The Power of Beta Reading

Note: I discuss religiously-motivated fasting in this post.

As much as I love the idea of finishing my novels as quickly as possible, every time I get feedback from beta readers, I am challenged to make my scenes better and reminded again why it is so valuable to hear how others experience my words. As someone born and raised in the Unification church who then left, I offer unique and original insights on religion throughout my novels and cast of characters. But sometimes, I need someone who did not share my upbringing to point out just how different my perspective is, and to lean into it for a stronger storytelling effect.

Serena’s arc is the one that most directly draws on my experience growing up in the Unification church, and The Acolyte’s Heresyis the novel that I have gotten the most feedback on so far, so I will draw on her example to illustrate my point: the way I write about Serena’s upbringing and worldview has a certain taken-for-granted quality that I needed other people to point out to me.

For example, when an atheist beta reader read it, the feedback he offered made clear to me that I needed to spell out the flawed logic that children like me used. Serena wants to leave the monastery, but needs the Seven-in-One’s “permission” to do so. She goes through her day with no such “sign.” So, in the evening, she scans her day until she can point to something as having been a sign from the Seven-in-One that she should leave the monastery. To me, this all made intuitive sense: subconsciously looking outward for external, divine validation of the choice you want to make – even if you can’t admit it to yourself that that is what you are doing. For people who don’t share my upbringing, it needed to be spelled out more explicitly, but delicately, without making it sound like Serena was conscious of what she is doing.

I also had to explain better the eternal nature of the stakes that children raised in high-control religions fear. I make up the religion in my fantasy world, but I wanted exvangelicals and purity culture survivors to see that I am talking about them. And I believe that they would pick up on everything I was projecting. Not my atheist beta reader though. I am not sure how well someone who was raised atheist can ever experience the emotional depths of the fear of eternal damnation, but at least (after multiple rewrites) I believe even an atheist can understand what Serena is so scared of on an intellectual level. And I hope that is something my novels accomplish: generate sympathy for people like Serena from people who have never had to live with such existential dread.

The most interesting example, however, was when Serena shares with two of the characters that she had completed a seven-day fast. In the first draft of the scene, Kara is surprised but she moves on from this reveal rather quickly. To me, this was reasonable. A beta reader who had also grown up in the Unification church and left pointed out that Kara’s reaction was way too muted.

I was fascinated by what this revealed about me.

In the Unification church, in preparation for the matching, you are required to fast for seven days, drinking only water. One-day fasts and three-day fasts of only drinking water are also quite common for various reasons (usually in preparation for a holy day or to otherwise “prove” your devotion). I did a seven-day fast twice: once when I was 17, and once when I was 19. At the time, it was the most normal thing to do, to “prove” that I was ready to accept whoever God chose for me to marry. (See the parallels to Serena’s story? It’s not the most subtle.) Even after I left the Unification church, I simply thought of it as a very unique life experience I had.

I don’t remember too much about how hungry I felt. I don’t remember if I felt weak. I’m sure I did, but once the fast ended, I also remember bouncing back quite quickly. I remember knowing I should be eating smaller portions or easier-to-digest meals and being pleasantly surprised that I could eat my normal diet faster than I was told I could.

I remember mostly how bored I was. You don’t realize how much of your time you spend thinking about what you will eat, preparing to eat, eating, and cleaning up after you eat – until you can’t. The physical part of the fast didn’t leave an impression on me; the intellectual part, the sheer need to fill 168 hours without eating, left a huge impression on me. I also remember that I was supposed to be thinking about God and how devoted I was to God instead of wanting to eat whenever I felt hungry. Again, for me personally, I don’t remember that part being a challenge. I do remember getting frustrated because I couldn’t think about even God for that long without getting bored of Him!

When I decided to start The Acolyte’s Heresy on the day that Serena broke her seven-day fast, I didn’t think much of it beyond: what are details I can include in her backstory to make her monastic upbringing come to life? It was trivial.

It was only thanks to the beta reader that I realized, most people would be surprised, perhaps even shocked by Serena’s fast (I also have a lot of Muslim friends, so their IRL reaction to my fasting was also maybe less intense). So, I rewrote the scene with more shock and indignation on the part of Kara and the other character. And then, I also added Serena’s reaction: embarrassment mixed with defensiveness. The critique from my beta reader elevated the scene to a more realistic exchange between Kara’s anger at what the monastery did to Serena and what Serena put herself through, and Serena’s uncomfortable mixture of pride in her devotion and confusion about the hostility (as she sees it) her devotion provoked in Kara.

Sometimes, I worry that Serena’s transformation in The Acolyte’s Heresy is too slow of a burn by contemporary fantasy standards. But then, I also worry that it is wicked fast by real world standards. The Acolyte’s Heresy is 80 chapters long, and I have had some beta readers start on it, but no one has gotten past chapter 31 yet (as far as I know). If reading this kind of fantasy novel is of interest to you, then I would love your help tracking how realistic Serena’s arc is and how realistic the reactions of people around Serena are. Please reach out!