Alpha- and Beta-reading
So in case you didn’t notice, I just finished the beta-version of Junction, my new wilderness-survival murder-mystery with alien beasts and geopolitics. You can let me know if you want to be a beta-reader in the comments, but what I want to talk about now is my alpha-readers!
I prepared to write Junction through the summer so that when September rolled around and I was back on my work schedule, I was already ready to start writing. My goal was to finish the novel in 6 months, and I actually did!
A big part of my success was my alpha-readers, who received each chapter as I finished it and then gave me feedback. I was afraid at first that showing such raw wordage to other people would scare me and slow me down, but the exact opposite happened. Their comments made me shut up about my self-doubting (because they told me what was working), caught potential wrong turns in the plot before they became entrenched, gave me ideas for the next chapter, and gave me a really great motivator to keep writing. I can’t stop now! Little Timothy won’t be able to sleep this weekend without knowing what happens to Our Heroes!
So I am definitely going to write my next book with alpha-readers…probably starting next September.
