Searching for a beta reader

amother

Wed, Aug 24 2022, 1:28 pm

I got so many replies, I hope I can address it all. So Shevi's mom immigrated to Israel after her conversion, but Shevi herself is a sabra, she grew up there. Personally I'm a convert so I can relate to some of the politics and most of my social circle is Israeli. The problem is more that she looks different than me so I need someone who looks like her who can give me an insight to what I wrote. The reason I chose her to part black is because I got fed up with racist stories I heard some black Jews experience, and with racist stereotypes I heard some Haredi Jews express and wanted to subvert. To me personally race, and nusach are no reason to reject a shidduch from the get go. That's what inspired me to write this. Punch

amother

Wed, Aug 24 2022, 1:32 pm

PinkFridge wrote:

What about a glossary?
Dumbing down makes for sounding culturally off.

I will have a glossary because I think it also helps baley tshuva and converts learn terminology. And I have a few words in Arabic and words that don't exist in an Ashkenazi context at all. For example, Mimouna is a Sephardic tradition. Even Sug Bet, which is what second class matches are referred to in Israel, was a term my American modern orthodox friends didn't know.

amother

Wed, Aug 24 2022, 1:35 pm

Kiwi13 wrote:

Fellow author here.

Beta reading and critique are very often "I'll do yours and you'll do mine" kinds of arrangements between authors.

Check out the goodreads.com forum and the querytracker.net forum for potential beta reading swaps. Might be especially useful if you want to gauge your book's potential outside the frum world. You probably dafka DON'T want someone coming into it with the same background as you/your protagonist, because you want to see how your book translates across cultures.

Good luck! You're inspiring me to finish my novel... almost there, almost there. Probably a week's worth of edits to go before beta reading can start on that one.

Are you on soferet? That's another great resource to connect with fellow writers. Riva Pomerantz has a forum as well, and you might find people willing to beta read there too, with or without a swap.

I'll check it out. I'm not on soferet. I tried getting on it years ago and I don't know why that didn't work.

amother

Red

Wed, Aug 24 2022, 2:43 pm

Professional editor here, so I edited your blurb for you.
Sounds like an interesting book.
I'd really rather you not make Jews seem like jerks.
----

Meet Shevi Harari, 24, mixed black-Sephardic Jew. She's been coasting through life, studying for a career that doesn't interest her and dating a guy she didn't even like... till he dumped her, that is.

Maybe if she's more open-minded, she'll have a chance on the Orthodox matchmaking scene?
That's easier said than done when her new Haredi coworker, Israel, acts like a jerk half the time. If only he didn't make her heart flutter the other half, she could hate him without a pang...

But who is Israel, really? Could those rumors actually be true? And can love between a woman who is Modern Orthodox and a man who's Ultra-Orthodox blossom into marriage?
To discover the answers, Shevi must learn the truth about Israel — and herself.
----
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amother

Wed, Aug 24 2022, 3:06 pm

amother Red wrote:

Thank you for taking the time. It's such a rough draft blurb lol.

amother

Wed, Aug 24 2022, 5:42 pm

Kiwi13 wrote:

Sounds like maybe your book might benefit the frum world most. Why take it elsewhere as a first choice?

Because I'm afraid a frum publisher might censor the attraction they feel or other stuff that's important for character growth. The characters keep negia until they're married. No relations.

Kiwi13

Wed, Aug 24 2022, 5:45 pm

amother OP wrote:

Because I'm afraid a frum publisher might censor the attraction they feel or other stuff that's important for character growth. The characters keep negia until they're married. No relations.

If it's workable, they'll ask if you're willing to make certain changes before signing you. What do you have to lose?

If the impact will be strongest among the frum crowd, why not at least try? Isn't that why you said you wrote the book - to challenge certain attitudes withing our communities?

naomi2

Wed, Aug 24 2022, 6:00 pm

I'm trying to see how the issue is race and not a religiosity issue. How did a chareidi young man end up working and not learning and why would shevy want to try the shiddich world if she is modern. Its like an older single ffb wanting to call a shadchan who does b' shows to increase her chances of getting married. The thing is, people who do b'shows are not looking for a girl like shevy. And it's not because she's a quarter black. Also, As a white person, or white passing Jew whatever my title is at the moment, I'm tired of hearing about how racist I am. Even in a book I would not be interested in the thinly veiled agenda.

amother

Wed, Aug 24 2022, 6:22 pm

naomi2 wrote:

Religiosity is an issue too. Though there's different types of matchmakers for different people. it gets addressed in the book why they see a shadchan. It also gets addressed why a Haredi is working. My goal is not to show "how racist" people are. My goal is to show that someone like Sheva can have a deep connection with Hashem and that someone like her can be smart. But most importantly she's human and I want people to understand that there's more to a person than just their labels.

amother

Zinnia

Wed, Aug 24 2022, 10:46 pm

Proud Sephardi here.

Sorry to nitpick, only because you're asking, I'll point out that Harari is a common Syrian/Egyptian name, not Moroccan.

(I didn't read the whole thread carefully, so I don't know if there was thought behind the name Shevy, but that's not too Sephardi sounding.)

ora_43

Thu, Aug 25 2022, 7:15 am

Is a big part of Shevi's experience around her appearance, or is it just her ethnic background? Meaning like - does she "look black" and gets treated a certain way because of that, or does she not "look black" and so she hears racism against black people from people who have no idea they're talking about her parent, or does none of the stuff about race pertain directly to how she looks (it's more about people's reactions once they learn about her ethnicity)?

Asking because I might know someone relevant as a reader.

amother

Yellow

Thu, Aug 25 2022, 9:07 am

amother Midnight wrote:

Once you are getting into the nitty gritty of nuances between different frum groups, the average secular reader will be totally lost. Nobody outside of the Jewish world will understand what chareidi is, anyway, vs ultra Orthodox. Even "religious" vs "insular."
To them, a chasid is the same as a YU guy with a kippah...
Even my non frum Jewish coworker equates the DL type with black hat yeshivish. It's all the same to her. And we work in a nominally Orthodox workplace!

It's true that the average secular reader wouldn't know the differences between different frum groups. But I don't think that means those differences couldn't interest a secular reader, or that a novel couldn't present them in an engaging way.

Without endorsing the views or haskofos conveyed by this novel, I think it's worth mentioning
Chaim Potok's The Chosen, which IIRC has MO and Charedi main characters. It was a NYT bestseller and I think is still quite popular. Another novel that has done well with secular audiences is Allegra Goodman's Kaaterskill Falls. That particular book is full of frum terms, concepts, and situations that the author didn't feel the need to explain. She relied on the intelligence of her mostly secular and/or non-Jewish audience.

I don't think these authors' degree of personal frumkeit or the specific views they convey (and with which I don't necessarily concur) is relevant here; the point is that they succeeded in making "esoteric" nuances of the frum world interesting to non-frum/non-Jewish readers. I believe (or at least hope) that a quality frum novel could do the same.

B'kitzur - you don't have to dumb things down.

amother

Thu, Aug 25 2022, 4:36 pm

amother Zinnia wrote:

Yes, in this case she had a grandfather from Egypt but the family is mostly Moroccan in traditions. It's in the book but hard to explain like this.

amother

Thu, Aug 25 2022, 4:54 pm

ora_43 wrote:

Hi, so in her case she looks black. Fortunately I found a sensitivity reader yesterday.