Too Many Storylines - Too Little Time

Writer's are surrounded by stories - everyone, everything has a story to tell. The first thing that we need to do is jot down ideas as they come. Ideas are very flighty, you know - they come and leave of their own accord. If I am home, I jot these flighty little ideas down in an e-file. If I am out and about, I create a memo on my cell phone. The really cool thing about cell phones is that I can take a picture to go with it. Not that I will use the picture to do more than jog my memory - the rights of the person/people being photographed and all that.

What do we do with ideas that don't ever develop into anything? I hold on to them - they may at some point in time find their story! The ideas that are willing to be developed - some may go into short stories, some may go into books, some may develop into a series. 

Everywhere we go there are stories. People dancing down the aisles in a grocery store (I did see this happen, and it was store employees doing the dancing!),  the individual ahead of us waiting to mail a package, the exotic looking lady getting her nails done ... they all have their stories. And guess what - sometimes their stories will merge!

We are gifted with ideas for stories every day - we simply need to decide which ones we are going to run with, and which ones we will sit on for a while. Nothing is at it seems - you and I can see the same thing, and write two very different stories. This is the magic of life!

Happy writing!

(c) February 2019 Bonnie Cehovet

Reproduction prohibited without written approval from the author. 

Where Do We Find Beta Readers?

In my previous blog we discussed what Beta readers do for us. Essentialy, they provide another pair of eyes to check grammer, punction, story flow, character development, character interaction, etc. We don't, IMHO, need that many Beta readers. Two or three will do nicely. The big question is - where do we find them?

I am going to expand on this thought in my next blog, but I think this is important to take into consideration when looking for a Beta reader. This is a working relationship - Beta readers have input, and essentially become part of our team. I watched recently as a writer that I know and hold in high esteem reached out on FB for Beta readers. She was clear about the genre, and about what she expected from them. I was very impressed!

The first place that I am going to mention is one that, to date, I have not made use of. However, I do post a lot of reviews on Goodreads, so I do have a foot in the door - a presence, if you will. The group is entited Beta Reader Group, and can be found on Goodreads. I just joined the group - we will see how this goes!

One suggestion that I have seen is to source your Beta readers from the writing community. Yes, we want Beta readers to understand the genre that we are writing in, but we also want to connect with them, to have them see the big picture of the book that we have written. Remember, Beta readers are reading an entire book, and giving feedback on the entire book, they are not just critiquing one part of your book. It is important that we connect with other authors - with good connections we can put out feelers for getting other authors to be our Beta readers - and we can do the same for them.

Absolute Write is an online writers group that has free registration. I have registered to see what they have to offer. The resources look good.

Upwork.com is a site where you register for free, and post a job. This does appear to be a site where you have to take a close look at services being offered.

Fiverr is an internet site that requires membership (which is free), with a large market where Beta readers can be found.

Beta Reader's Hub  is a source blog on tumblr.com for Beta readers, and those looking for Beta readers, can post.

Now that we know what Beta readers are, and have a few clues where to find them, in my next blog I am going to address things that we need to take into consideration when looking for one. Stay tuned.

(c) April 2018 Bonnie Cehovet

Reproduction prohibited