Basically looking to trade reading feedback with people. Not entirely sure where beta reader offers and requests are supposed to go. Apologies if this is the wrong place to post. I’ve been stuck on a single chapter for the past 5 years of my life. The length of time to create this chapter has exceeded the sum time it has taken me to make the rest of the book it is in, a 200,000+ long high fantasy saga side story, and the initial book’s sequel. I just can’t get it right. With related books and projects, I don’t feel I have this problem. I would really appreciate any feedback, positive, negative, or either on this chapter or its rewrites. I’d love to get some opinions aside from friends that may be bias in my favor. I will be happy to read anything you send my way in return. My book’s first chapter (link removed by Mod) For context, its genre is a adventure fantasy with a unique magic system. Contact me on there so I can get back to you with your feedback too. Thank you!
Your link will eventually be removed by a mod. You either need to post the chapter in the workshop if you have enough critique credits, or you can also ask for a beta reader in the collaboration forum (not sure the requirements for that).
Thanks! I actually don't want to post my chapter on here, but where is the collaboration forum? (I do not see it in the main menus)
It's in the Applied Writing Subforum: https://www.writingforums.org/collaboration/ Based on the FAQ you may not be active enough yet to post there, there are also minimum post requirements, but if I'm interpreting it right, you're 25% done with that requirement. Edit: I think you can post there, but not sure if you can ask for betas or beta swaps.
I don't even understand how this is possible. Do you write one word a day? Once a year? Seriously, though, I'm going to give you some advice that usually works for me when I've been working on something for too long. It's called the blank page trick. It was a very successful writer who told me about this, but I don't think she made it up. Anyway, open a new document and start writing it over. Don't look at the old document until it's done. That's important. The belief is that everything we can and will write is going to be better than what we have written. You already know chapter one. You know what happens. You've been through it. My writer friend also says that what's important will stick with you. I've done this many times, and it works better than I could have imagined when other things aren't working. I don't think a beta reader is going to help you out as much as you think. They are likely to spend less than an hour thinking about something you've spent five years thinking about. And I do always say that no one likes to read a first draft. I don't know, maybe this is your 500th draft of chapter one, but the bottom line is it's not working and YOU need to try something new. Good luck!
Fantastic perspective. I agree. The blank page trick was something I learned way too late about! Just for reference, it's my third draft (of this chapter, the rest of the book was shockingly easy). What I usually do is take a break and come back to it, also life stuff can get in the way of writing My beta readers have been amazing, but I fear they know too much about me, my life, and my work. I'd appreciate perspectives that are more alien to me! The conflict within the chapter is making it true to what I want and being entertaining to people who don't know me. To do this I need people that don't know me. I can tell myself all day it's perfect, but the first priority is how engaged the reader is.
I don't think it's too late to try the blank page trick or anything else that might help jumpstart you out of this funk. However, I really don't think getting a strangers opinion on something that has been so troublesome for you over the past five years is going to help much if at all. It sounds like you've already gotten some feedback and that didn't work for you. I think it can be hard to both get and receive useful feedback on something incomplete. But, hostly, that doesn't really matter if you're not really writing anyway. It doesn't matter how good your first chapter is if that's all you've got. You have to decide to actually write to be a writer. And, yes, writing is a decision. I think you should be more worried about that than readers at this point.
ok, fair enough, I guess. But the thing about a chapter is that it's a particular arrangement of information that could be arranged a million other ways. I'd take deadrats' advice and try some of those other arrangements instead of beating your head against the same brick wall for another five years. Just burn the chapter to the ground and start over.
No that's the problem: The feedback does work for me. It works too well that I am suspicious. I need to find people I don't know.
So are you basing the deficiencies of the five-year chapter on your own evaluation, or on the evaluation of your beta readers?
I'm not sure that even matters. I think the problem is that the OP is still on chapter one five years into it. Sorry, @Isoul, but finding someone new to read this chapter is not really the problem here.
For me, the deficiency is the methodology I have used to conduct the beta reading. All my beta readers know me. The opinions I receive are too positive. I want the opinions of people who do not know me who are able to examine the material from a foreign lens. Until I get people who do not know me, I will be forever stuck on this book. I suppose that the issue lies less with the book and more with the standards I have set for release.
