Donna Maree Hanson, Author, Phd in Creative Writing

Today’s interview is with Margo Lanagan, a multi-award winning author, who is just down right nice and fun. Her book Sea Hearts is out by Allen and Unwin. Her website is here. Margo is most active on Twitter @margolanagan.

I’d like to thank Margo for doing the interview.

1. How many beta readers do you have and how long have you used beta readers in your writing process?

I belong to a novel-critique group called ROR (wRiters On the Rise) which first met in 2001. We meet every 18 months to 2 years, when we all have a decent amount of work to bring to the group. There are 8 people in the group now, including me, but we don’t always have the full complement of members; other commitments or differently-deadlined novels sometimes keep people from attending.

2. In what ways do beta readers assist you in developing your novel for publication?

The main thing they do is get me unstuck. They’ll let me know where they thought things were going with the story, where they were surprised and how they adjusted their expectations, and how far I fulfilled them. They show me where I’ve overdone or underdone elements of the story; they throw ideas at me about where things might go; they ask me questions which may or may not be answerable, from the very straightforward (How old is this character?) to the impossibly complex (What is the basic point of this magic system?).

3. Do all your beta readers pick up the same points?

No, but often several of the critiques will chime with each other on several points, letting me know if something really is or really is not working – but then usually there’ll be someone who’ll come out quite strongly against any general tendency! As readers we all like different things, and get irritated by different things; the beauty of this group is the range of viewpoints I get on my work.

3. Do you sometimes target your beta readers to particular areas based on the experience you had with them in the past? For example, one reader is good at plot holes, another reader is good at grammatical issues and another might be good at style. Or do you take what comes?

I take what comes. Mostly I’m curious about anything that their fresh eyes will reveal to me about the work in progress. I want it all, from all of them!

4.Do you always want the same thing from the beta reader for each novel? For example, when you have deadlines and only have time for high-level feedback?

I might indicate when I send out the MS that there are certain things bothering me – plot knots that I can’t unravel, motivations that I haven’t nutted out yet – or I might ask for just the biggest, widest-view suggestions about structure and theme and plot possibilities, as I did at the most recent workshop in January.

I’ve never submitted a novel to ROR without having plenty of time afterwards to take on board any suggestions I needed to. I always get such a rich assortment of impressions, questions and suggestions that I like to feel that I’ve properly assessed every bit of input in my subsequent tackling of the work.

I’ve put in to ROR uncontracted work, contracted but not yet urgent work, and novels that were, um, years beyond deadline. Some ROR-ettes have had novels workshopped that are near submission date, and will hold off on acting on the critiques until they get editor feedback as well as ROR feedback, so they can make all their changes at once.

5. How hard is it to find a good beta reader?

I don’t really know. I was lucky, in that Marianne and Rowena approached me when they were putting ROR together. Before that, I would sometimes ask my editor/s at Allen & Unwin to look at something that I knew wasn’t really up for editing yet, just to get another pair of eyes on it.

Nowadays there are several people I might ask if they were available to beta read, as my writers’ network is a bit wider than it was ten and twenty years ago. I would tend to ask for help for a novel that I was finding frustrating in some way, or feeling lost about; my general rule outside of ROR is that I should try and be my own best editor, and dig the answers to my novel issues out of my subconscious somehow, using beta readers only as a last resort.

6. Do you have any advice for readers who want to be beta readers or even editors in the long run? For example, what type of commentary to you prefer?

I have a fairly thick hide now, so mainly I want a task list, things-to-fix in order of importance according to the reader’s lights. That said, when I’ve viewed the quantity of work waiting for me, it’s nice if there are a few supportive things to top and tail the critique, just to reassure me that this work is worth doing!

Apart from that, impressions as the reader went through are appreciated, then an overall assessment of the misshapenness or otherwise of the novel, and the kinds of ways I might resolve any issues – characters I might think about changing, ways I might get characters moving (people can sit around doing very little in early drafts of my novels), reordering of events, thematic threads that I might clarify or consider. It’s all good – I like to be peppered with questions that require to be answered in the next draft. Just the spectacle of the reader wondering about and worrying over my story is a heartening thing – drafting a novel is a long and lonely process, and it’s great to have some company before you lock yourself away again with the redraft.

Thank you, Margo, for your perspective. Another interesting view point to add to the series.

Donna