System 1 and System 2 comes from Daniel Kahneman's work, summarized in his book "Thinking, Fast and Slow"! If you enjoyed this video, check out this video on how I set my goals & KPIs: → ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-hvMVb64ulxg.html
Delilah, I just discovered you, and the fact that you quit auditing to write resonates with me so much (I’m still in auditing and looking for a way out 😅) - thank you for the inspiration and encouragement through your mere example 🙏🏻 Where do you look for your beta readers? I’m trying to expose the first book of my three part novel to more of those and I’m just at 4 so far (all of whom are my friends 🙈))
My beta readers are from the online writing community on the Something Awful forums. It's a really great community full of stellar writers and authors and I highly recommend it. But you can find beta readers everywhere. The important things to look for are people who are your target readers and people who can articulate and are willing to give you specific, unfiltered reactions to your writing. Feedback like "it's great" and "it's awful" are equally unhelpful. You need feedback like "I got confused here because of X" or "I felt engrossed here because of Y" for it to be actionable. The busy season trenches are pretty bleak aren't they? And when I left it wasn't anywhere as bad as what I'm hearing. Hang in there! Do the best work that you can with the time and energy that you have and always keep your options open. You never know when opportunity might knock.
@@PaperTigerProductions thank you so much for your detailed reply and encouragement 🙏🏻🤗 writing before bed is the one thing that keeps me sane in this busy season😅
I had something to add to this, but upon completing the video, I can't remember what it was. . . OH! If you are looking to fill in space that readers feel like something is missing: systematically, there's nothing wrong with the story, I highly recommend, people most people are character driven readers these days, adding a scene, or a chapter, which does absolutely nothing for the plot. Doesn't advance it forward. But instead, use that scene, however long it is, to explore character depth, motivations, and really flesh out the characters further. Sometimes, you can make what is essentially, nothing, very enjoyable.
I feel like you've really got to earn those moments though! And certainly you don't stick that kind of moment in RIGHT before the climax. TBH I did put in one of those scenes right before the midpoint, because it had been pretty much back to back action and high tension until then. Same beta reader's feedback was "Plot is crawling to a standstill" with some more detailed comments that made me conclude they DID want a character moment, but they just didn't want the specific one I had written 😅 I can't win!
@@PaperTigerProductions Not necessarily, as long as it isn't RANDOM and there's a reason for that Slice of life scene there. I love that kind of thing, personally. We need more stuff like that. P.S> I'm taking it upon myself to write the story of Mordred. Grimdark Style, real proper.
Great info! I'm a huge advocate for LOTS of Beta readers. This not only allows you to gauge validity, but also tempers some of the string from harsh criticism. Continually refreshing your pool is important too (especially as from project to project some don't work out.)
Same. Hard Same. I usually have a few look over the outline first, and then the same ones with the finished story after cleaning up the grammar a little.
@@armanisar-feinial1789 And the bigger the pool you can also have some control over who is in what Beta group. I have one reader who is never critical. But gives great "reactions." They are a great gauge for "awesome" and whether my pay-offs are paying off. And I have other readers who can be overly critical, but I trust their feedback, and give their crits MUCH more weight. It's all about improving. And curbing the emotional pain caused by judgement of your offerings...
I'm so curious as to how many beta readers you guys use because there's such variety across what people are doing. Some other authortubers talk about doing multiple rounds of beta reader feedback...like doing 3+ rounds??? My reaction to that is...if you're doing THAT many rounds of beta reader feedback then maybe you need to have a closer look at your alpha reader process. To be fair, I think many of them are just relying on a single critique partner instead of a proper writing group so perhaps that's why they're not getting enough alpha feedback...
@@PaperTigerProductions that's a very good question. In this case I'm using Beta Reader as a catch-all term. I use a round of readers/listeners at each stage. 1. When I'm done drafting, and editing to as presentable as I can make that first revision, I read it out loud to my wife, editing it as I'm reading it. Reading aloud helps me catch what my eyes missed. 2. I then send it to 3-4 trusted Alpha Readers who will give me honest feed back. From that, I make my biggest sweeping fixes, and go through a round or two of revisions. 3. Then, if I feel it's "basically market ready" I send it to "BetaReaders." (Approx. 10-15 readers. (Note that during both Alpha and Beta reads, I give 6-10 weeks and try and forget all about it....) 4. From those Beta Reader notes, who are in that group because they'll give me a "Commercial Reader's perspective" I make my final changes, and send it off to a Proof Reader. 5. When that comes back, I record it, edit it, and then check the audio strictly against the text of the book. Sometimes Audiobook reading naturally fixes some awkwardness in the text. 6. I then send my audiobook to be listened to by at LEAST two people who haven't read the book, along with a few Beta readers who have read it at some stage. So long as there is nothing MAJOR to fix, it's "done."
@@AndrewDMth that's a great breakdown! End to end though, what's the calendar time frame to get through that process? I imagine it must be something like around 6 months per book, since we're talking 12-20 weeks for alphas and betas plus self-revision time...
Just say Rahelu is going for that sigma (fe)male grindset. Jest aside, I'm struggling too with characterization and keeping it both consistent and gradually upward through their arc. You want them to change, but also not obviously aimed at trying to change themselves. On-topic: you gave me some ideas on setting up my own beta-reading group. What I find most difficult to convey here is explaining my beta readers what they're supposed to be doing beyond just reading it and forming an opinion that's more than either "like/dislike"
🤣 I mean that is a meme for a reason. Re: beta readers, it's a painful process of vetting them. Once all of mine are through (and assuming I don't go out to get another batch because of dropouts), I'll do a video wrapping up what I did to set expectations with them.
I've watched a number of your videos and would like to thank you for your clarity and concision. I've watched a lot of self-publishing videos and have found few to be as consistently helpful. Looking forward to seeing more. And if I might ask, do you have suggestions for finding Beta readers?
Hey Warren, thanks for watching and I'm so glad my videos are helpful to you! My best suggestion for finding beta readers is to go where your target readers are. If you're already plugged into a reading or writing community, I'd start by asking there. If not, you can try the community at r/betareaders which I've heard good things about but have not personally tried-all of my beta readers were either people I know personally in real life who read the kind of books I was trying to write, or were people I met through reading and writing communities.
