Comment by ilamont | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ilamont | Hacker News Reader

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The author mentions getting a copy editor, but I would also advise hiring a development editor and/or getting feedback from beta readers. Quoting Stephen King (1):

Show your piece to a number of people—ten, let us say. Listen carefully to what they tell you. Smile and nod a lot. Then review what was said very carefully. If your critics are all telling you the same thing about some facet of your story—a plot twist that doesn’t work, a character who rings false, stilted narrative, or half a dozen other possibles—change that facet.

It doesn’t matter if you really liked that twist of that character; if a lot of people are telling you something is wrong with your piece, it is. If seven or eight of them are hitting on that same thing, I’d still suggest changing it. But if everyone—or even most everyone—is criticizing something different, you can safely disregard what all of them say.

In the same piece, King advises “if it’s bad, kill it.” (“When it comes to people, mercy killing is against the law. When it comes to fiction, it is the law.”)

1. http://www.jerryjenkins.com/guest-blog-from-stephen-king/

Howdy, author here. Completely agree on the early reader feedback. I went through two rounds of readers (alpha and beta) and it was immensely helpful in grinding down some of the rough edges of the book.

A development editor would be fantastic as well, I honestly just didn't know where to find one!

It turns out that many editors who work at major publishers also freelance edit on the side. (Source: I have many friends who work at Penguin in NYC.) If you want, I can ask some of them if they know any leads who might be interested.

I'd be interested in that as well. Trying to build something that's geared heavily toward developmental/structural editing, and connecting freelancers with writers. Could I send you an email?

How did you work with your alpha readers?

Ie - did you wait for your first completed draft before showing them the whole thing, or did you show them chapter/scene works-in-progress as you wrote them?

I gave the 15 alpha readers a "finished" book, by which I mean, I thought it was ready to go, so I had already edited it myself a few times.

The consistent feedback I received from those readers weighed heavily on the major edit which followed. I had made some mistakes, no doubt about it. The work is now better for it.

I then gave the "finished" book to a much smaller group of beta readers and repeated the process. Then I went through the book a few times myself to improve the flow. Finally, it went to the copyeditor.

Thanks for sharing your experience about using beta readers. I think this is so important for any type of media creation, from books to music to videogames. I am actually developing a framework that explores this called Lean Media:

What is Lean Media? It’s an approach to creating media content that emphasizes low-cost production, careful observation/measurement of audience feedback, and fast iteration. Properly incubated and carefully scaled, Lean Media projects can attract loyal audiences and grow into successful works and brands.

(more information via http://leanmedia.org)

Would you be interested in being profiled on the blog about your approach to using beta readers? If so please email me at ian -at- leanmedia.org ... I think what you are doing would provide a great example!

Your second "Createspace" link is wrong.

Fixed, thanks!

Stephen King, is that you?

Tough crowd.

With this approach, your novel becomes an average of what the masses like to read, rather than what you wanted to say. Engineered for the masses, so to speak. Which, of course, could explain why King is so successful.

IMO, this is an artistic fallacy that needs to die. Responding and adjusting to feedback doesn't undermine the integrity of a work or weaken its authenticity. Cycles of feedback and iteration are common to all work in every medium.

Obviously, you can take responding to feedback too far, but the idea of the artist-in-a-tower-birthing-a-fully-grown-work-whole is an inaccurate idea at best, and a damaging assumption at worst.

Like King says, ignore the outliers. But if no one understands a plot twist, or everyone dislikes something you really like, maybe take another swing at it. Iterate a little more. Creative output is the art of refinement as much as anything else.

(Good editors can also often help substitute for peer feedback)

Depends on what you account for as feedback. If we are narrowly talking about plot twists when writing an entertaining thriller, than yeah, by all means, make sure the audience gets it. Also, there is much to be said about a sharp, crisply edited book that doesn't meander or ramble pointlessly.

On the other hand, in general I almost exclusively read books and blogs because I'm interested in what the author has to say, rather than what I'd like to hear. Cal Newport discusses the idea of craftsmanship in a way I really like. When you're building a table or a bass guitar, there are better and worse woods for the application at hand that have little to do with how the craftsman feels about them. They are, to an extent, impersonal and external to him. A song or a poem, by contrast, have everything to do with the author and little in the way of objectivity about them.

Of course, all of this is a case of finding an optimum balance.

>On the other hand, in general I almost exclusively read books and blogs because I'm interested in what the author has to say, rather than what I'd like to hear.

I assume you read mostly nonfiction, then?

I'd say the author's voice shines through even clearer in fiction though. Authors certainly can exercise flair when writing history or something, but even more when they invent a fictional world and develop and atmosphere and characters within it.

When a fiction writer comes up with a plot, or even a turn of phrase that blows my mind, that's one of the best things about reading. Like "how did he think up all this?!"

> When a fiction writer comes up with a plot, or even a turn of phrase that blows my mind, that's one of the best things about reading. Like "how did he think up all this?!"

Typically the answer is: hard work and iteration, and many times not by himself. I think you're partially falling for the fallacy of the singular author completing a perfect work with unflinching vision. IMO this is incredibly rare.

Take, for example, Harper Lee and To Kill a Mockingbird. It's an amazing book. It's a novel that might at once feel effortless and also an unaltered vision of the author. But it's actually the result of years of editing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harper_Lee):

> Ms. Hohoff was impressed. "[T]he spark of the true writer flashed in every line", she would later recount in a corporate history of Lippincott.[16] But as Ms. Hohoff saw it, the manuscript was by no means fit for publication. It was, as she described it, "more a series of anecdotes than a fully conceived novel".[16] During the next couple of years, she led Lee from one draft to the next until the book finally achieved its finished form and was retitled To Kill a Mockingbird.

Everything from the narrative structure to the title to characterization is refined, over and over again.

The goal with feedback and subsequent editing isn't the dilution of an author's vision, it's the opposite. It concentrates and clarifies the vision with each successive pass.

When the work gets as broad as a fictional book, authors don't magically expand their skills like a gas to cover all the new volume. They pick a target and start writing towards the target. It's the realigning of everything else to fit that target -- that is how a design becomes unusual.

Personally, I am more interested in books that "no one understands" or "everyone dislikes". It might be because they are really badly written or conceived. I might also be because they bring something really new and/or disturbing. Even if it is both, I'd still go for it any day of the week. I'd trade any defect and flaw for something that doesn't conform.

That depends entirely on whether you are writing for the audience or writing for yourself.

Novels are clearly a medium for writing to an audience. Artists, esp amateur ones, think they can write for themselves and still create a novel. They should stick to their journals.

This. There's nothing wrong with writing for yourself, and only yourself. But, if you want readers, well, you have to somehow appeal to readers. They don't owe you anything.

Both approaches to writing are okay, but I think there's something wrong when an author says "oh, I'd like you to read this story, but I don't care about what you think".

I think another factor here is carefully picking your audience. If you're writing a sci-fi book, you probably won't get very good feedback and criticism from a bunch of elderly people who like to read craft magazines, for example.

One place to get feedback is in writer's groups/clubs. They may not reflect your intended audience as much, but they're also writers and would be better at separating their subjective biases (like not liking sci-fi) from a more objective analysis of the work, looking at things that are common to all writing, esp. fiction (is the writing overly wordy, does the plot make sense, are the characters believable, etc.).

I think King is actually telling us to do the exact opposite. The only time he suggests listening to feedback is when everyone is agreeing that something doesn't work. But if everyone is giving different feedback he advocates for ignoring all of it because then it is just pandering.

>With this approach, your novel becomes an average of what the masses like to read, rather than what you wanted to say. Engineered for the masses, so to speak. Which, of course, could explain why King is so successful.

If your goal is to make a lot of money selling, then "Of course!"

However, I submit to you that King is not a massive success because he targets the average. He is a success because he writes well. His plots and stories are not that great - even his fans agree. But his ability to suck you into a story is quite strong. As he said in his book:

"The job of a storyteller is to get out of the way!"

This means no fancy literary devices that let the reader appreciate the choice of words - that alerts the reader to your presence, and distracts from the story. It also means strong settings and descriptions.

> "The job of a storyteller is to get out of the way!"

> This means no fancy literary devices that let the reader appreciate the choice of words - that alerts the reader to your presence, and distracts from the story. It also means strong settings and descriptions.

This is subjective, though. I, for example, love authors who alert me to their presence. This can powerfully reinforce or enhance the story. Vonnegut was a shining example of this.

I have a small circle of artist friends, and we were discussing this at a Brooklyn rooftop over beer (of course.) They were a group of illustrators who work in publishing, and talking about the frustrations of getting feedback from authors who didn't "get" their illustrations.

One person then brought up a point: "If you only created art for it's own sake, rather than for people," she said, "you'd be in the fine arts. And if that is what you want to do then awesome. But what we do - making art that people will use, because that's what we value - is different."

And I think that is the point here. If the goal is to make a novel that people will want to read and share and enjoy, that necessarily means foregoing your own idea of what the writing ought to be. And that is a completely okay motivation to create art!

I liken the idea of alpha readers to the popular tech concept of failing fast. Why not fail early in front of a smaller audience (with a chance to pivot and improve) than wait to fail late and run out of runway (or motivation).

In my case, I thought I had told a different story than the alphas perceived, so, in truth, I hadn't told the story I set out to. Making changes was a natural part of the process to correct issues "lost in translation" as it were.

PS: rooftop conversations sound awesome, by the way.

I'm a published author and I agree that you shouldn't compromise the elements of your storytelling, but you should at least value their input and look for patterns. The rest is noise.

For example: I got criticism for character names, too much romance, too little romance, not painting settings enough, too much description in certain places, etc

Depends on your goals.

If your goal is to write something just for yourself -- maybe to practice a technical element of the craft or just to have total artistic freedom -- then go for it! That's actually a fine goal. I work on many creative projects that are Just For Me.

If you're interested in other people enjoying your work, though, it behooves you to get feedback on what you're creating. If nothing else, I think it's good for an artist to learn to intuit his or her audience's reactions. A band or a stand-up comic gets on stage every night and gets feedback, but for a writer it can be tough.

How can you the communication of your words is accurate without feedback of others expressing to you what was clear and unclear?

Like, damn, do you also argue that proper grammar and sentence structure is just "an average of what the masses like to read"? Because yes, that's what English is, its an average of what the masses communicate ideas with, within the mass of people who speak English.

Only if you sample your test readers from the masses. If you're aiming for some sort of niche, find testers that are into that sort of thing.

I know Brandon Sanderson also uses writing groups and feedback heavily. And I wouldn't say his books are engineered for the masses. But it definitely is a balancing act between listening to their feedback, while preserving the core of your story.

His YouTube on writing speculative fiction is simply amazing.

Not really. It is just a method for getting - and processing - feedback.

You aren't taking all suggestions, just the ones that 9 or 10 out of 10 agreed was bad. 6-8 complain? consider changing it. Not that you have to or anything.

With these categories, it is more likely that you didn't write something clearly enough for others to have your understanding of the subject. Maybe it doesn't make sense or whatever. Either way, edits are needed.

And this holds true even if you are writing non-fiction about a somewhat niche subject. If your intended audience doesn't get it, you won't sell to the tiny group you are aiming at.

I think there's a dividing line between plot-driven and character-development driven works for lack of a better word. I think plot driven stuff should pretty much follow very common heuristics (the horror story, the heist, the serial killer novel...look at 20ish from each genre and you'll see very common structure) and only deviate ever so slightly. King follows this and an excellent book that goes into more detail on it is "The Story Grid" (teaches you to become your own editor, uses Silence of the Lambs as a running example)

Or maybe it leads to people more clearly receiving the intended message.

King didn't say to take any of their advice about how to fix the thing they think is wrong. He said that if they all think it's wrong, you need to change it. You still figure out for yourself what kind of change to make. (Maybe I'm making up that last part -- I haven't read his book. But it's how I think about feedback.)

This approach works because sometimes exactly what you wanted to say just isn't that good.

Not for if it's just one thing

He says ignore the gradient

Alternatively, you can take a different page out of King's book, and get ripped on Schlitz and PBR and cocaine and write away in a blackout haze. Most of us probably won't produce some of our greatest work like he did, however [1]

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cujo

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