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resonantYou know how, when beginning writers want to do something out of the ordinary, people always say "You have to know the rules to break them"?
I've determined that, while this is not without a grain of truth, it's actually the wrong metaphor. What they should be saying is: "Don't take the back roads unless you know where you're going."
Imagine that you're out driving, and you look around the car, and you can see nothing in any direction but fields of soybeans and, way off in the distance, a creepy old graveyard with the fence falling down.
Well, if you've lived in this town all your life, and you're headed out for a little lake in the woods that nobody else knows about but you and your wacky great-aunts, then you've got nothing to worry about, right? But if, on the other hand, you just left your hotel and hopped in your rental car to check out that mall you thought you saw on the way in -- well, that landscape is probably a sign that you've made a wrong turn.
Likewise, if you're writing a story, and you suddenly discover that you've switched POV in midsentence, the question is not, "Is this a case where Virginia Woolf knew this rule well enough to break it, but I don't, somehow?" The question is, "Do I know exactly where this road goes? And am I sure I want to go there?"
If you don't know exactly where the road goes, sometimes you still want to see what's at the end of it. And then when you get there, you want to know where you are and how to get home again. And the next time you come here, you want to take the direct route without turning around at the Sunoco station and crossing the train tracks three times.
That's what beta readers are for.
I've determined that, while this is not without a grain of truth, it's actually the wrong metaphor. What they should be saying is: "Don't take the back roads unless you know where you're going."
Imagine that you're out driving, and you look around the car, and you can see nothing in any direction but fields of soybeans and, way off in the distance, a creepy old graveyard with the fence falling down.
Well, if you've lived in this town all your life, and you're headed out for a little lake in the woods that nobody else knows about but you and your wacky great-aunts, then you've got nothing to worry about, right? But if, on the other hand, you just left your hotel and hopped in your rental car to check out that mall you thought you saw on the way in -- well, that landscape is probably a sign that you've made a wrong turn.
Likewise, if you're writing a story, and you suddenly discover that you've switched POV in midsentence, the question is not, "Is this a case where Virginia Woolf knew this rule well enough to break it, but I don't, somehow?" The question is, "Do I know exactly where this road goes? And am I sure I want to go there?"
If you don't know exactly where the road goes, sometimes you still want to see what's at the end of it. And then when you get there, you want to know where you are and how to get home again. And the next time you come here, you want to take the direct route without turning around at the Sunoco station and crossing the train tracks three times.
That's what beta readers are for.