Thesis Director Necessary?

[Timshel]

Okay, I have a question about who to ask for my LOR. I already have my Master's in English, so I have written a thesis. My question is, does it look bad if I don't have a letter of recommendation from my thesis director? I mean, I could get one from him if I needed to, but I feel that there are other professors who would write better ones, especially ones that pertain more to the area I am hoping to focus on. My thesis director turned out to be a bad choice for my thesis as he wasn't as knowledgeable on my subject because I changed it midway through, which is why I would think other professors would be better. 2 of the 3 I plan to ask were on my committee, but neither were the director. I could ask my director, but he's incredibly hard to get a hold of, and he's not very reliable (he takes weeks to respond to emails and frequently misses appointments), so I'm scared to ask him. However, I do not want it to look bad if I don't have a recommendation from my thesis director. So basically, I'm just not sure if it is better to get letters from instructors who know me better and are more reliable, or if it's more important to get information from my thesis director. I really don't know what to do, so any advice is much appreciated.

[runonsentence]

Your instinct is right, I think, that an adcom will notice you haven't asked your thesis director to write for you. (I was in a similar position after undergrad, and asked another professor to write instead; while I'm absolutely confident I made the right decision, especially since the director was hesitant to write, I did have a question about the decision when I visited one of my schools.)

However, you should absolutely get letters from the professors who know you best, and will have the easiest time speaking to your strengths. The fact that your other professors know you and can speak better to you as a person and scholar will shine through in the letters they write you (I've been in the position of having the problem of someone who didn't know me so well get sloppy with a LoR, thank goodness I had a backup), which should clear it up with your adcoms as to why they wrote for you.