Finding a first reader

Number of entries received for the 2008 InnermoonLit Award for Best First Chapter of a Novel to date: 16

No matter how much of a grammar perfectionist you may be, every writer still needs some editorial feedback and assistance. It’s impossible to be completely objective about your own writing. Not to sound like Captain Obvious here, but you can’t know how readable your work is without asking the opinion of someone who doesn’t live in your own head.

Your first reader can be a friend, spouse, family member, colleague, workshop classmate, writers’ group, online buddy, or even a relative stranger. A good reader is very hard to find, so explore all those avenues if you’re in need of one.

Your reader should be fairly well-read in your genre so that they have a general sense of what works and what doesn’t. You don’t want a yes-man who is either blind to your flaws or afraid to point them out. Nor do you want someone overly negative who might run roughshod over your sensitive artist side and permanently deflate your dreams.

It might be that you need several readers to balance each other out; for instance, one who’s great at seeing big picture issues with story and character and another who has a microscopic eye for line editing. Just beware of getting input from too many different readers, or you could run into that whole irritating pleasing-no-one-because-you've-tried-to-please-everyone phenomenon.