Beta Number Two

Over the weekend I got back my second "beta" where someone read my work in progress (WIP) and made suggestions.  This person (another published author) had a very good comment about my violating a character's character.  And she was right.  So this involved some re-writing and revising and now the novel is an amazing 88,000 words long.  That makes it the third longest novel I've written after Hammer of Thor (about 129,000 words) and an as-of-yet unpublished novel (100,000 words).  And to be honest, Thor was two novels I mashed together.

She pointed out that something that made me realize I had an inconsistency in this novel with something that happened in Hammer of Thor.  So I had to fix that, too.

She also pointed out I tend to use passive voice more than is recommended for fiction writing but that it seems to be part of my distinct voice" (as she called it) and she usually didn't notice unless it was glaring.

So I'm finding this beta process useful.  She also found a couple of errors, said some encouraging things, and said overall she really liked it.  One more beta to go.  He told me Friday I need to nag him every few days.  I already did once so I'll wait until tomorrow to do it again.