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The Big Edit

Something else I'd add, which I spoke about at length on another thread...

Try to find a non-writer beta reader willing to read your work and give you feedback AS A READER.

Non-writers are IMHO the best beta readers because they don't have any kind of interest in your work except seeing it develop into an enjoyable tale. Writer beta readers (I daresay) could be good but they would do things differently to you and their advice, on some level, will always be about turning you into them. Either that or saying nothing helpful because they can't help but see you as the competition and don't want to give you a leg up.

I realise how inflammatory that might sound on a wonderful forum such as this, but...I call it as I see it, and I never share my work with writers - until it's finished.

A non-writer beta reader totally turned my career around. These people are gold.
 
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Harmonytoo

Acolyte
This is a great thread. Do most of you wait until you've got the entire first draft until you start editing, or do you do some editing along the way?
 

BWFoster78

Myth Weaver
This is a great thread. Do most of you wait until you've got the entire first draft until you start editing, or do you do some editing along the way?

I used to edit as I went, but I've since switched to waiting until the first draft is complete. The further I get into the story, the more I discover about it. Maybe that event that happened in chapter 2 is all wrong because the character in chapter 20 needs a different motivation. It makes no sense to me to spend time getting that C2 scene right if it's going to either go away or need to be changed. I also don't find my character voice until late in the game. It's hard to get scenes edited properly if you don't have the voice right.
 
I edit as I go but that doesn't mean the draft is perfect when finished. Far from it. It's just that my writing sessions always begin with re-reading the last few pages - and when I do I inevitably start polishing, or having ideas about the way X in chapter 3 would now be much better if I went back and changed it to Y to mesh better with an idea I'd just had because of something I'd just realised about the words that flowed out of me yesterday.

The draft creation muse can be so powerful I sometimes don't realise the significance for the rest of the plot until I read back over it a day or more later.
 
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