Forum: Author Hangout

would you ever pay someone to perform a Professional Beta Read?

No. They're not Development editors.

Well, I already have a Development (aka. Content Editor), but then again, the beta readers are a fraction of the DE's price.

I never thought that many authors here might have reached the point of even knowing what Beta Readers are, much less wanting one, but …

One of the most enticing offers I saw, one guy offered a $100 10-page sampler (double-spaced, TNR, 12pt font). Though that isn't much, it would give you not only a decent idea of whether you needed to spend any more or not, it'd also give you a rough idea of what you may want to focus on. Again, the $100 is for the full DE review, not the simpler Beta-Reader.

No. They're not Development editors.

In that case (since you raised the issue), would you EVER hire a DE/CE, as they'll easily run you into the thousands, for even a relatively short book (50,000 to 70,000). That's a serious amount of cash!!!

In that case (since you raised the issue), would you EVER hire a DE/CE, as they'll easily run you into the thousands,

No. Writing isn't a business for me. I'd never earn that back.

I once had a DE review my synopsis for free. I learned you have to be careful. She said things like the hero can't kill someone in cold blood. I pointed out Death Wish and many others. Even the end of the first Jack Reacher movie where he shoots the bad guy in cold blood. She never gave in. In her mind, the hero can't murder. So she tried to force her biases on my story.

The feedback BB got from his DE seemed to be right on. That's what they're supposed to do.

I've used Beta readers. They're free. They're your target audience. They get a chance to read your novel before anyone else and maybe even influence it. That's their payment.

I once had a DE review my synopsis for free. I learned you have to be careful. She said things like the hero can't kill someone in cold blood. I pointed out Death Wish and many others. Even the end of the first Jack Reacher movie where he shoots the bad guy in cold blood. She never gave in.

Sadly, she was badly mistaken, as that's NOT the job of a Developmental Editor, who's sole responsibility is to ensure the story has no plot holes or inconsistencies in it. Instead, you was charging you for her opinion of publishing advice, which you NEVER asked for.

That's not just wrong, it's thoroughly unprofessional. She's reviewing your writing as an editor, and mumbling in a snide comment while doing it: "This nonsense is a load of crap. I'd never buy it!"

The point is, who cares if she would or not. She's not the entire publishing market!

As for the rest, I'm caught in the twilight non-publishing zone, with one written but unposted (to SOL) book, and a ready-to-publish one, I'm forced to wait until March to publish. I tried to find beta-readers on SOL (without posting an ongoing story to do it), so seeing the links, I'm considering it.

Still, when everything is said and done, I'm confident in how I handled the potential squick in my story, and I really don't need anyone charging me for unneeded advice (since I already know what the potential issues in the story are).

responsibility is to ensure the story has no plot holes

She saw it as a plot hole — per her biases

I'm not convinced. Having a funeral for the bad guy without narrating his death might be a plot hole. But killing in cold blood versus killing not in cold blood doesn't seem like a plot hole to me.

AJ

But killing in cold blood versus killing not in cold blood doesn't seem like a plot hole to me.

Maybe it was an unbelievable character. I don't remember. It was years ago. And when I tried to explain, she criticized me for being defensive. Not listening to the "expert."

These are more examples of anti-heroes than heroes. And perhaps that was the problem. If the early parts of the story portrayed the MC as a paragon of heroic virtues (a Superman type in outlook even if not in power) and then he suddenly with no warning murders a bad guy for no good reason, that would be disconcerting.

If I recall correctly, it wasn't the underlying character at all. Instead, it was the idea that 'Romance readers would never read anything like that!"

Again, that has nothing to do with editing, as it's all personal values (i.e. I don't like it, thus NO WOMAN will ever stand for it either).

She sounds more like a frustrated author (who's few books never did well, so she tries to force other writers to write the same useless crap she wasn't capable of), rather than a professional editor. There are a LOT of editors like that, who do virtually anything other than editing, and who's editing credentials are questionable, at best.

On the other hand there are narrower sub-genre to romance, such as paranormal romance where an anti-hero might fit in as the male lead.

If you remember the long-running TV show "House", which was a preeminent anti-hero role, there was plenty of romance—as his female boss, who was tasked with riding herd on his eccentricities—kept returning after every time he chased her away.

Still, romances are all about the woman being wooed, so introducing an anti-hero is essentially counter intuitive to the traditional bad-guy, happily ever after ending.

'Romance readers would never read anything like that!"

That was a different situation with the story, per an editor of the traditional publisher. That the heroine committed adultery. A no-no in the romance genre.

As to the Dev Editor, she was an author. She was hired by Penguin, along with another author, to co-write a series of novels like Fifty Shades of Grey after that was a success.

For an anti-hero such as Dirty Harry or The Punisher, to murder one of the "bad guys" would be well within character.

The novel has two subplots that come together at the end. The theme of the story is revenge. There's a hero and heroine in the story. I won't get into that. And then there's a second hero. I guess in your definition, an anti-hero. He's a cop hunting down and murdering the men who raped his sister when she was little. This Dev Editor said he couldn't be a hero. Heroes don't commit murder.

The novel has two subplots that come together at the end. The theme of the story is revenge. There's a hero and heroine in the story.

Yeah, I can see the inherent conflict in having the hero enacting revenge against the heroine in a romance novel. ;) It's kind of Dirty Harry takes out all the female characters in Little Women.

Yeah, I can see the inherent conflict in having the hero enacting revenge against the heroine in a romance novel.

Not my novel. The revenge was against the heroine's husband. The heroine was collateral damage. But it didn't work out that way since the hero fell in love with the wife.

But the guy doing the murdering was another character. I saw him as another hero, but maybe he was an anti-hero. Quite a complex character who couldn't commit to a long-term relationship because he knew, as a cop, that he would eventually get caught.

Yeah, I can see the inherent conflict in having the hero enacting revenge against the heroine in a romance novel.

Not my novel.

Yeah, I know. I was teasing, twisting your words to apply to the wrong characters for a supposedly humorous jest—which was apparently lost somewhere along the way.

If anything a cop would have a better chance of getting away with murder due to knowing how crimes are investigated.

But as a cop he also knows people slip up. Leaves DNA. Someone sees him. Does something unconsciously that points to him. Forgets to do something.

He's also investigating a serial killer and making his victims look like the crime scene of the serial killer. That's to his advantage—he's investigating his own murders. But one thing he has to be careful about is not saying something about his killing that he wouldn't know as the investigator (but does as the murderer). That kind of slip would be catastrophic. And sometimes he is called to the scene with very little sleep since he was out killing rather than sleeping. Tired people make mistakes.

Unless it's a very small PD, they wouldn't have just one cop working a serial killer case.

His partner is in the hospital. The cop's captain keeps threatening to put others on it because the mayor is on the commissioner's ass and the commissioner is on the captain's ass. The cop keeps talking the captain into not turning the case over. No one other than the police know it's a serial killer. No media at all. And it's not like there are scores of killings. And other cops investigate each scene, it's just that the cop is the lead.

Well, let's just say it was a series of murders with the same MO: all men about the same age, found naked with hands tied behind their backs with the same kind of knot, throat cut from behind with a right to left slice. There really wasn't that many of them.

But it is what it is. I think it works.

There are heroes who are uncles and heroes that are aunties. If you don't want an auntie hero, you need an uncle hero.

Then there are your basic anti-matter heroes, who always end up causing the heroines to explode whenever they hug them.*

Just kidding, as the entire 'antimatter destroys matter' is an absolute nonsensical and disproven concept—based exclusively on the poor name choice. They've actually created antimatter super balls in laboratories, which the researchers would take out and play with, until they got bored, allowing them to dissipate on their own.

Not offering my services as a beta reader, but shouldn't that be "Chronologically impaired" in this context?

Clorisa is chronically, chronologically impaired, constantly counting the moments as time flies by, uncategorized.

Nice alliteration!

Technically, "Clorisa", "constantly", "counting" and "uncategorized" are not alliterations of "Chronically. :(