My Beta Panel

One of the questions I get asked now that my novel is finished is: “who are you getting to edit it for you?”

Thing is, I used to be an editor myself. I’ve edited hundreds of thousands of words of copy in my career. I know the territory. I’ve been brutally edited myself and it’s the best thing. I suppose that makes me a masochist.

I thought about hiring a professional editor for the task. I did that back in 2012 when I’d completed a children’s novel (more on that at some point, maybe…) but to be honest wasn’t impressed with the results.

I know myself that an editor is just another person. Sure, they will have experience of the ‘industry’, but they will have their own preoccupations and preferences.

So, to help me edit my novel ahead of self-publication, I assembled an editorial panel of ‘beta-readers’.

My group of readers includes hardened science fiction fans and those left entirely cold by the genre. It includes people who are ‘simply’ readers, and those who edit for a living.

One of them has a PhD in Literature. She’s determined my female characters will be “real women”. Another is an accomplished playwright and creative writing teacher whose advice has already been invaluable. One is a highly talented poet, cabaret performer/singer and an uncompromising ‘grammar-nazi’. Another is the world’s greatest fan of Jane Austen, a writer whose economy of expression I find enthralling. There are lawyers, psychologists and physicists, and one is my former English teacher from my comprehensive school days.

They’re all good friends, but before I sent them the manuscript they all signed up to my one condition: complete honesty.

And by heck, they’re delivering on that. It will hopefully result in a final product which is tighter, better shaped and absent of roadblocks where the reader simply gives up.

Editing: it’s gruesome, but necessary. You don’t have to “kill your darlings”, but you do have to put them through a damned good obstacle course first.