208: November 2025 Q&A

 

Register for the How to Write Your Book in 2026 training! It's happening Friday, December 12 at 1pm EST. 

 

BLACK FRIDAY SALE happening Nov. 28-30 - get 40% off all workshops!

 

Topics discussed this month include:

if beta readers should read the book before an editor 4:02

how many characters is too many 6:34

how to give feedback to a fellow writer when they plan to query 11:28

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- The last Tuesday of the month is a Q&A episode! Submit your questions for me HERE.


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NOVEMBER Q&A

 

Hi friend, welcome to your Big Creative Life podcast. Thank you for being here and welcome to our November Q&A episode. I have two announcements for you before we get started. Number one, oh, let me just make sure I'm, okay, thought I wasn't recording, we're good. So, #1, If you're listening to this, the week that this episode is released, that means that you're listening to it the week of Black Friday. And I'm having a Black Friday sale, 40% off all workshops and courses on my stand store. So, from November 28th through the 30th, so Black Friday through Sunday through the weekend, you can get 40% off all of my workshops. There are workshops on all kinds of amazing things. Let me just pull up the list here so you know exactly what you can get 40% off There's the Idea to Book course, which is my online course about how to write a book. There's 9 modules. It takes you through everything you need to know to go from idea to fully written and edited book. That's 40% off. That's the most expensive one because it's the most like comprehensive. It's a full online course. And then we also have the How to Create Strong Characters in Your Novel workshop. That's a shorter training. The Dialogue Deep Dive training, and then the How to Edit Your Novel training that has my 5 draft editing method plus tips and tricks for editing.

So all of those are 40% off. And again, that goes through November 28th through November 30th. You don't need a coupon code or anything. It's all just marked down in my store so that you can get 40% off. And then the second thing I want to announce is I'm hosting a workshop on Friday, December 12th at 1 P.m. Eastern on how to write your book in 2026. This is going to be a training that walks you through all of my recommendations, setting goals, how to actually find time to write, some mindset traps that new writers can fall into and how to avoid those. So it's going to be everything you need to know in order to get a plan together and actually take your writing seriously in 2026. There's also going to be time at the end of the workshop for questions. So if you want to get, if you want to get a question answered on anything related to writing or how you're going to do this in 2026, you can ask your question then. If you can't make that time, that's fine. I will e-mail out the replay for everyone who registered. But make sure you register because I only have a set number of tickets that are available for it because the Zoom room where we're hosting the workshop is capped at a certain amount of people. So you can go to the show notes to register for the training. There are two ticket types that are available.

We did this last year and I think it worked really well. So there are free tickets available. If you're like, hey, money's tight, I just don't have the funds right now to pay for a workshop. Totally fine, no problem at all. You can just register for free. There's also a pay what you want option. So if you have found value from the podcast this year or social media content, or you just want to say thanks, whatever, you can set a dollar amount that you want to pay for the workshop as well. It's totally up to you. There's a set number of free tickets and set number of paid tickets. So just you can pick whatever option works best for you. And when you go to that link in the show notes, again, you'll see the option for the two different ticket types. And I'll send out the replay. What else do I need to tell you about the workshop? I think that's it. So you can check that out if you would like to get some training, get some motivation. It's going to be fun. Okay, those are my announcements. Let's get into our questions for this month. We have 3 questions, so not a ton. It's going to be a bit of a shorter episode.

Okay, question number one. Do beta readers typically read the story before or after an editor would? This is a very good question. I'm happy to talk about this. Every editor might have like a slightly different stance on this or preference or whatever, but I can tell you what I recommend. I think it's best for you to do your own rounds of self-editing first. So don't send an editor a first draft. And then after that point, when you've done some self-editing, And you can get beta readers to give you feedback and notes on the book. Then, once you get that feedback, make any changes you want to make, then I recommend sending it to an editor. So, in other words, I think an editor is like... the last stop once you've gotten the book as good as it can be. I mean, this might mean like not, maybe there are things you have questions about or you're like, I have a vague sense that this needs to be improved, but I don't really know how or what to do with this. That's fine, but I just mean like, don't send an editor a first draft because there's a good chance that the editor is going to point out things that you already know need to be changed.

And in that case, the editor is just like giving you notes that you're already aware of. So I just don't think that's the best use of your time and your money, honestly, to do it at that point. So I would recommend beta readers first and then have the editor step in. It's not wrong to do it the other way, to have the editor step in, get the editor's notes, make changes, and then do beta readers. It's not wrong, but again, I just recommend doing that at our last, because I think that helps you get the most out of feedback. Now that is the answer for any type of developmental editing. I have something called a manuscript evaluation, which is where I'm giving clients feedback on plot, characters, pacing, world building, et cetera. So that, I'm answering the question is if you're asking about that kind of editing. If you're asking about like copy editing or line editing, definitely do beta readers first, because copy editing and line editing should be like, at the very end, once the story is already nailed down. Like you've already gone through rounds of editing, you've already gotten beta reader feedback, you're not making any big changes to the story at all. Everything is where it needs to be in terms of the plot, characters, everything. It's just the actual prose, like the sentences, and then the grammar, if it's copy editing and stuff like that.

So definitely, that's the last stop, definitely, if you're talking about those types of editing. Okay, next question. How many characters is too many characters in your novel? This is hard to answer, of course, because it depends. It depends on the genre, it depends on how long the book is, it depends on how many point of view characters you're having, all that good stuff. But yeah, what I'll say is to make sure, and I don't know if this person is asking like point of view characters or just characters generally. So I guess I'll answer it first generally and then we'll talk about point of view characters. So if you're just asking like generally how many characters, too many characters, again, it's going to depend, but you have to remember that there are like your main character or characters, there's the supporting characters, and then there's just the background characters who are like kind of the supporting people, the tertiary characters, they're just like filling in the world. This might be the taxi driver that the main main character has like half a page of conversation with. It might be a co-worker who only appears for half a scene. It might be the barista at the coffee shop they go to. You know, just people who fill out the world, but they're not, they might not even have names in the book.

They're just like there to support the story and make the world feel real. So yeah, I think it's, This is a point where, oh, and then let me answer for point of view characters. So with point of view characters, you have to remember that if you have a point of view character in your novel, that means they're playing a big role in the plot, right? Because we're in their point of view, that means they're a major character. And they need to have their own voice, they need to have their own arc, they need to be moving the plot forward and playing an active role in things. So the line of too many characters comes in when you just are throwing point of view characters in the mix that don't really have those things. They don't have a strong arc in the story. They don't have a different voice. They're kind of like just there supporting other characters in their point of view chapters. They're not influencing the plot or like really playing a big role. They're just sort of there. They're not really like playing an active role in the story. That's the point where you might have too many characters and you might need to just like scale it back because you need to devote a lot of attention in the story to those characters if they're going to have a point of view.

Now, of course, there are exceptions to this where like, I don't know, I'm thinking of some novels I've read, particularly in the fantasy genre, where A prologue will have a point of view character, and then that point of view character won't appear again for the rest of the book. Maybe they'll come back in like an epilogue, but they're not actually in the main story itself. It's just like a distinct prologue from a minor character, a background character's point of view, to kind of set the stage for the reader. So that's something different. I mean, yeah, just to say that, of course, there are exceptions to almost every rule or guideline when it comes to writing. And I can think of, I mean, a great example of this, I think I've even talked about this on the podcast, is the book Nine Perfect Strangers by Leanne Moriarty. Moriarty, I think that's her last name. That book has so many point of view characters, but they're all well done. They all play a role in the plot. They have their own arc. They have their own voice. They're fully fleshed out, developed characters on their own. So in that case, it works because of that. So again, there's no like rule. Nine characters, I mean, that's a lot. That's a lot to have. Let me just look up. Her. Leanne Moriarty.

Okay, I wanted to make sure that I got that correct. And that's like a thriller novel. So, okay. Let me go back to my questions here. Yeah, so in summary, I can't tell you an exact number, but this is, oh, what I was going to say earlier is that whether you're asking about this for just characters in general who are like appearing in the story or point of view characters, this is where getting an outside perspective, getting someone else to read it for you, can ask them specifically about this, whether it is an editor that you hire or a beta reader, a friend, whoever's you're having read the book for you. They can give you their two cents. If they're like, I cannot keep these people straight, there's so many characters, I just like don't understand all of them, they're not fully fleshed out, then that's something to look at and maybe you can make some changes based on that feedback. And same with point of view characters. You can ask them specifically like, does it feel like all of these point of view characters are contributing to the story? Do they feel necessary just to get their like read on it? Okay, our last question. I listened to your episode on feedback for writers and have a question about something in my writing group. I don't know how to tell some of these writers that their work probably isn't ready for traditional publishing. O

bviously, I don't know for sure, not working in traditional publishing myself, but I recently read two opening chapters of someone's book that read like a rough draft and they plan to query this. How do I balance telling them with not making it awkward or hurting their feelings? This person's talking about, I think I did an episode about feedback. I think that's what you're referring to. It was like how to give feedback to other writers, maybe a couple of months ago. So this is challenging, I will say, as someone who has I've been in a writing group myself in a critique group, but then also as an editor. When I first started editing, this was something that was very challenging for me. So I will give you my kind of philosophy on this as an editor and also talk about a few points that could help in your writing group, because I know it's a different scenario, right? If you're giving feedback to someone as an editor, it's a bit different. My philosophy, though, as an editor is if someone is taking the time to ask me for feedback and suggestions. That means I have to trust them when they want me to do that, they're open and ready to receive that feedback and that they're in a position where they want to improve the story.

So that's like a baseline assumption. And I think you can assume the same thing in your writers group. If someone is asking you for feedback, it's because they are They genuinely want that feedback and they're willing to grow. Every once in a while you encounter someone who's very combative and like they don't actually want feedback, but we're setting that to the side. I try to assume to go into it with good faith that if someone is asking for my opinion, they genuinely want it. And it also does no good to the person if we just lie and sugarcoat things for the sake of not hurting their feelings. Because again, going back to that baseline assumption, If we go into it assuming that they want feedback and they want to grow and they want to make the story good or improve it somehow, then sugarcoating it does the opposite of that. Or avoiding saying something does the opposite of that. Now, with this line of like being ready for traditional publishing, ready to query, that's tricky. I mean, I'll just say, because we're not literary agents, we don't know. what someone is going to respond to. We don't know if an agent will see a manuscript that maybe is a bit rough, but they see something in it. They see a kernel of potential. They love the story. And so they're willing to work with the author a bit to get it ready to send to publishers.

We just don't have a sense of where that line is. We can't control that. We don't, we can't see inside agents' brains. We can't predict the future. So like, it's not our job. to confidently say that something is ready to query or not. However, I do understand what you're saying. Like, I've even had situations with clients where they've straight up asked, they've straight up asked me if they can query. And of course, I always say, well, I, you can do whatever you want. Like, you don't need permission. And also, I'm not an agent. But I have told a couple of clients, like, I just don't think this is quite where it needs to be. I really recommend folks focusing on improving XYZ. So I always word it very diplomatically. But again, going back to that baseline assumption, it does no good if I, if I just, talk around something or just like lie to a client. Let me make sure I'm, I see someone outside my, oh, I'm good. It does no good if I just lie to someone. for the sake of not hurting their feelings. I would much rather be honest with someone and risk hurting their feelings than not be honest with them and have them go through that process and, get disappointed. So.

But when it comes to your writing group, I do think it's tricky. There's an extra layer of trickiness because often these people become your friends, right? Like you are close to the people in your writing group and you value their, the relationship that you have with them and you don't want to, you don't want to, I don't know, risk that. So I think all you can do in this case is give your honest feedback, honest, like kind and direct, I think there's a line there of like being kind, not hurting someone's feelings, not being ruthless with your feedback, but giving them your honest take. And then just kind of letting people do what they want. Like you can't control what someone does with the feedback that you give them anyways, whether they want to ignore the feedback, go ahead and query, not query. Like that's not your role to control what someone does with the feedback after you give it to them. So I think this is a case of just like releasing it. Like all you can do is give someone your honest opinion, be kind about it, and then that's it. It's up to them to decide what to do with it. So in this case, I don't know that you need to tell the person, unless they specifically ask. Like if they sit you down and they're like, tell me, should I query this? Is it ready? Then sure, maybe it's worth a discussion then.

You can say like, I'm not sure, I would maybe work on these things, like X, Y, Z, give them specific stuff to focus on. But otherwise, it's just not your, it's just not your role, because it can, again, you want to preserve the relationship. And everyone, I will say though, the benefit of a writing group where the people is you probably have a sense of who can handle critique better, like the best as a group. Some writers you just know are a bit more fragile and you have to be more like diplomatic with how you word things. And then some writers are, they just appreciate bluntness. They're like, don't sugarcoat it. You don't have to like coddle me and worry about hurting my feelings. Just give it to me straight. So you will have a sense of maybe how you need to word things with that person too. That is 1 benefit of a writing group that like I don't necessarily have as an editor because I don't have like a long friendship with clients who hire me to edit their books. We don't have an existing relationship before that, unless it's a client who I've already worked with before, of course. So yeah, it's tricky. It's tricky to balance not discouraging someone and hurting their feelings. But I think it's important, again, to remember that we are not the gatekeepers of traditional publishing. So we can offer our opinion if it's asked for, but we don't know. We can't predict the future. So yeah, that's why I rarely say to clients, like, don't query this if they don't ask me, because it's just not my, you know, I don't know. It's hard. I

Okay, so those are all of the questions for this month. If you have a question that you would like me to answer for our Q&A episode next month that will come out at the end of December, there's a form in the show notes where you can submit your question. The questions are anonymous. You can ask about anything related to writing, editing, mindset, querying, any personal stuff about me, my business, whatever you want to know. And yeah, I'll answer it at the end of December. So all right, I hope that was helpful. And thank you to everyone who submitted questions. Thank you so much for listening.

Katie Wolf