Holmes Is To Sherlock as Beta Readers Are To Writers
Holmes Is To Sherlock as Beta Readers Are To Writers
by Theresa Bane
Normally I write funny blogs about things relevant to “my people,” the Gaming, Geek, and Nerd community if you will. Since I have just had a long sit down talk with my cat about the dangers of catnip, I think its about time I address all the newly published and budding authors out there about a topic as critical as the abuse of cat nip in the feline community - that of the beta process.
Let me begin with the basics. The idea behind beta reading is simple - make the story better; for those of you who don’t know or have never used the process, beta reading is when an author passes their work over to a group of people to read and critique PRIOR to it going to their editor or potential publisher. To beta read a story is to read it with a critical eye looking for ways to improve upon it before the final and finished piece is submitted to the publisher or editor for publication. These readers read the story for both content and editorial quality; they make and send these suggestions and queries back to the author. Then, the author peruses the comments and decides what, if any, changes will be made to the piece before they send to a publisher or editor.
No matter who you are or how good an author you may be, this is a process you cannot do for yourself. You can do for others and have them reciprocate in kind. Trust me, you will read through your own typos time and time again. Also, you know what you meant when you wrote it but does it come across the way you intended to someone who does not have access to the insides of your brain? Only an outsider can tell you if you were successful this this.
A beta-reader is not an editor, although they can help you with some editorial tweaks. Beta-readers assist you before the story goes to the editor. You want your editor to get the very best of what you can deliver so they will be able to spend their energy polishing your story to a high gloss; don’t waste their time on stuff your beta-readers could have fixed.
Beta readers should be sent your finished, second draft. To me, this is the article or story fully fleshed out, has subject and verbs matched, intent clarified, and repetitive or superfluous words removed. This second draft is the best it can possibly be. This is the work otherwise ready for publication; this is what will be submitted to your beta-group.
The readers will make note of the parts they liked or found funny as well as what did not work for them, was difficult to understand, or was out and out offensive. They will give specific examples if necessary. Throughout the document they will make notes on punctuation and grammar. This is, generally speaking, an easy process, but this is not to be confused with fast. Beta reading can take a while, so the more polished a story you can give your beta team the more time they can spend on finding any real problems your story may have.
Beta Reading is not an exact science but rather a Zen exercise. I have been beta-ing for other authors for many years now and have found this process is absolutely invaluable. If I can humble brag for a moment, one of the folks I beta read for is the best-selling author Jim Butcher (yes, I am a member of “the Asylum”). I feel I have become a better writer because of this process (thank you Jim!). Not just because my editors receive a truly polished finished work but also because I know as I write, my betas will be reading this later; just knowing this makes me more mindful of what I write. Also, as a beta reader for other authors I have learned some of their Kung-Fu, so to speak. I’ve picked up why they do what they do and how they decide to write what they write. I may not always use everything I learn in every blog, but I always use some of it.
Selecting beta readers may not be the easiest thing, and may be a little tricky. You want to select folks who are at the very least avid readers. Best-case scenario your beta readers will also be fellow authors who are seeking beta readers for themselves. For myself, I would never use any old person I found in a chat room or via some publishing company’s on-line resource. I have heard ten times the number of horror stories verses the success stories.
In my personal opinion beta-readers should also not consist of folks who say things like “it’s wonderful, just not my type of story” which is sweet but does nothing to help you improve the work. Nor should you let your retired seventh grade English teacher read it, as they may not be up-to-date on how the Chicago Style Manual is handling English commas these days. Most importantly, and this last part I cannot express strongly enough, do not ask people who will take advantage of this opportunity to crush your soul. Their severity may appear as an ugly and hate-filled critique or worse, they may “nicely” say things to undermine your confidence as an author. These people should not even be in your life let alone reading your unpublished, unedited work.
All this being said, the beta-process is absolutely a critical step in writing and one I feel every author should utilize for every piece of material they intend to publish. Once you have a few good readers helping you out, there is no reason in the world you can’t release wonderful stuff.
I have a small team of beta-readers I utilize and trust (and speaking of which, we need a name for our little clique). They are all authors or involved in the publishing world. I have met them all in person at least once and like each one of them on a personal level. I rely on their honesty and candor and never take it personal when they critique my stuff. This is not the time or place to have a big author ego. Just as importantly, when I beta-read in return for them, I make sure I clear my schedule and do as good a job for each of them as they have consistently done for me. And every once in a while I buy them lunch because I really do appreciate what they do for me.
This is the process I use because it works for me when I beta-read for others. Try it out for yourself and see what works for you and your group and tweak it where necessary.
To begin, I ask to receive the work as a Word document because I can easily make notes in the margins with the tools built into the program. I can also type right into the problem area and mark my notes in red. I read the work through from start to finish, mindful of mood and pacing. Since the story came to me in Word, any misspellings would be easy enough to see, as they have a wavy red line underneath it. More often than not, names will come up as a misspelling, but I try to make sure there is a consistency to the spelling of the names.
Sometimes an author will create a sentence fragment for effect or impact. To me, this is not always “wrong,” so I have to use my judgment. Lastly, I re-read the story, but this time I am looking for continuity, logic, typos, flow of words, sound of dialogue (may want to read this aloud), if entire scenes need to be cut, and the like. I make my notes as I go along. Finally, I make an overall assessment at the end of the document for the author just to summarize what the notes add up to in the end; basically this is where I say if I liked the story or not. Sometimes this is hard because I am not a fan of a lot of different genre, but if the story is good, it will transcend its genre.
When I’m all finished, I e-mail it back to the author. At this point I never see the work-in-progress again. The author will take my advice or not, make changes or not. No matter what happens, the next time I see the story it will be in print. I do not see the point of washing the same story back and forth because it will turn a good work into goo.
I know this was a long-ish blog but I tried to cover all the big points of beta reading without digressing, which has become something of my trademark in the blogs. I really hope this helps my authors out there. Good luck all!
Theresa Bane
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