tagline a little too often, so I went through the MS either eliminating or altered the line here to there to reduce the number of times it was used. All my helpers, my wife and beta readers are all very helpful, and make my books so much better than if I had to do it all on my own.
So, in summary, while I closely guard my creative process, I also recognize my deficiencies as well, and welcome the help of others.
Now it’s your turn. Who do you turn to for help? I am sure we all have our own methods, and reasons behind them. Please share them in the comments below. Or, if you, like Audrey Driscoll, have posts on your blog about how you write and don’t feel like writing them again, please leave links to those posts in the comments below. While the name of this blog is Writers Supporting Writers, it is also a place where writers can talk about writerly stuff. Let’s do so.
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