I think Southern Discomfort is a terrific book, though I freely concede that I’m biased. I do not, however, take all the credit for it. My beta readers on the book have been invaluable. These include the Durham Science Fiction/Fantasy Writing Group, writer & friend Michele Berger, writer & friend Cindy Holbrook and TYG offered some insights at one point in the process. Maggie Prestwood of the group gave me an extra final beta editing that helped a lot.
I’m good at editing myself and spotting problems but I’m not infallible; I doubt anyone is. That’s particularly true with a work of around 90,000 words. In a short story there’s a limit to how much I can mess up; with a novel there’s more scenes so more opportunity to make mistakes. Get a name wrong. Forget that someone wears glasses or that they have a distinctive way of phrasing everything.
Beta reading isn’t just about catching mistakes, however. It’s about making a story better. Many drafts back, 2nd Lt. and former Army nurse Maria Esposito starts out with no intention of sticking around Pharisee, the strange Southern town in which she’s been captured. After a kelpie attacks and almost kills someone, she’s horrified enough to stay and fight the mystery threat.
The consensus from the writing group: not convincing. Maria simply doesn’t have enough reason to stand and fight for people she doesn’t know, given the risks (death or a 20-year federal sentence) facing her. They were right; I rewrote so Maria spends more than half the book trying to run from Pharisee. When she does change her mind, the stakes are higher and its both more dramatic and more believable. This makes her less likable — she’s looking out for number one for most of the novel — but it works better.
I think it was Michele who suggested another improvement. During the segregation era, Olwen and Aubric McAlister didn’t allow violence against the county’s black population, though they did accept Jim Crow as the law of the land (an acceptance some of the black community were not pleased with). Blacks traveling through Georgia could stop in Pharisee and know they wouldn’t be assaulted. Michele pointed out this would probably be mentioned in the Green Book, the celebrated guide for black travelers on where it was safe, or wasn’t, to stop.
I incorporated this idea into the book. The Green Cafe run by one of the wealthier black families — and named to tie in with Green Book — is a storied spot; black entertainers traveling through the South knew they could stop overnight in Pharisee without trouble so a lot of them booked shows there. It’s not essential to the plot but it adds to the world-building.
Another of my betas — I don’t remember which — had issues with a key reveal in the plot, involving a favor Olwen McAlister did for Sheriff Slattery and his family. She thought it put Olwen in a bad light. After thinking about it, I realized that while Olwen does several morally compromised things, this one didn’t fit. I reworked it.
I’ll have more to say about beta reading next week. Southern Discomfort cover by Samantha Collins, all rights to cover images remains with current holders.
