Category: Alpha Reads

WIP: Toxicology, & Continuing Chapter 3

On By Matt FraserIn Alpha Reads, Work in ProgressLeave a comment

Ah, but this has been a tougher month than anticipated, writing-wise. It’s been a good month otherwise, but I have been distracted, and procrastinating, and avoiding, and…

For some reason, I’ve found it hard to get started with this scene. I’ve crash-landed my characters on an alien world, and then… well, what now? Inspiration seemed to be lacking, so I did what any writer would do: anything else but write the scene. I played with Twitter (the bane of productivity!), I wrote 5000 words of advice for my daughter (which she’ll probably never read), I worked, I took a sailing vacation with said daughter…

And, of course, as always happens, when I finally sat down to write it, after a couple hours of staring out the window, once I started to write the words flowed easily. This is pretty common for me, and I hear it’s common for many others, too. I just need to get off my butt and spend more time in front of a screen.

Wait, that’s self-contradictory, isn’t it? If I’m spending more time in front of a screen, it’s probably while sitting on my butt. Hmm, a conundrum.

I’m distracting myself again, without getting to the point. The point, dear reader, is that the much-deferred and delayed scene is finally here. And what’s the first thing that a crew who find themselves marooned on an alien planet, teeming with vegetable life, need to do? Why, they need to run a toxicology report, of course. They need to find out if they can eat said vegetable life without dying horribly.

Good thing Laxmi’s along on this expedition, as she’s a top-notch exobiologist as well as ship’s doctor, and she knows just what to do. And, so will you, once you ride along on her shoulder:

 

Toxicology

header image credit: user:CHUCKage/flickr.com under cc by-nc 2.0

WIP: Lagoon, and Alpha/Beta Readers

On By Matt FraserIn Alpha Reads, Work in Progress, Writing ProcessLeave a comment

Yes, it has been more than 24 hours since I published the latest scene from The Silence of Ancient Light, and yet I’m only now getting around to announcing it! What can I say, I had to run off to watch Solo with my daughter — which I quite enjoyed, thank you very much — but I’m back to do the needful.

And, in the interim, I’ve also done a little cleaning up of the organization of the scenes. After all, that menu was getting long, and unwieldy, especially for those using a smaller laptop (like I do when I’m writing all this). So, astute readers will notice that the scenes are now grouped into chapters, and this latest scene marks the start of Chapter 3. I hope this makes everything a little easier.

Before jumping into it, I want to talk a little about alpha readers and beta readers. The concept of beta readers is pretty familiar to anyone who hangs around writers much, and indeed is drawn directly from the software development world. Beta readers are “average” readers (meaning not usually other writers, nor industry professionals) who agree to read works prior to publication in order to provide feedback to the author for improvement. Typically it’s a nearly-finished work, having gone through a round or two of editing, and the purpose is to gauge emotional impact and determine if scenes and characters are hitting their marks.

Alpha readers, on the other hand, provide the same service, but at a much earlier stage in the process. Works in alpha are usually still first drafts, and thus potentially quite rough, and often alpha reading is done as scenes or chapters are written, so that the ending isn’t necessarily available yet. In “realtime,” in other words.

Does that seem familiar? It should. If you’ve been reading along with my progress here, you’ve been alpha reading.

And I’d really love some feedback. I know it’s rough, and there are plot holes, and technical issues. But there may be more holes and issues than I’m aware of, so I’d love it if you point them out. And I may be hitting the wrong notes with my characterization: is Anna relatable? Is she sympathetic? Is there something she should be more of, or less of, to be a stronger lead character? And what about the others? What about my pacing? Is the tension ok, or too much, or am I putting you to sleep?

If you’ve got suggestions, but are uncomfortable making them publicly, that’s ok. Just hit that “Contact” page and send me a message. But otherwise, feel free to comment right on the pages! My ego won’t be bruised… much. Let’s start a discussion!

And with that, allow me to unveil the latest story development: Anna, Jaci, and Laxmi have crash-landed on the alien world Kepler 62f, and, well, they could really use a break. They won’t get much of one, of course, as they are in pretty dire straits, so they immediately set about determining whether this planet is going to kill them, or sustain them. And… why is the sky green?

 

Lagoon

image credit: NASA/JPL-CalTech