As some of you may know, I’m in the midst of totally butchering the first draft I wrote of THE LAST GODDESS. I’ve rewritten about 90% of it from scratch (and hooboy, have I grown as a writer since 2014).
Throughout this whole rewrite, I’ve decided to do something insane: have each chapter be utterly eviscerated immediately after I finish it. That means hitting save and then shunting it off to an editor and then a trio of alpha readers.
Specifically, the process has been:
- Complete a chapter (then move onto the next chapter while steps 2-5 occur)
- Send it over to my editor (who professionally edits for my company, Fablesmithy) for a quick dev + line edit
- Incorporate his edits
- Throw it to
the wolvesmy trusted coterie of alpha readers - Incorporate their feedback
- Repeat process for the next chapter
I’m blessed that my friend group consists of savvy, hardcore readers. For this draft, I ended up with three alpha readers (+ the editor): a librarian, a fellow writer, and a psychologist. At the outset, I created a Discord server where these readers, the editor, and some other friends could all discuss the book together as I upload chapters every week.
As of today, I’m 80% of the way through the rewrite and feel as if I can accurate answer: Would I do it this way again?
The Editor: Yes & No.
The hardest part of this process has been getting through the editor’s comments first (who, for full disclosure, is my partner; I’m thankful that he does not coddle me while editing; the kid gloves were shredded and turned into birthday confetti). Given that I already struggle with perfectionism, sometimes going through edits and then writing a new scene on the same day is…rough. I can power through it, but it has made the creative process harder.
However, there have been a number of benefits, as well:
- The feedback has been phenomenal. If I can’t seem to wrap my head around why a scene isn’t clicking, my editor can almost always tell me why.
- Details, consistency, and stress-testing the worldbuilding are addressed immediately. This has helped strengthen how “lived in” this fantasy world feels.
- My prose has strengthened along the way. My editor is very sensitive to the idiosyncratic ways I structure sentences and helped break me of some undesirable habits early in the process.
- The live edits have helped ensure there’s less work to do once this draft is done. I tend to write in a “brick by brick” approach, meaning that I’m constantly building on top of what happened in the prior scene. If one of those bricks is weak, it tends to carry forward in future scenes. This approach has ensured all the bricks are solid before proceeding.
Overall, I think time constraints would determine whether or not I’d take this approach again. Edits need breathing room in order to emotionally digest them, let alone to implement.
The Alpha Readers: Yes.
Getting near-immediate feedback from alpha readers has been nothing but fun and beneficial:
- It’s kept me on task. My cadence has to been to upload 1-2 chapters a week. When I’m falling behind, my readers will playfully nag me for the next chapter, which is the perfect amount of stress + expectations to kick my ass into gear.
- When I’m unsure about a direction I’ve decided to take the story, I can find out quickly if it’s working or not. Recently, I uploaded a half-finished chapter and asked where my readers’ minds were at the conclusion of the scene. Knowing this helped me craft the direction the following scene would go.
- The encouragement! My alpha readers are absolutely wonderful. Their excitement, their praise, their notes have all been immensely motivating. Their support has saved me on those days where I feel like a caveman struggling to hammer together nouns and verbs.
- They’ve grounded the story. Most helpfully, they’ve let me know when the worldbuilding has been muddy or unclear. They also help me to know when I’ve gone too far in making a character unlikeable (I do love me some morally gray protagonists). The mix opinions of have also given me a spectrum of responses I can expect from a wider audience, as well.
Ultimately, my verdict is: I think this process has slowed down my drafting while saving time in the end. Along the way, I’ve fixed plot issues, unclear scenes, worldbuilding details, and more, which has ensured that early problems never ended up as ongoing issues.
If I had to write a book in under 4 months, I probably would shy away from this approach, because it’d slow down the raw creative output needed to match that deadline. However, if I have 4-8 months, I’d use this system again, because the results are totally worth it.
Just my two cents.