It Takes a Village to Write a Book

I am a writer. As such, I am a master procrastinator. Instead of going ahead with the querying or self-publishing of my second novel, I paused my writing to find a great way to manage beta readers. It turned out to become an entire platform and company (BetaReader.io, which I founded together with my brother Axel, and which is now used by thousands of authors to perfect their novels and build their audiences).

So when on one cold summer day (I live in Sweden), I heard about a major publisher organizing a middle grade novel contest with a grand prize of $10,000, I jumped at the opportunity to reboot my writing.

The catch: the deadline was less than six months away, and I hadn't even started writing.

Accountability is key

After some contemplation, I realized that what I needed was to make myself feel accountable. So I started drafting beta readers. I needed kids aged 7-12 and their parents, as many as I could possibly gather.

Everybody wins

With 100 readers to test my novel against, and some diligence from my side, I would actually come out on the other side with a pretty darn good middle grade novel. Even if I wouldn't win this contest, I would have won the story.

Getting to business

So now I had my audience. Next, I would need something to write about. Good thing I thought of that when I created my website and the signup questionnaire, which, among other things, contained the question: "Which is your all-time favorite book, and why?"

Based on the answers, I started plowing through all the mentioned books, taking an awful lot of notes of what I liked and disliked.

Fail fast and keep moving

Then, I started plotting. I took the mantra that I had brought with me from the startup world – fail fast – and plotted down three different stories over the course of a couple of days. I quickly identified and patched the plot holes, and then picked the story I would enjoy writing the most.

The feedback

Then came the first round of external feedback. I can't overstate how much I love this part of the writing process. BetaReader.io helped me identify what worked well and what didn't by showing where people dropped off and by aggregating their overall ratings.

The "final" draft

Four distinct conclusions could be drawn from the reading data and feedback:

The beginning was still too slow - Most kids want things to happen quickly.

I found a plot hole - A minor, albeit annoying one, that seemed to bother parents more than children.

Don't curse so much - Even if kids do swear, most of them don't seem to like it in text.

The ending was too abrupt - My readers wanted to dwell for some time before closing the book.

In the end, I managed to submit the manuscript 3 whole days before the official contest deadline. No matter how it goes, I can honestly say that I enjoyed both the process and the final story.