It’s Time For Beta Readers

I finished the second edit of my first manuscript this week. I’m not certain how I feel about it.

I’m kind of proud and amazed that I have actually managed to write and edit a whole novel. A year ago I would never have believed it, even though I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was a teenager. Now I have an almost complete manuscript on my hands and it’s time to put it out there. That is the scary part.

I’ve had a few chapters critiqued by other romance authors. One really seems to be enjoying what they’ve read so far, and it is so heartening to have someone say that about something I have written. 

One thing I need to work on, though, is punctuation. I always thought I had a fairly solid grasp on punctuation, but apparently not. So, that’s my next step. I already know that I hate semicolons. I think they’re pretentious and an over abundance of them just makes me think that the writer is trying too hard to appear sophisticated. I’ve always avoided them, unless I was certain they were necessary, but it seems I was wrong about that too.

While I go back to punctuation school I’m going to get the manuscript to some beta readers. This is both exciting and terrifying to me.

Naturally, my family will have a look, but I’m not naive enough to believe that they will be able to give me completely honest feedback. I hope to attract some writers and readers of historical romance. It’s the readers I’m most worried about. They are my target audience and if they aren’t happy, well, I may have to find some remote location to hide for a while.

It feels like there’s lot at stake at this stage. All the time I’ve invested so far could come to naught, depending on the feedback I receive. On social media, there’s a lot of posts about what can go wrong: no willing betas, betas who ghost, betas who only give a couple of words of feedback, and betas who have actually advised writers to give up. Concerns about plagiarism are also high amongst some writer’s experiences of beta reading.

How am I going to handle it? I don’t know until I get my manuscript out there. I guess I’ll find out over the next month or so. Whatever happens, I’ll be sure to keep you posted.