Let your work rest

Here’s a stupid mistake I made with every damn novel I’ve written up to now.

Here’s my old process: brainstorm>outline>first draft (with simultaneous alpha-readers)>second draft (with simultaneous beta-readers)>third draft (sent to agent)>Massive structural edits needed>cry.

See what happened there? I like alpha-readers for the real-time advice they give me as I’m writing, but then I tried to do the same thing with beta-readers. I opened up my second draft to dozens of people, and then rewrote the draft based on their feedback as it they gave it to me.

People told me I shouldn’t do that, but I brushed off the advice. “I’m no socially-crippled shut-in like the rest of your writers,” I said as stupid-sauce dripped off the pants I was wearing on my head, “I am an extrovert! I love it when people give me validati—I mean, feedback. When people give me feedback! I can handle getting feedback while I rewrite a story in real time.”

Well, I couldn’t. Not because the feedback made me feel bad, but because there simply wasn’t enough time in my life or energy in my body to rewrite an entire novel for each beta-reader. Trying to make make a new draft as the old one was being beta-read resulted in massive changes based on one person’s suggestions, which I then overwrote with more massive changes based on the next person’s suggestions. It was madness! And in the end I needed to redo everything anyway to make some publishable. I needed to find a more efficient way.

So here’s my new process: brainstorm>outline>first draft (with simultaneous alpha-readers)>second draft>send to beta-readers and agent>let it rest (note feedback, but don’t rewrite anything)>third draft>send to gamma-readers and agent again>fourth draft.

So that’s what I learned last year. So what about you? How can you make sure you get the feedback you need to make a good book without being overwhelmed?