Beta reader has read Cog version 4, all changes have been made, now it's just the last editing run before getting it back to my agent. I'm using my new Kindle Paperwhite for that.
The Great Write Way, Act Three: Where's the gun?
A place for Buffistas to discuss, beta and otherwise deal and dish on their non-fan fiction projects.
Wait, using the Paperwhite for what? Not editing?
Also, go Gud!
For reading and making notes. Not the actual editing. I think I'm better catching things on it than on the laptop screen.
Interesting!
I was always a lousy proofreader, because it once it looks like the book page, I don't see the errors as easily.
Awesome, Gud!
Writers could learn a lot from that. That said, having done that hundreds of times, it's not a lot of fun. Especially when something is close, but just not close enough.
That's interesting. Looks like you've got to really hook her in the first few pages. Which makes sense, but all great books aren't like that. Well, maybe they are.
But they're all supposed to be, for the most part. If you have a really slow-moving and boring first chapter, most people aren't going to stick around to figure out how awesome the rest of the book might be. Ideally, your first scene hooks the reader, and failing that, a really strong narrative voice.
Well, "hook" means different things with different writers, right? I mean, with Elmore Leonard, it could be a planned prison break, but with Anne Tyler, it could be "These people are weird and wacky..I want to see what they do next." Amy, in my tiny editorial role at the disability-arts mag, I ran into the "so close!" story all the time, although not as often as people trying to publish their therapy "homework". That is a rejection that will make you feel like a total asshole.But we got so much of that, given our "special-interest" status that it became easier to harden my heart.