{"id":1871,"date":"2013-06-11T21:31:15","date_gmt":"2013-06-12T01:31:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/heather-maclean.com\/?page_id=1871"},"modified":"2016-03-21T16:05:44","modified_gmt":"2016-03-21T16:05:44","slug":"how-to-get-writingeditingproofreading-help-for-your-work","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.heather-maclean.com\/heathermacleancooks\/how-to-get-writingeditingproofreading-help-for-your-work\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Get Writing\/Editing\/Proofreading Help for Your Work"},"content":{"rendered":"

Your manuscript and\/or your proposal needs to be flawless. You only get one shot to impress an agent or publisher, and even a single error won’t. <\/p>\n

Thanks to Microsoft Word and a million online resources, it’s fairly easy to triple-check your work for typos and other no-nos. For grammar, I highly recommend Grammar Girl<\/a>. For style, get yourself a copy of The Chicago Manual of Style<\/a> (I don’t recommend their online subscription service). And for putting the whole thing together, I have a great Font & Formatting Guide here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What’s not-so-easy is making sure you haven’t dropped any plot points, forgotten to include a key ingredient, or presented everything in the best possible light. That’s where other readers come in.<\/p>\n

Not Your Friends or Family<\/strong>
\nI know, all of your friends loved your book. Of course they did. They’re your friends<\/em>. No matter what they say or how smart they are, they are not objective readers. They can’t be. They love you too much to tell you the truth should it crush your dreams.<\/p>\n

You need good, qualified strangers to read your book. We call them “beta readers.”
\n\"BetaFish\"
\nWhat’s a Beta Reader?<\/strong>
\nA beta reader is someone you don’t know personally or too well that can objectively critique your work. Ideally, they should be in your target audience, familiar with your genre, very well-read, and a good editor. Not everyone is a grammar goddess, so you might need more than one beta: someone to proof-read and someone to plot-check. <\/p>\n

Not everyone will be a good beta fit for you. You need to find someone you can work with who won’t offend you at every turn. And as soon as you really get to know and like your beta reader, you’re probably too close, and will need to find another one.<\/p>\n

They are hard to find, and since they are human, you might do well to have more than one so you’re not sitting around waiting for months for feedback. <\/p>\n

Where Do I Find Beta Readers?<\/strong>
\nIt’s hard to find a great match, so you might want to try more than one, or all, of these ways:<\/p>\n