Tough Love - a writer's curse

Yeah - people want to beta read my draft book.

Yeah - people read it and cared enough to send me feedback.

Oh.

Every writer who has braved the world of beta readers knows the feeling. We have poured our heart and soul into the characters as if they were our children. We released them to the world and asked our beta readers to love them.

Then there is the reality check - "we loved them, but ..."

I have spent the last two weeks going through the feedback from my beta readers for The Uni Student. Good news first - everyone loves Hunter (so do I), almost everyone would also be attracted to Geoffrey (I can understand that) and the sex scenes were well written. My husband agrees!

Then we get to the tough love. Having read enough blogs and social media comments from other authors, I was ready for the tears and tantrums. Instead, I read all the feedback, set it aside for a couple of weeks and read it again.

I am incredibly grateful for the time it took my beta readers to not only read The Uni Student, but also to write down their thoughts. It takes courage to criticise in a constructive way.

I then took their thoughts and worked out what was a consistent theme - for example, no one understood why Ava was still in love with Alex - he was too whiny. In my head, he was a small town boy who wanted his girlfriend to follow her dreams, but was scared of losing her. My thoughts hadn't made their way to paper. Corrected.

Some of the story lines were confused - a common problem with CYOA style books. Again, easily corrected.

The point is, on first read I thought I was a "bad writer - never to be an author" and temporarily lost confidence in myself and my work. Setting the feedback aside and coming back later gave me time to get perspective.

I know that when it is released, The Uni Student will be better for the tough love of my betas.

Now, back to editing so I can release my first book to the world - so excited. If you can't wait, the free extract is still available on Bookfunnel. Enjoy