Critique, Alpha Read or Beta - Which Is What?

Here's a little tease for you of the cover of UNDER A WINTER SKY - the midwinter holiday anthology I'm doing with, well, as you can see! Kelley Armstrong, Melissa Marr and L. Penelope. An amazing lineup and a seriously gorgeous cover. Look for the reveal on Tuesday, September 22 on Frolic! Preorder links are here. 

Also, I’m super excited to be doing this online event “at” Love’s Sweet Arrow bookstore with my brilliant author friends Maria Vale, Amanda Bouchet, and Kait Ballenger. Danielle Dresser, Editorial Manager for Fresh Fiction will moderate. Join us on Saturday, September 26, at 3pm ET for fun conversation! You can register here. 

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is: How do you define Critique Partners, Alpha Readers, and Beta Readers?

I think this was my topic suggestion because I was sincerely interested in everyone's definitions. Seriously, I feel like writers use these terms very differently depending on the person. For me, I don't use "Alpha Reader" at all. I don't even know what that is except maybe a response to "Beta Reader." 

Can we divert a moment and discuss that simply adding the next Greek letter in either direction doesn't necessarily make the term meaningful? I mean, Beta Reader makes sense because it's like beta testing. The term "beta testing" comes from software development, where "the end-user (intended real user) validates the product for functionality, usability, reliability, and compatibility." Thus a Beta Reader is an end user - in this case, a reader - who takes the story out for a test drive by reading the completed work. Alpha testing, in its original sense, "is carried out in a much-controlled manner and it is not accessible by the end-users/market. Testing is carried out to simulate real-time behavior to match the usage of the product by the end-users in the market." To my mind, if alpha testing occurs entirely in-house, then Alpha Reading would be by the author. I am my own Alpha Reader, I suppose, which is just writing and revising. An "Alpha Reader" is not one step earlier in the process than a Beta Reader just because alpha is to the left of beta in the Greek alphabet. I won't die on this hill, but I did have to mini-rant about it.

Moving on!

What I think writers mean when they use the term "Alpha Reader" is actually a critique partner or group. Critique is the first pass by outside eyes. It's the thorough examination of the work by someone who isn't the writer. But, people don't seem to like the word "critique." It implies criticism and - let's face it - no writer loves criticism.

I think what's going on here reflects a level of author proficiency, too. It has certainly worked that way for me.

When I started out as a baby writer, lo these couple of decades ago, I took writing classes where we "workshopped" each other's writing. (Workshopping could be considered a deeper dig than critique, where other authors may actually help create and shape the story.) Some writers I met in those classes invited me to join their critique group. (Big milestone for baby writer me!) That first critique group really taught me a lot about writing and absolutely helped to launch my career.

After a few years, the group burned out - as these groups do, for particular reasons, though that's a whole 'nother topic - and I moved into using critique partners. These were writers I swapped work with. They've changed over the years, though some have been working with me for over ten years. (Hi Marcella!) We tend to hit each other up for specific projects/problems/questions these days, rather than regularly exchanging everything we write.

Fast forward to a few years ago and I was invited to join another crit group - this one specifically SFF. It ultimately didn't work for me. A writer friend suggested that the reason was that the group was trying to dig into my writing at a level I  no longer needed - and that I, in fact, found was harmful to my process. 

So guess what we've done? Formed a beta reading group! 

It's a group of writers all well-established in our careers, and we read each other's completed works. (Or completed chunks intended for submission on spec.) It's definitely a different level of analysis with thoughts on clarifications or missed opportunities. So far it's working great!

What's key is to figure out what will most help our process at that time. Not always easy, but like everything - a work in progress!

What Can I Say? The Scenes Flow

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is the easiest (or hardest) scene we ever wrote and why.

My writing process is that I sit here at the keyboard, open a new file in WORD, type the book’s working title, my name, the words “Chapter One” and off I go. The entire book is written as one uninterrupted chapter. (Yes, I do insert chapter breaks during the editing process.) I don’t think in terms of scenes. I don’t plot, outline or otherwise break my story into chunks, except on rare occasions. I’m telling a story and it unspools for me from beginning to end.

Usually when I start on a new book, I know the beginning, the ending and a few of the major plot events along the way. Every once in a while I’m really ready to write one of those key plot events ‘out of turn’. The last time I did that was for IVOKK, and I was eager to tell the part about how he and his mate Sandara were going to escape the Khagrish, who are the alien enemy. I ended up writing 7K words on that because it was in my head and ready to go. Then I went back to writing the rest of the novel in order and when I reached that point in the story, I inserted the already written material.

Shrug. Every author has their own process and if it works for them, enough said in my opinion.

Early in my career I did have a difficult time writing the steamy scenes. I grew up on hard science fiction books where not only was there no sex, there wasn’t even hand holding usually. Now I did read romances as well and some of them had very spicy moments but my author brain found it a challenge to mix the scifi with the romance and then allow my characters to fully experience each other. But I worked on it and I convinced my Muse it was necessary to show the closeness and intimacy between the hero and the heroine (I always write M/F with H/h) to fully present their story and their journey. I didn’t want to deny my readers the chance to see the entire story of how the man and the woman fell in love and carried that wonderful emotion to its logical fulfillment. Closed bedroom doors and fade to black weren’t going to be enough for the novels I was writing.

I find the love scenes flow much more easily for me now, after 40+ books in three genres. I like showing how much each person cares for and values the other and wants them to be happy. I worry a lot less about the mechanics and have I used the word ‘cock’ three times too many and what’s a good adjective to describe my hero’s amazing endowments. I get into the creative flow and let the moments unfold for the characters in the way they deserve and need to be with each other.

And always that Happy Ever After (or solid Happy For Now in the ongoing series) ending that a romance demands!

DepositPhoto

The Good, the Bad, the Easy, and the Difficult

 

Two fer one Void Bois, speaking of who has it easy in this household.

The good, the bad, the easy, and the difficult.

We're questioning which scenes are better, the easy or the difficult. I assume we're talking about easy or hard to write as opposed to read. I've read scenes authors claimed were a breeze to write, but they were really tough to read. Then I've read scenes authors struggled over that went down like syrup, lovely and sweet.

Now that I think about it, it doesn't matter whether we're talking about writing or reading. Easy scenes have their place. Difficult scenes have their place. 

If you're writing, you may run across a treatise by someone who likes to claim that ALL scenes should be easy. That you should always be itching to get to write those scenes because they excite you so much. Maybe it works that way for some people. Maybe there's a medication I could take that would make it that way for me. But writing isn't that way for me and I'll argue it's not for most writers. We all have different strengths. As a result, we're all going to be drawn to finding different scenes more attractive than others. For me, the easy scenes are the volunteers - the images, dialogue, and action that come to me from out of nowhere. There's a duel scene in Enemy Within that happened like that. Popped up out of nothing as I was trying to go to sleep one night. Little sleep was had that night while I got that scene down. It wrote itself, I just showed up to the go between for scene and keyboard. And it's a good scene. At least, I adore it.

But then there's the tough stuff. These are the scenes we agonize over. Well, okay. *I* do. I didn't get to do emo teen angst, okay? I make up for it when I write. 

The tough scene came at the end of Enemy Within when I sat staring at the last (unwritten) quarter of the book wondering what on earth to do. It took a critique partner snapping at me to go away and make everything much, much worse for the final climax scene. It was just the kick in the brain necessary to really start digging into problem-solving those final pages. It was torturous and it took long, hard hours of writing and rewriting to make things as grim as they needed to be. But you know, a funny thing happened on the way to bloody and grim - I began enjoying myself. It was mighty damned satisfying to hack my way through the weeds and uncover something worthwhile. Hard as the scene was to write, I suspect it's an even better scene than the one that volunteered so readily.

And regardless. Both scenes were crucial to the arc of the story. So easy? Hard? Who cares so long as the end result is a finished novel.

Elation to Damnation

Ullr's elation face

  The easiest scene I ever wrote and why? 

I could go one of two ways with this one…so which way do I want to go. The easiest way I guess! 

The easiest scene I’ve ever written was the very first scene I ever wrote in the first book I ever wrote, the book that went on to earn me the national recognition of a Golden Heart.

If you don’t know, I started writing because after seeing me come home with armloads of books one too many times my husband told me to write one. And I seriously though about it decided I wanted to write a book that I could put on the shelves in the treatment rooms of the cancer centers where I worked. I wanted to give the gift of escape to my patients. 

But how do you start writing a novel? I knew how to read them—I was really really good at that. But actually writing a book was HUGE and I was at a loss. 

Then I had a dream. 

In my dream I was a young woman—yeah yeah not much of a stretch there but hey, start with the familiar—who had left her lover sleeping in their cabin and was in search of breakfast. I love food, even my subconscious loves food. 

My shoulders tighten as I walk. I know I shouldn’t wander out of my cabin—I haven't been safe since the night—but that only fuels my need to get out, even for a moment. The weight of my skirts are heavy against my legs, holding me back. I press my palms against the silky fabric, steeling myself, and continue on.

I follow the gilded handrail to the dining saloon, or perhaps it's the warm aroma of croissants and coffee that draws me there. I peer through the open door and my stomach cramps at the first sight of a pastry basket on an open table. Without a second thought I breeze inside without a glance at the room's occupants.

After the waitress pours my tea I look up and met the gaze of the man seated a table over. He absently nods and turns back to his discussion with the white-haired gentleman next to him…a man in uniform, a uniform that matched his highly decorated one.

My face goes numb and a chill spreads down my body. I glance around the room—at all the nearly filled tables—and my chest squeezes. I know who they are, and they're here to kill me. 

I sit frozen, waiting for them to recognize me, to jump up and point and scream my direction. But of all the soldiers conversing and eating around me...no one notices me. 

No one notices me. 

A heady rush fills me and lightens my limbs. I almost laugh out loud. I'm safe. I could get up, walk out of the dining saloon, and disappear. I'm more than safe, I'm free.

My heart rips in two and painfully exhale, "Hawkin—" 

I’ve left him sleeping in my bed...and our friends in the next room. What kind of a person am I that I could think to walk away? That I could leave them to die? 

A voice in my head whispers of freedom, telling me how easy it would be to stand up and leave it all behind, to never be hunted again. My breath fill my ears.

But is being safe worth the nightmares? My hand fists on the white table cloth. 

I half stand, and drop my handkerchief near the general. He notices—as I intended—and retrieves it for me. I give him a warm and demure smile of thanks, a mask that he believes. Then, I accept his invitation, since no lady should dine alone, and seat myself next to my enemy.

Yes I’ve written this scene before, yes I’ve even rewritten this scene a handful of times—the first time I wrote this was 8 years ago—and yes I’ve since written better ones for other books. But this version is as I recall experiencing it and I typed it out in under five minutes because it’s still the easiest scene I’ve ever written. 

The why is actually very simple. I experienced this scene by smelling it, breathing it, and touching it. So, putting it to paper comes naturally and even though it’s gone through a few revisions—steampunk aspects removed, a little magic added, some secondary character tweaks, and added clarity for my main character—the heart of the scene remains the same. 

This scene’s about being trapped in a cage only to find out you have a clear path to freedom…but that choice means having to leave something you love behind and you have to grapple with that reality before you can decide which direction you’re going to go. 

Elation to damnation. 

Alright, your turn. Do emotions drive your scenes? What about your easiest scene, was it driven by circumstances or the character?

I'm for easy till I'm not

On the surface, the question "do you prefer to write easy scenes or hard scenes?" seems like a gimme. Who doesn't like easy? I mean, really? And dude, when I'm in the zone and the words are flowing like the titian tresses on a historical heroine, I'm right there with Team Easy. But hold up, gotta couple of caveats.

1. Science thinks I'm wrong. Apparently, tackling the hard scenes in bite sizes would be better for me than flying blithely through the easy scenes and putting off the ickier, sloggier work. (Or so say some researcher folks at Northwestern University.) Typically, I ain't one to argue with science.
   
   
2. You know how there are all those people who are like, "Well, some day when I have a lot of time, I'm going to sit down and write a novel because how hard can it be?" Yeah, those people. If writing every scene was easy, writing a novel would therefore be easy, and those people would be right. They could totally just faff out a novel whenever they wanted. No work necessary. And that, my long-suffering, craft-book-reading, working-on-the-seventy-sixth-draft-right-now friends, would suck mightily. So, to make it harder for those people, I happily embrace the difficult scenes, the agonizing revisions, the doubt, and all the rest of this messy, glorious, brain-melting life of being a writer.

So maybe I'm only sort of for easy. When it's, you know, easy to be. 

Easy Scenes = Total Immersion

 

Easiest scene I ever wrote and why...

Let's start by defining "easy." For me, "easy" is not about how quickly words come to me. "Easy" is if the movie playing in my head flows smoothly, clearly, and in great detail. Great detail. I need to see the dust motes in the moonbeam and hear the white noise from the speakers set six feet apart in the acoustic-tiled ceiling. I need to know if that funk in the air is from mold, cold tobacco ash, or a broken perfume bottle. Is that creaking from leather or a tree branch? The level of detail that goes beyond the conversations and broad-stroke setting. The mood. The small actions the characters perform. I need all that excessive detail to feel immersed in the scene.

Total immersion is critical...and so is total control.

How many times can I rewind, pause, and play that exact scene without losing clarity or changing anything? The more I can do it, the more I can live and relive each moment while the camera pans left, right, and 360, the more I exist in the scene.

All that is what makes writing a scene "easy" for me.

Now, of all the scenes I've written, which scene was the easiest? The one before the one I just wrote, of course! 

Which scenes are better? The Easy Ones or the Hard Ones?

 That's a fruit that can be cut a hundred different ways. 

Easy scenes are better, because writing them was EASY. I mean, come on, people, easy is always preferred.

Hard Scenes are better, because, damn it, you draw emotional blood and use that to pen your words and heartfelt emotions. 

See? entirely different slices and different answers, but at the end of the day, I have to agree with Jeffe. I can't tell the difference four months later. I can't look back and KNOW for certain if a scene was easy or difficult. There are a few exceptions, but only a few. 

It's about discipline for me. I write every day. (Excusing illnesses like that annoying bout of cancer that knocked me off my writing horse for half a year and left me crawling in the dirt for another four months.)

It's rather like being a runner. After a while, you build up mental muscles and it all SEEMS easier because you've learned to muscle through the hard stuff. That's why I write EVERY DAY. Its how I build up the muscles. I may not be able to run a marathon, but, kids, even after that cancer thing, when I got back on my feet, I was writing faster than most writers I know.

So I'm afraid I can't really answer this question for y9u. It's all about the same for me. 

The Season of the Witch is on the way, and I'm in a Halloween mood. So here are

the covers for my Halloween collection of stories, and for my Halloween Novel. Both by the amazing Dan Brereton. 

Which Are Better - the Easy Scenes or the Hard Ones?

 

This is a band of smoke from the California fires streaming into New Mexico. It's fascinating what an obvious demarcation it makes in the sky. Compare this to where I am (the blue dot) on the smoke map. So happy to be in the blue sky section today!

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is the easiest scene we ever wrote and why. 

I have no idea what the answer would be for me - but I can tell you exactly why that's the case.

Easy writing or hard writing: doesn't matter and isn't worth thinking about. 

It's tempting to assign value to hard work. We grow up learning to focus effort and that hard work will be rewarded. We also celebrate talent and marvel at those people who accomplish amazing things when they're very young, challenged, or with brilliant ease.

So, we think: that was really difficult, so it must be valuable!

Or, we think: that writing poured out like clear spring water so it must be really good!

I'll tell you what I've learned. 

1. The hard-to-write scenes are exhausting and make me want to pull my hair out and give up being a writer. 
2. Those scenes that pour out are a sheer joy and making being a writer totally worth it.
3.  When I go back over the writing later, I have no idea which was which. I can't tell the difference.

I can't tell you what was the easiest scene I ever wrote, much less why. There's no rhyme or reason to it. Some writing comes easy, some resists so hard that every word is like pulling a tooth. The only effect is on my attitude, so I do my best to remind myself of this:

Easy, hard, fast, slow - it's all progress and that's the only thing that matters.