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When shall I expose my timid writing to the scrutiny of beta readers?

While my ultimate goal is getting published, my current goal post is some sort of intermediate state where I have something moderately readable, some fragment which gives an idea of the final story I'm aiming at. In other words, I want to write towards beta readers.

However, beta readers are a rather tricky audience: They misunderstand the story completely because they’re missing context that was presented in earlier scenes; they incorrectly assume that your novel will continue in a certain way, and writes several pages about this; they don’t like your story, simply because they’re not the right audience; they accuse you of not being a writer, due to your subpar grammar; they fail to get into the novel and instead hold it up to some vanilla writing-advice checklist; they assume that you’re incompetent and lecture you that orcs are an already established fantasy thing; they politely ignore the scene where you inadvertently come of as a total nazi; they come up with a completely different idea for a novel and criticize your novel for not being that.

Not that I experienced all that, but you get the idea. As a writer, you had other people spend their precious time reading your stuff and writing their thoughts down. For nothing. This is decidedly unpleasant.

Yet, beta readers are what makes your writing grow. I really want to be better at showing off my stuff and getting feedback.

I believe the reader is always right. Meaning, I don’t think it is the readers' responsibility to read the story correctly; the responsibility lies solely on the author. This goes for writing towards beta readers too; I want to write so they’re stealthily steered towards the exact kind of feedback I’m after.

My current plan is this:

First, I would aim at creating all the surface stuff that any reader is going to see first: a title, a cover mock-up and a blurb. I also finish just enough of the beginning of the novel to, hopefully, draw the reader in.

I'm Danish, so I'm prone to screw up English grammar. I don't think this weakens the actual writing. I mean, the rhythm and structure are not altered by having English begin with uppercase. However, it is very distracting to readers. So I have to clean out as many errors as possible before letting anyone see it.

I also got to express exactly what kind of feedback I’m after: Do you like the main character? Was there any point where you felt like putting the book down and do something fun instead? Did you guess anything about what would happen next?

And if there are some holes in the story, I need to point them out beforehand, so that the beta readers don’t waste their time rediscovering those.

Now to my question:

How should one write towards beta readers, in your opinion?
 

Yora

Maester
If I were to judge a story based on what I consider about stories in general, I would need a complete draft of the entire story before I can really say anything about it.

As a writer, I also think feedback would only be helpful once I have a complete draft to show. It won't do me much good to revise and polish early chapters when I later have to do them again because later chapters require further changes to earlier scenes.
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
I echo Yora: your immediate goal absolutely has to be to write a complete story. Get all the way finished. This applies whether it's a novel or a short story.

Your next goal is to polish that up to the best of your ability. That's the proofreading, but also fixing plot holes, inconsistent characters, that sort of thing.

All during that process you can research beta readers and communities. Make up a list of where you'll post your request, so when the story is ready, you don't waste time trying to get readers. Because you're going to find the quality of readers varies wildly and so does their response time. You'll send the story out and never hear back. Or they'll keep saying they'll get to it. Or they return the manuscript only months later (I've been guilty of this). And consider this: since the standard transaction is I read yours if you read mine, you've now committed to read five or ten or however many other people's books, while getting useful *and timely* responses from maybe one or two. Paid beta readers do better, but it's hard to say if it's worth the money. It varies.

Anyway, no one wants to read an unfinished story, and it's the story that has priority. Sure the writing matters, and writing in another language makes it more difficult to write with subtlety and grace. But lots of people write well who cannot tell a story well. Think of all the book reviews you've read. How many of them comment on the story--plot, character, setting, theme? And how many of them also comment, or comment in the same detail, about the writing?

Story first, then writing. Both are important and cannot be neglected, but story first. So, I recommend you write a complete story first, then work on the writing in that story, and only when you've done your best work, show it to others. I mean, why ask for feedback on anything less than your best effort?
 

A. E. Lowan

Forum Mom
Leadership
I'm going to echo Yora and Skip's thoughts: finish before you pass the project off to your betas. And by finish I mean get the whole thing edited, revised, and polished. Not only will you get better feedback (include questions you'd like your betas to answer to help them focus), but you won't leave them hanging.

And don't worry too much about your grammar at this stage. I think your grammar may be better than mine, and I'm a native English speaker. Instead, focus on your craft, on storytelling, on getting the words down and finishing your story. After that, during the editing and revising process, is the time to tighten up your grammar, plot holes, and other details.
 
I totally agree with the above comments. Your story should be finished before it gets turned over to a beta reader.

But you didn't mention alpha readers at all and here, opinions vary more than with beta readers about what is helpful for each writer.

An alpha reader, for me, is one of the three people in my life who I trust completely to understand the early stages of writing, who understand my writing "voice" and style, and who I know I can ask them to answer these four basic questions ( These I've borrowed from the author Mary Robinette Kowal)
  1. What bores you?
  2. What confuses you?
  3. What don’t you believe?
  4. What’s cool? (So I don’t accidentally “fix” it in editing.)
Notice that I am not asking for corrections on grammar, punctuation, usage etc although those may fail into the Number 2 category in aspects like dialogue etc. Even with Alpha readers, I try to hand them something fleshed out and cohesive and not a fragment. A once or twice edited first draft of several chapters at the very least.

To me, the only point of having others read my work is to make it better/stronger and not to be my cheering section so to speak. So, if they're not picking up on what I hoped they would, then I have not done my job as a writer. But if they don't have the context of an entire story to go on, I cannot expect them to give me proper/helpful feedback.

And as for others offering their own ideas and input on a story? Well, that's also what my alpha readers are sometimes good at. I have included the occasional idea tossed around by someone in that small group of trusted readers in the finished work because they saw something I didn't that worked really well. That's a blessing, not a curse!! :)
 
I'm going to partially disagree with the above opinions.

I think it's fine to show early chapters to beta readers - when that's all you've got - not least as getting some encouraging feedback can really give you the confidence and momentum to finish. Also, you can waste a lot of time and effort on trying to finish something that was never really working in the first place. If you trust your betas (and as long as they're the right betas) it can save you a lot of time and angst.

I must have been trying for 15 years before a publisher finally said yes, and that was to a ms that was only half written. Every other time I'd passed mss by several betas and every time they were pretty meh about what I was doing, while still encouraging me because they thought I could write. It was just about finding the right story.

For the story that got published, every beta gave it the thumbs up and urged me to continue. They all said I was finally writing the right story and the very first publisher I sent it to (half of the first draft) said yes three days later.

The only caveat is that your betas must be honest and enjoy the genre in which you are writing.
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
>The only caveat is that your betas must be honest and enjoy the genre in which you are writing.
And there's the rub. Finding good betas has proven not merely difficult but immensely time-consuming, because of the book exchange. I don't object to the transaction--it's as fair as it can get. It's just that reading the other guy's book takes many hours and then add time for feedback. Now multiply that by five or ten or fifty as you sift through the poor beta readers to find the right ones. And even then, beta readers move on, and you lose that golden one and have to start the search again. And, they have to be available at the time you need them.

I'm not saying don't do it. I'm just saying don't be surprised if it turns out to require more time than you expected.
 
If you're in a hurry, it might take longer than you hoped. Although I've just twigged that what you're really talking about here is reciprocal beta reading with people from the web. I can see how that would be frustrating. Why not devise a feedback template which can only be filled out by someone who has definitely read the story and thought about it?

For me, it was more a case of cultivating friends and colleagues - over the years - and working out which ones were useful. Some wouldn't want to embarrass you by telling you they didn't like it. Others clearly didn't get the story, or the genre, and want you to do something else. In the end, all you really want is for a beta reader to say: is there any more to read? Because that's a true indicator they enjoyed it and you must be on the right track. If they can give you actual technical insight into your story then that's a major bonus. (And I have several times made changes - usually to characters - on the basis of beta feedback.)

It gets really good once you get published because your betas then take you more seriously. I'm now in the very fortunate position of having any number of people keen to read whatever I'm working on, all of whom are capable of giving good feedback and happy to call me out when they think I've got something wrong. Mind you, I've been writing seriously for 25 years so it didn't happen overnight.
 
Such a template might include questions like:

What did you like/dislike about the main character?

What did you feel was the MC's main motivation?

Which subplots did you identify and do you think they worked? Why/why not?

Was the world building/setting believable? Why/why not?

You could have a range of questions about characters, dialogue, plot, setting, ambience etc without ever needing to ask questions about whether they liked it. If they did/didn't will come out in their answers. If you both agreed to such a template you'd get better results (although fewer people might agree to read). Anyone who refused probably wasn't worth bothering with, in any case.
 
I totally love the idea of distinguishing between alpha and beta readers, proposed by MoTNK. Not sure if alpha readers are a concept I'm supposed to know, but in any case, I think it makes sense: Making a clear distinction between those whom you expose to your half-baked experimentations, and those who get to test drive your work as a potential reader.

The general point that everyone seems to agree on—that one should finish the damn story before telling it to anyone—is a piece of hard truth that makes a lot of sense. A lot of the stuff that can fail with beta reading is somehow connected to the beta readers not having the whole story. I never thought about this, actually.

Yet, I have seen a lot of really awful errors that spoiled the story before the first five pages, simply because what happened on the pages was undecipherable. It would be horrible if a story like that went on for hundreds of pages. I think a lot of us—me, at last—makes some rather basic mistakes, that would be easily caught by any reader.

The main inspiration for this thread is this video on how to learn to draw:

The crazy thing is that the tips translate pretty well to writing. I recommend! But it's really #6 GET FEEDBACK that I took to heart.
 
Everyone seems to agree on? I didn't agree with that at all. My experience exposing betas to early chapters has been very positive.
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
So many people seem to have beta readers! How do you manage that? First, how did you find them? Second, how many did you go through before you found good ones? And third, if you have say five betas, doesn't that mean you have to read five novels to get one of your read? IOW, how much time does this beta relationship cost?
 
Hi,

Okay I'm going to say what others have said - don't go to a beta reader before your story is utterly complete or at least as complete as you can get it. There are multiple reasons for this, but in essence you want them to help you get the book to the next stage, not to a stage you can get it to yourself. So before then the book needs to be complete. If it's not finished than half of what a beta tells you will simply be explaining that they don't get it because its not finished and they don't have the background etc. You need to have edited it yourself with programs etc and be sure it reads as well as possible. But don't take it to the outside editor before them. This is because prof editing costs money and the last thing you want to do is pay, then get a beta reader to tell you the plots wrong somewhere, rewrite it and then have to go back to an editor after that.

Next, after you get it back don't assume the beta is wrong or right. They're human and by and large fallible. But do assume that if they don't understand something, that there's a problem that needs to be fixed. The most valuable things they can say normally are - "I don't understand". It's your job to make the reader understand. Pretty much everything else they give you is opinion which you can take or leave, but that's fairly critical.

Then, after revising, go to the next step which is either to a prof editor if you're going to go indie, or to a round of agents / publishers if you're going trade.

Cheers, Greg.
 
So many people seem to have beta readers! How do you manage that? First, how did you find them? Second, how many did you go through before you found good ones? And third, if you have say five betas, doesn't that mean you have to read five novels to get one of your read? IOW, how much time does this beta relationship cost?
I have to qualify all my comments as I wasn't talking about beta reciprocation with strangers off the web, I was just talking about people I've cultivated through my own personal networks. Friends and colleagues used to be very wary if I asked for feedback, but having had several books in the bookshops, they ask me rather than me needing to ask them.

I reckon it would be much harder getting people you could work with off the web, but surely there are any number of reciprocal relationships on a site like this? Once again, I recommend the template idea to ensure a minimum level of analytical feedback.

You could even uber-fy the concept by rating the raters. And maybe there could be some reward for top raters - eg a beta reading by some luminary?
 

Artemis_Foo

Acolyte
This is why it's a good idea to join a writers group, and not trust to the Internet. On the Internet, everyone fancies themselves as super pro critics and advisors. Actually going to a physical writers circle provides you with an open forum with which to discuss your writing, and provide fluid context to the scene you've chosen to get nit-picked. There is also the advantage of being face to face with the people giving you advice, so they're less likely to act like childish arse holes and the majority of cases are run and attended by expriamced nova lists with at least 1 or 2 books published, because, at the end of the day, even pros need help and advice and critiques.
 

Demesnedenoir

Myth Weaver
The Contrarian... Work your writing, because if your writing isn’t good I will never get far enough to know a damned thing about the story. Writing well will attract beta readers. It’s easier to find people who will work on your writing for a 2k chapter than a 100k novel. Chapters are (often) mini-stories and a lot can be learned from them. There are groups out there that exchange reads back and forth (often you earn people reading your work by critiquing others) chapters or shorts, and those can go a long way in telling you what’s right what’s wrong... although you still need to pick through the chaff to find the seeds.
 

ShadeZ

Maester
This is kinda a short answer but I'd say whenever you are comfortable with it. Make sure you have your ideas and story well fleshed out and make sure you can take any potential criticism with your head up. I personally tend to dread the criticism bit the most but often find it isn't that bad at all once it's actually said and done with. I would advise, don't be afraid to get your work out there and see what people think of it and where it goes. Apart from that its all up to you and your choice as to when persay.
 
I always craved the criticism, back in my new writer days, as I desperately wanted people to think about and deconstruct my work. I was always hassling people to read WIP - friends and colleagues - and they were rarely keen. Finding useful betas in those early pre-published days was harder than finding a new lover (and I never had many of those...). The main problem was that my stuff was always pretty far out, so not the standard reading taste - so when I did manage to get some poor friend to read it, they very rarely "got" it, and there's no point in continuing. There's no point asking why they didn't like it. There's no point in trying to defend it... they were just the wrong person.

Once I did find some right people I would spend hours trying to explain what I meant. It took a really long time for me to realise that if you have to explain it - to someone within the target audience - it's not good enough.

So, in a nutshell, find the right people for your genre, tell them to be fearless in saying what they did/didn't like and listen carefully to everything they say. Think about what they said, because right genre readers are valuable, but try to ensure they did get what you were going for. If they still don't like it you might have a problem.

And if you make changes due to beta criticism, let them know. They'll be chuffed and more likely to read more of your stuff.
 
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