In software, the term 'beta' means that the software is out of 'alpha'. Beta means that the software has already been put through its paces before it was let out the door; there may be some bugs (some known, some unknown) but fundamentally the software does what was intended.
In literature it's much sloppier. 'Beta' can mean that the author:
- finished and revised a whole draft, believes that the characters, plot, setting, narration and through-lines are all viable, that the dialogue is reasonably well-crafted and now wants to see where the problems are;
- finished some part of a first draft, knows that there are design or exposition problems, has no idea how to resolve them and needs guidance; or
- wrote words on a page, has no idea how to approach the craft of writing and just wants someone to give encouragement and directions.
To my mind, only author 1) needs a beta-reader.
Author 2) needs a capable writing-buddy to peer over the shoulder, and help diagnose and fix problems, suggest alternative approaches, offer encouragement, point out strengths and weaknesses, and suggest exercises to beef up the muscles. Ideally that person would work with snippets, synopses and outlines, and not whole wads of manuscript. Ideally there's respect and trust between such buds.
Person 3) needs an experienced mentor -- someone to talk about what needs to be learned, suggest effective ways of learning it, and to dissuade them from writing 100,000-word novels and querying them to professional agents.
Naturally, if a person 2 or 3 thinks they're a person 1 then they're in for a rude shock. There are more or less polite ways to say 'Your manuscript is unpublishable and you need to learn more craft', but there are no ways of guaranteeing that someone won't hate us for saying it.
My suggestions:
- Don't commit to beta-reading manuscript until you're clear that beta-reading is what the author actually needs.
- If the author doesn't need beta-reading, tell him so clearly. Explain why constructively, and give examples.
- Authors generally write far more than they should. Don't waste your time reading material that has the same deep recurring flaws. Point it out once or twice, then stop and let them know where you stopped, and why.
- You can't stop authors from hating you, but you can minimise the effort it takes to get hated.
I turned my hand to fiction in a serious way just on four years ago. In that time I've critiqued hundreds of manuscripts, had a crack at four novels, half a dozen shorts (one now in publication), read half a dozen books on writing, posted maybe three thousand writing-related articles and completed maybe sixty writing exercises. In order of useful learnings, I'd rank them:
- Reading books on writing. Especially the first three or four good ones; after that it tends to be the same messages rehashed. I wish I'd read some good writing-books on day 1.
- Being a good writing-bud. It might take me a week to write a flawed short, but it only takes me an hour to critique one. I can learn some key lessons faster by reading other peoples' crappy manuscripts than by crapping out my own.
- Completing writing exercises. Exercises are very efficient at teaching us what we don't know because they're short and targeted and designed by people who know how to write. Because writing is experiential, doing exercises with buddies is far more useful than doing them alone.
- Writing shorts. About 80% of all the flaws we might have as a writer are visible in a short. Shorts are short, so the flaws come out faster. Hence better learnins.
- Writing about writing. I'm a mad problem-solving fiend. So helping other people with their problems is a form of learning for me too. We often teach what we most need to learn.
- Writing novels. They are certainly an acid test of being able to write, but I find them the least educational of all the writing activities I do. They're most prone to producing inconclusive and not very informative results.
I guess that for the purpose of this discussion I'm saying: don't give up critting other peoples' stuff, but don't try and
beta-read it unless that's what it actually needs. And if you aspire to be a good writing-buddy, get yourself a
good grounding in writing fundamentals first.
Hope that helps.
Sorry for the rant but I'm pissed off.................. (better than being pissed on I suppose). Time for some wine.
