Alpha, Beta… Your Test Readers

Are you a writer? And do you let others read your work? The word beta reader has probably touched your ears. In short, it is someone who tells you what they like about your story and what they don’t. But the writing world is, as everything else, evolving and the whole beta reader thing is more complicated now. People are no longer satisfied with the simple beta label and you can find various other expressions in the writing discussions. Each type of reader is expected to do something different and there are separate groups to find them.

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Your Success Stories: Tahani Nelson

About me: 

I’ve always loved fantasy. I love the excitement of magic and other worlds and pushing the boundaries of what we know. However, I realized pretty quickly growing up that all of the books I read were missing several important elements: Heroines I could aspire to be. Societies I would want to live in. Armor that actually covered all of your body parts. I was bored by damsels in distress and boob plate before I’d reached high school. So, I started writing the stories I kept looking for and couldn’t find. 

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Revising Your Manuscript

You have to do it. You have to go through your text many times after you put those words down. And if you are working on a book, you need to read your work many times. After you are done with the chapter draft, before sending it to your betas/critique partners, after making changes, before sending it to your editor/agent… Simply, writing means also a lot of reading. And that takes time, right? Here are some ideas for reviewing your text effectively.

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What to Have Ready for Your Beta Reader/Writing Partner

Your searching is over! You have a person happy to look at your manuscript. A person ready to give you the best possible advice on what can be improved and praise the good stuff. Now you are eager to give your new reader the printed pages or email them a copy. Or shouldn’t you be in such a hurry? Here’s a short list of things to think about.

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Book Plan Tips

Writing is a great adventure. We often try different fonts and page sizes right after the first half of the very first manuscript page. It has to be nice! But what about the content?

Allowing ourselves to be carried by the inspiration current and have no clue where the story is going is one of the common writing approaches. However, there are also authors who are more comfortable with creating a plan first and only then starting the manuscript. Here are some ideas for creating an effective plan.

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Biography: Lucy Maud Montgomery

Lucy Maud Montgomery was a Canadian author and her best-known work is a series of books about Anne Shirley that made her famous around the world. She finished 20 novels, more than 500 short stories, 500 poems, and 30 essays.     

Anyone who knows Anne and her troubles and joys will certainly see many similarities between her fictional life and the life of her author.

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The Layers of Writing – Part 1. Where

It is a nice idea to just have a seat, take a pen, reach for a paper and then write a masterpiece that takes the souls of the readers. However, everyone who tried writing and does not suffer from a narcissistic disorder has realized a shocking fact. Writing is not an easy thing. Just like any kind of job, it requires focus and skill that comes from a lot of practice.

The problem is that writing seems to be easy and not demanding. Writers often get depressed when they feel this simple act of putting some words together is not working as they imagine it should. The reason? It is not just smashing some nouns, verbs, and other linguistic life forms together. To prove that, this series of four articles will show how layered and complex the process of writing actually is and how the writer’s mind is constantly doing a multitasking job. Writing a story can be separated into four parts: Where, What, Who, and How. This article deals with the Where.

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