Authors Electric

The manuscript, a second volume of my ongoing memoir series, was done and sent to my beta readers. I felt so proud, constructing essays using some of the tools I learned in Julie Otsuka’s Buddha in the Attic and a few essays I studied in the journal A   Public Space . “I like what you’ve written,” one beta reader wrote in an email. “My question is,” she continued. “Who are you writing for?” Her question floored me. I had countless bylines, varieties of writing experience, two completed screenplays and one completed novel and more than a passing understanding of how the English language works. Not once did a beta reader ask me who I was writing for. The second volume seemed no different. I was writing for my readers. Like me, I thought the tired cliches used to describe transsexual experiences like mine bored them. Like me, I thought they wanted a complex narrative about being born female then transitioning to male, and well before the internet, too. Like me...

Novelist Debbie Young shares thoughts from a country garden Have you ever been surprised at how few people know a word that you've always taken for granted? That happened to me this week when I was working my way through suggestions and queries raised on my current work-in-progress by my extremely helpful team of beta readers . Oh, and before we go any further, just in case you've never come across the term "beta reader", that's the book's equivalent to a test pilot - a pre-publication reader who offers feedback on a book prior to publication. A Harvest of Words Autumn story now available to pre-order The work in question is the second in my Sophie Sayers Village Mysteries series of lighthearted classic cosy crime novels, Trick of Murder? This series will run the course of the village year from one summer to the next. Trick or Murder? spans October to November, thus incorporating both Halloween and Guy Fawkes' Night, and the tail end ...

It is a truth universally acknowledged that an indie author in possession of a manuscript must be in want of an editor. Or several. Few writers question this. Not in public, anyway. Although you might be surprised to learn that privately, a great many experienced novelists disagree. I could name (but I won't. Your secrets are safe with me) a number of well reviewed, nay celebrated, novelists who - perhaps I should be whispering this - self - edit. Mostly. Although they are not afraid to ask for professional help as and when they need it. And will even pay for it if necessary. Beta testing anyone?  When the number of editors is legion, unpaid volunteers, they are sometimes called Beta Readers. The original Beta Testers were, and still are, groups of people invited to use a new software product or video game and report on irritating faults or bugs. So - conventional wisdom goes - you find yourself a group of readers, let them loose on your manuscript and follow their instructi...