Tales from the Blog

Different kinds of critiques (and how to deal with them!)

We've all gotten them. Critiques that rip our works into tattered remnants of the once glorious early drafts that flowed from our fingers like purified honey from the holy honeycomb of our creative minds. Too many adverbs, they say. Superfluous commas, they wail. No plot, poor pacing, didn't hold their interest, and dozens of other things that we've all heard before (and if you haven't, then chances are, you haven't met someone being truly, awfully honest about your early work).

Editing Your Own Work

Beta Readers Part 2

Hello again! Early this month, I wrote a blog post about how I select my beta readers and why. In that post, I broke down some basic things one might be able to expect from different kinds of people, and what value they would have for you as a writer. As I mentioned in that post, they aren't end-all-be-all concrete rules, of course, but they can give you some ideas of what to expect.

Beta Readers

So, there was recently a thread about how one handles beta readers. There were many fantastic responses about what people liked to see from their betas, and what people liked to give. As someone who works very closely with my beta readers, I'd like to share my process and methods.