Be a Better Beta

Everyone should Beta.

I mean this whether you are a writer or just a lover of stories--but I especially mean this for writers. I know what some of you are thinking.

I don't wanna!

 You work a full time job. 

You're writing your own book.

You have kids.

You have a reading list of already-published work.

You don't feel like you can properly critique work.

Get over it.

The bottom line is that Beta reading is an integral part of trying to get published. In my experience my manuscript drafts have become perhaps 3 times better after I get a few extra eyes on the project. This isn't just about correcting a comma to a semi-colon, this is a chance to see which characters speak to the average person, which people they hate or love, who comes alive and who falls flat.

This is a chance to see if your plot is moving slowly or too fast. Do your MCs have chemistry, is the love interest boring or over-sexualized?

Editing is hard, all of you know it. Here is a chance for you to dump all 500 pages of your Epic Fantasy Novel on someone else's hands. Someone who finds the story fresh, and exciting and doesn't know a thing about the other four drafts where your MC had too many apostrophes in his first name. 

You just get to be like: 

Here, Slave.  Read it! Every last bit!

 And people want to do this for you.

If you have a good group of friends and family, they have been dying to read your work. If you are smart, you've kept your draft a secret and now your adoring fans are thirsty for a drink of your amazing words! Even if no one you know has a degree in literature or writing and can't give you "educated" feed back on plot development and character they can tell you what they liked and disliked.

Every opinion counts. 

Which is why you should share yours. Reading is important to being a good writer. I think solidarity is just as amazing. What if your friends book is an amazing story that is years before it's time? What if it's an Urban Fantasy book that agents find too "preachy" and never pick up? But if what reading it inspires your own work, your next blog post, your next tweet, even? You can't miss out on the opportunity to review a fellow writer's work.

One day, (hopefully) you could be asked to do it for a big name. Your comment could end up on a book cover. How can you make sure your feedback is useful? Here's a handy list:

• Read the Book Twice
• Your first time combing through it will be riddled with names, places, rough plot. Only on the second go will you be acclimated with the characters and able to give something meaningful 

• Learn to Use an Editing Program
• "Review" in MS word is a godsend. It lets you make side comments, it highlights your corrections and all your analyses will be in different colored text. It then allows the owner of the document to accept or deny a change. Google docs does the same

•  Be Honest
• First time I had a beta reader it came from a stranger I met on Absolute Write Water Cooler. She got an agent last year. She's a very good writer. She SHAT ALL OVER MY WORK. I deserved it. It was a bad draft and I never thanked her for her honesty and break down. I wasn't ready for that kind of hurt. But she was a good Beta because she wasn't concerned about my feelings--she told me exactly what she thought of my book and what would make it a better project

• Be Objective
• It can be hard being a Beta for a friend. We are excited about their project and genuinely think its good. But consider the book as a stand-alone-project because the truth is, that is what it is. Authors don't end up being super celebrities most of the time. Usually their book is on a shelf and no one really knows what they look like walking down a street. So if the book wasn't any good, we wouldn't care about them. Learn to consider the book as a book and not an extension of someone you love.

• Find Something Negative to Say
• Feel free to disagree with me on this but I do think it's a good exercise to challenge yourself to come up with something negative. If you read through an MS and can't find a single thing you disliked--even if you admit it's completely your opinion, then you are not doing a good job. You need to give the writer everything and can decide what advice to discard. I think it's impossible to involve yourself in critical thinking without coming up with one critique.

Even if you only Beta for one project in your decades of writing, do it anyway. You will benefit from it in some way, even if it's just doing a good deed for someone else. You never know, you could be getting a sneakpeak at something amazing.

And it will look exactly like this.