The Novel Craft Blog

A Beta Reading Guide for Fiction Authors

by | Mar 6, 2020 | Editing, Story Craft | 0 comments

If you’re looking to gain valuable feedback on how readers experience your story, beta readers are a great resource. Beta reading is when someone reads your manuscript and gives you informal feedback. Beta readers don’t give you the trained, technical perspective of an editor. They give you the subjective response of a first-time reader. As such, it is so important that you pick the right beta readers for your genre and that you ask your beta readers the right questions.

Your Beta Readers Should Be

Passionate About Your Genre

Beta readers give you their personal response to your story. As such, the best beta readers are people who already avidly read your genre. Everyone responds to books differently and has their own style preferences. Someone who loves short, fast-paced thrillers will easily find an epic fantasy novel boring, even though fantasy readers may find the slower-paced world building fascinating. It’s important that your beta readers like your genre so that you are getting the perspective of your target audience.

Since beta readers are not formal editors, they generally won’t distinguish between their personal taste and objective narrative issues. Any time a beta reader’s feedback doesn’t sit right with you, you need to ask yourself the question, “is this a matter of personal taste or are they pointing out objective narrative issues?” If your beta readers already like your genre, you are much less likely get responses that are simply a matter of taste. Also, keep this excellent piece of advice from Neil Gaiman in mind:

You always have to remember, when people tell you that something doesn’t work for them, that they’re always right. It doesn’t work for them. And that is incredibly important information. You also have to remember that when people tell you what they think is wrong and how you should fix it, that they’re almost always wrong.

Neil Gaiman

Comfortable Giving Constructive Criticism and Compliments

Beyond liking your genre, beta readers should also be comfortable giving you both positive and negative feedback. There are people who are so frightened of hurting your feelings that they won’t give you any critical feedback. There are also people who are so callous that they’ll dump masses of criticism without ever mentioning the parts that they did like. Constructive compliments can be just as valuable as constructive criticism. The best beta readers are people who can give you both.

Of course, asking your beta readers specific questions about both what they liked and didn’t like can really help balance out readers who tend to be overly positive or negative.

What to Ask Your Beta Readers

Beta readers often aren’t professionals, so most will need some guidance about what to focus their feedback on. First, you need to be clear about whether you want sentence-level edits. Beta reading usually includes general feedback about the story itself, not sentence-level edits for grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Some beta readers will not recognize this distinction, so you need to be very clear that you do not want any editing for grammar, punctuation, and spelling. Tell them to focus on the story, not the sentences.

A lot of beta readers will also find it difficult to say more than, “I liked it” or “I didn’t like it.” To pull out the “why” behind the beta reader’s response, you should ask beta readers specific questions. Here are some questions that can pull out specific, constructive feedback from your beta readers:

Did you enjoy the story? What about it did you like and what didn’t you like?

Okay, this first question’s more open-ended. It’s important to gain a sense of the beta reader’s general response before you dive deep into specifics.

Were the first pages gripping?

The first pages are vital to your story’s success. How interesting the first pages are will determine whether a reader (or an agent) will want to read more. It’s important to know whether the first pages, be it a prologue or a chapter, are doing enough to hook the reader.

Was the overall narrative compelling?

Every story has a driving narrative question that motivates the reader to find out what happens in the end. For instance, in The Hunger Games, the driving narrative question is, “Will Katniss Everdeen survive the Hunger Games?” Asking beta readers whether the overall story was compelling helps you gauge whether your driving narrative question is prominent and interesting enough to keep readers engaged.

Did the ending feel satisfying?

A story’s ending is its answer to the driving narrative question. When the narrative question remains unanswered or when the answer is disappointing, the ending will feel unsatisfying. Asking how the beta reader felt about the ending can help you identify if you nailed the answer to your driving narrative question. Also note that good cliff-hangers still answer the primary narrative question. They just do it in a way that introduces new questions. For example, in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, the question “will Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark survive the Quarter Quell?” is answered in a way that poses new questions: “How will the civil war and Katniss’s role in it pan out? What will happen to Peeta in the capital?” The cliff-hanger is created by introducing new questions, not by leaving the primary narrative question completely unanswered.

From start to finish, did you want to keep reading? Were any parts boring?

These two questions help you identify if your story has any pacing issues.

Did the characters seem realistic and relatable? Which characters did you like and dislike?

It’s important for readers to find the protagonist interesting and, if not relatable, at least realistic. If characters seem fake or too perfect, it will break the readers’ suspension of disbelief and their interest in the story. You also need to know if the characters come across as you intended them to. If readers were annoyed by a character you intended to be likeable (or vice versa), you need to adjust how you write the character.

Was anything confusing?

Often writers are so immersed in their story’s world that they forget to explain certain things that a newcomer wouldn’t understand. This question helps you ensure that the progression of story events makes sense and is clear to the reader.

Does the story’s quality match that of books you would buy in a store? Can you see this story being sold in stores? Why or why not?

This question is a big one. It helps you gauge whether your story is ready for submission to agents and publishers, or whether you’re ready for self-publishing. If the answer to “why not” is that the story needs work, it’s an indication that your story would benefit from developmental editing.

Were any errors in grammar, spelling, or punctuation so prominent that they distracted you from the story?

This question is particularly helpful for authors who want to pursue traditional publishing or for authors who want to self-publish on a budget. Agents and publishers aren’t looking for perfection at the sentence-level, so copy editing usually isn’t a great investment to pursue before submitting to agents. That being said, if the sentences are so confusing or so full of errors that they detract from the reader’s ability to immerse themselves in your story, it will negatively impact your ability to land an agent. For self-publishing authors on a budget, you may find yourself needing to decide between pursuing a developmental edit or a copy edit. In both cases, the answer to this question can help you determine the degree to which a full copy edit (or a small copy edit to help with self-editing) would be beneficial for your manuscript.

How to Find a Beta Reader

Once you know what to ask beta readers, you need to actually find one. The first thing to keep in mind is that beta reading is a significant time commitment. Most people won’t do it just as a favour, and those who intend to do it as a favour tend to procrastinate and never actually finish the book. Given the significant time commitment, most people will ask for some kind of compensation. That compensation can also motivate the person to actually finish the beta read in a timely fashion.

It can be worthwhile to pay for beta reading, but if you can’t afford that or if you want to save your budget for formal editing, there are alternatives. It’s very common for authors to do beta-reading exchanges where they exchange manuscripts and mutually give feedback on each other’s work. This is a system that a lot of authors have come to prefer.

With your preferred compensation method in mind, start your search with readers or writers that you personally know. If you’re connected with a local writers’ group, look there first. Having a personable relationship with the reader can help you accurately gauge whether the reader is a good fit for your novel. If you don’t know any readers or writers who would be a good fit for your manuscript, check out the online writing community. If you’re on Twitter, ask if there are any authors in your genre who would be interested in doing a beta-reading exchange (or for other compensation). Be sure to use #WritingCommunity and ask for retweets to reach more people. WattPad community forums are also a great place to post an offer for beta reading.

So there you have it: all my tips and tricks to guide you through your beta reading. Do you have any questions or words of wisdom yourself? Feel free to share them below and keep the conversation going!

About the Author

About the Author

I’m Amelia Winters, a professional fiction editor, language nerd, and story aficionado. By night, I chase stories and explore distant worlds through books, role-playing games, and sewing my own historical garments. By day, I journey with authors to help them hone their story craft, elevate their voice, and polish their prose.

To learn more about my editing services, click here.

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