Re-reading Your Own Material and Beta Readers

I read back through my novel You See, What Had Happened Was... and cringed...and cried...and felt like an absolute failure. 

 I figured I could read it back through right a long with my beta readers and get constructive feed back for my 3rd draft at the same time as my notes. I just got impatient. It happens. I realized that I might have jump the gun on beta readers when I sent it out. I should have read it back through first, at least. I was definitely feeling all cock-sure of myself as a writer (I blame pregnancy brain). It was nowhere near polished enough, for beta readers. One of my beta readers told me it was great for a first draft! This was my second...oh the hurt! In my swelled sense of accomplishment I believed that the book was ready for other eyes. What I had in my head though is not what had been translated onto the page. 

I'd finished cutting, rewriting, and changing an entire timeline. Which is an accomplishment in its own right (don't get me wrong, I'm still proud of myself for finishing a second draft). This novel has taken me almost two years so far. I just couldn't look at it anymore. I told myself it was fine. My grammar and spelling and sentence structure was fine...  In some weird sense of hubris I decided that I'd read it later, once I'd had a break. And I did. I went a whole month not thinking about it, reading my author friends book, and giving her my feedback.  

I had my son the first week of September, and about half way through the month, between his naps I started reading. It took me a total of three months to finish reading the entire novel while taking notes. 

Honestly, as I was reading I kept thinking: how could I not take my own advice? I used to be a teacher. I used to grill my students with revise, revise, revise. Read through your drafts before submitting. Read your drafts out loud. Make sure you catch silly typos and spelling mistakes before submitting your final drafts. Annotate a text, blah blah blah *teacher noises*. 

So why didn't I do this myself? 

This, though, is a good thing. I can only learn from my mistakes. And I have. I have decided to take this in stride and my novel can only get better from here. The novel can always get better. You are always becoming a better writing through practice. 

I put YSWHHW on my kindle and made notes. This is the best thing I could have done. I couldn't change anything when I saw a mistake. I now have a chapter by chapter outline for revisions. I bought myself a fresh notebook and hand wrote what I needed to take out, rework, and emphasize more clearly for each chapter. I also outlined when certain events should be foreshadowed more clearly in earlier chapters. I added a mystery subplot in my notes that was only vaguely hinted at before.   

Each of my characters got a overhaul. Character descriptions, traits, faults, and each of their motivations. I can now more easily reference them in my notebook than on my laptop. I had all of this on my previous outline, however, I've found I prefer a detailed and easily accessible notebook instead. I made an excel of my beta readers notes, which I can reference more clearly. I thought about going this with my own notes, but I got lazy, and decided to just refence my notebook instead.  

In hindsight I believe that I am a harsher judge of my work than my beta readers where. Though, If I'm going to be honest, it was pretty bad...however, I'm glad I got it over with because they gave me a lot to think about. Highlighting which scenes they liked, which scenes were confusing, which scenes felt rushed, and which scenes were more Telling than Showing. Apparently I did a lot of telling. Cringe, sigh. Another of my beta readers additionally called attention to where I should trust the reader more. I can't wait for my beta readers to re-read and see the changes that I've made and to help pinpoint other issues that I've missed. 

 I hate to admit that it was insanely difficult for me to view my novel as a new reader. Though it was worth it to find the key issues that I needed to fixing. Then to have to re-thing and write down a clear solution for how I want the plot and characters to tie up. Taking the constructive criticism of beta readers I feel is in itself a learned skill. It stings that the book you've written, been working on FOR YEARS, still needs work and a lot of it. Even though you had already come to this conclusion yourself after reading through it! Haha. 

I just want to say that I love what I'm doing. I love how I'm a writer. I get to create worlds and characters to escape to. I love that I got a few people that I trust to read and help make my book better. 

So go even if you're feeling discouraged know that you are creating something. Read through your drafts! The hard work will pay off.

Happy Writing.