Picture this: it's August 2021, I'm reaching the end of a brutal summer working in the archives--no AC!--and I've just completed my first graduate-level course. I've also just finished the final chapter of the manuscript that's been a thought in my head and an attempt on the page for 5 years. This is the manuscript that I decided to finally take a stab at again in June, and I've just spent two sweaty, hectic months churning out upwards of 3,000 words a day. I've planned and re-planned and doubled back and revised midstream and spent sleepless nights obsessing over this thing.
And as I wrote those final words, a sense of disbelief came over me. Had I done this? Was I really done?
It took all of five seconds before I decided that yes, I was, and that this was the best thing I'd ever written, and I needed to immediately start querying, because everybody else needed to meet my lovely characters, too. I wrote a draft of an Instagram story where I introduced my manuscript to the world. I posted it. I saw it got one view...and then I promptly deleted it. Because I thought my story was good--and finishing a manuscript is an accomplishment, okay?--but exposing it to the whole world for everyone else to read? Eh, maybe I wasn't ready for that. That's scary. That gave me a panic attack.
In hindsight, I'm so grateful that my criminally low self-confidence stopped me. Because over the next week, as I pondered what to do with my life now that I wasn't actively writing or thinking about writing every waking moment of the day, I decided to reach out to one of my contacts about next steps. A published author and a Rowan professor, I'd actually met this woman and gotten her business card years prior at a local library event for YA Authors. She predominantly wrote children's and middle-grade and had one YA horror novel out, but I figured that she would at least understand the ins and outs of the publishing industry. I had a vague idea of what would happen after finishing my manuscript: I would write a thing called a "query," which would sell my book to agents. I would give them a portion of my book, alongside the query, to give them a feel for my writing. And I would hope and pray, knowing that you could have the best book that anyone's ever written, but publishing is horribly subjective. I knew rejections would be swift and many. After all, I'd been through this with poetry, and I competitively figure skated for five years. I was no stranger to rejection.
But where would I find agents? And how would I know my manuscript was even ready? What would a good query look like?
With all these questions in mind, I approached my author contact. We had a Zoom meeting, and while I was peppering her with questions about the industry, she sat back and very, very patiently waited until I was done. And then she asked me, "So, has your manuscript been beta-read yet?" I fumbled for an answer, terribly embarrassed. Because yes, I knew what beta readers were. I did read obscene amounts of Hades/Persephone fanfics in my high school days, after all. I just didn't think that I personally needed one.
Or maybe that's not entirely accurate. I had a nagging sense that I did need one. My love-interests, both of them, felt super insta-lovey and I really did want that love triangle gone. I knew my first few chapters were...not great. But I was so afraid of putting my writing out there, despite having numerous writer friends and being a beta reader for one of them just a few months prior. I was scared that this beautiful thing I spent months and years of my life dreaming of would be trash.
But, although my author contact did give me industry know-how, she also told me that I was to do none of that until I got beta-read. And she warned me that the editing process would be grueling. I would probably have pacing issues. I would definitely have characters that needed a little rounding out. I may have parts that just didn't fit. And a beta would help me find those to tighten up the manuscript before an agent even touched it.
So, I listened to her. I got together two of my closest friends and sent my manuscript out into the world for its first readers. The going was slow...they had lives, too, but every nail-biting second had me thinking Have they stopped reading because it's terrible? Oh, it's terrible. I know it's terrible. I'm so ashamed to admit that I really did pester them both.
And although they will never admit it, the going was slow because it was terrible. The first three chapters, barely changed from those aimless, plotless, purple prose-y monstrosities from senior year of high school, made for difficult reading. As much as it was painful to admit, having a new set of eyes on the manuscript and paying attention to the sticky parts made me realize flaws that I hadn't yet noticed...or, in many cases, confirmed things that I knew were a problem, but was hoping others wouldn't notice.
They noticed. And I am grateful that they noticed. As my beta readers read, they made comments, and I started tightening stuff up along the way. Note to any writers out there: do this on your own draft. Don't do this on the live Google doc that your beta is currently reading. It's low-key rude, a lesson I've since learned.
Thanks to my one beta, I became aware of massively glaring plot holes and in doing so, hit this brilliant stride of finally having an emotional core to the manuscript. Midway through the book, Ais and her enemy-turned-semi-ally Saoirse must sneak into the castle of Arawn, god of death, to recover Murias, an important fae heirloom that's been stolen. It's not incredibly dangerous for Ais, as she's a goddess, and can always claim to have been sent by another god on some errand. But for Saoirse, a faerie, being discovered within the castle means death. But my friend pointed out that this plot point makes no logical sense...the fae and gods have no physical distinctions between them other than the color of their souls, which only Ais and Arawn, as death gods, can see.
This wasn't the first time I'd been stumped, but it hit me the hardest, because I could see no way around this. Until I lay down to bed one night and realized: when the Romans first invaded the area where Ireland/Scotland/Britain/Wales is, they noticed tribes of people with what we could only describe as tattoos. They called them the "Picts" after the pictures on their bodies. We now consider them one of many Celtic tribes.
...What if the Picts/Celts first started giving themselves tattoos to honor their gods, who were covered in tattoos, just like them? I had my lightbulb moment. For each act of magic a god puts into the world, they earn a new tattoo, called a rune, somewhere on their body. To be a god is to be physically marked, whereas the fae are unmarked. And what if Ais is reluctant to learn her magic not because of laziness or disinterest (my original reason), but because she already has one rune upon her--a death that she has told no one about? What if, for Ais, passing as fae means freedom from her birthright, freedom from being marked as a monster? And what if every new rune that she earns is another trauma? What if this whole book is about her healing--not through romance (although she and Saoirse do heal each other), but through the gradual acceptance that her power can be more than a curse? Through the unlearning of generational trauma, if you will.
Thanks to my beta, I finally had the beating heart of my book. I finally had a logical growth for Ais, and an underlying mechanism behind the whole hierarchy.
And this was just my first two betas, who got me through Drafts 2-3, not to say anything about my brilliant professor and my friend who did not beta read, but kindly helped me workshop potential new revisions. And these are just a few of the changes.
My PSA? No matter how good you believe your manuscript is, having a trusted beta reader is essential. As writers, we spend so much time in our own worlds that it's hard to see what has actually made it from our head onto the page...or what has and just doesn't make sense.
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