Heather Says:

I have a beta reader named Heather. (Who had an epic summer and went to Spain. Visit her blog here!)

There should be more beta readers like her in the world. I’m so lucky that she’s agreed to read through my manuscript three times, and is willing to do a fourth.

Also I’m really glad she likes the book, too, which means she’s able to appreciate the characters almost as much as I do.

Usually what happens is I send her my book as a PDF file, and she’ll color-code her comments. Recently I’ve sent it as a .doc so she can kill any typos she finds (because chances are I won’t find them) and she still leaves hilarious comments. It makes editing so much fun.

This is a blog post to brag about my beta reader, and it should have come way sooner. Thanks, Heather! <3

Ignore things that need editing in these screenies–sometimes I don’t necessarily follow suggestions at once…

At the top of every page is this guide that’s helped me with the color-coded comments:

This is one of my favorites:

(The yellow part. I laughed until I cried with that one.)

This is hard. I have to skip so many quotes I really want to share because of major spoilers.

And she raises points I might not have thought of while writing:

(in case you’re wondering, no, he isn’t drunk and driving! :D)

Writing is a really hard job. You need great friends to keep you going, and believe me, I would not have made it this far if it weren’t for her. It started out as an emergency HELP I NEED CRITIQUE ON 5 CHAPTERS thing. And those five chapters became a huge project.

If it weren’t for friends like her, I’d have gone back to rewriting an eleventh time. Sometimes you just need guidance.

I’ll leave you with this gem–