Significant Others as Beta Readers, Critters, etc

I sometimes pitch ideas to my wife to get her opinion on them before i start a project but that's about it. She's not much of a reader and even if she did critique my work, i'm not sure she would be able to give an honest opinion.

I have a writing group in which we share our work. I think that's usually the best route (with a close second being posting your work to forums like this and getting feedback).

I can't really understand how someone could have zero interest in reading their partner's work

That being said, for me it's more of an "I want to share this with you" thing than a "be my beta reader" thing. I'm pretty private about my work when I'm first starting out, so I wait until something is mostly finished before showing my partner. At that point he's good for picking out plot holes, which is awesome, but mainly I just want him to read it--and he's happy when I let him.

My husband and I took about five years to figure out how to be writing partners... and our first year of collaboration had several shouting matches. Eep. It was... painful. But worth it!

Now, however, I can't imagine trying to write without him. He's got a great knack for helping me write male characters. He spends his days doing engineering and requirements, which makes him great at saying "this sentence doesn't mean what you think". And he's awesome at brainstorming. Our rough plots are at least 50% his ideas. The writing is mostly mine.

Is he unbiased? Um, nope. But he's supportive and very helpful and gives me a lot better feedback than just "honey that was nice". I'm so glad I write genres he likes.

Doesn't someone become a significant other when they become a beta...

*makes bedroom eyes at poor long-suffering betas*

*bedroom eyes might look a lot like I-have-to-poop-eyes, not sure*

*never made bedroom eyes before*

*...awkward*

buzhidao said:

*makes bedroom eyes at poor long-suffering betas*

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*neighs and hops away frightened*

veinglory said:

The only other individual in my household is a dog. He would only take an interest in my book if I wrapped it around a piece of bacon.

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I have two cats who take far more interest in my rustling, crunching MS than they ought to. I've got more than one early draft page bearing clawsy marks. But they love it when I mess up so much I crumple up a page and throw it. They chase it down. It's fun.

My husband has been a great source of ideas and suggestions, and he's an absolute grammar fascist (Praise be!) He's a scientist and an aspiring writer. Sometimes he can be a bit blunt.
Occasionally, I will ask him to be gentle and tactful because I'm feeling sensitive that day, and that works well.
We did have a blow up once...about a query letter. It wasn't that he didn't like it, but he later said he *hated* it. I was furious with him for not telling me, and allowing me to send it out!

When I crit his work, I try to make it very clear that it is my opinion and that he can use my suggestions or not. It's his book and his choice.

I'd say we incorporate about 3/4 of each others suggestions in our work.

My wife has read both of my manuscripts. Turning them over to her was extreeeeeemely difficult for me, out of some fear that she'd read it, say something like, "This is what you've been spending all this time on?" and proceed to lose all respect for me.

Fortunately, that hasn't happened. The feedback I've gotten from her hasn't been as detailed as what I've gotten from other betas, but it has been helpful, in particular on my latest.

My boyfriend is the only person on the planet allowed to see my rough, unedited first drafts. He's not a reader by nature, but he's excellent at pointing out the places where the plot goes wandering or a character is acting strangely. I depend on his input and can't imagine trusting anyone else with my first drafts, they're too fragile to be poked and prodded by the world at large.

After he's gone over something, I take it back, rewrite it, and then go looking for Betas. It would be so much more difficult without him, he's wonderfully useful.

My husband is invaluable to me as a sounding block. We hash everything out together, and we have a relationship where he can say "I don't like that, it doesn't make sense to me/sounds boring/doesn't work" and I won't get offended.

As a beta, he's incompetent. He doesn't read novels. He has no idea what he's looking for. He tries, bless him, when I sit him down and force him to by reading the whole damn thing out loud to him, and he'll tell me if something doesn't make sense, and if he's looking at the text, he can catch grammatical/punctuation/spelling errors, but the finer points of crafting scenes and sentences are lost on him. I can use 'torrent' in three sentences in a row and it won't bother him. I could head hop and he wouldn't notice. Etc.

I don't know what I'd do without him, but thank goodness for my other betas!

My husband has refused to critique or proof read my novel.

Some of it is because he's worried that if he doesn't like something I've written--as in really just doesn't like the story or characters, as opposed to having suggestions on ways to tighten in up or improve it--it will hurt our relationship. Also, he is a college professor who brings home a stack of lab reports to grade several nights a week, so going over something with a fine toothed comb and looking for errors is a bit too much like his day job. Poor guy doesn't even read novels for fun much anymore.

My other half is an avid reader in the same genre I write. He's also brutally honest. I wrote one short story that was so awful, it's become a joke between us. "Oh, sure, this is bad, but is it as bad as that one story?"

He doesn't have craft suggestions, as he doesn't write, but that's fine with me. (Another of his frequent comments is, "I don't know how to fix it, I just know it doesn't work.")

My partner is not a writer and has beta-read my MS two times now. She'll read it again when I'm done with the latest round of editing. Also, she has helped tweak my query many many times.

I can't ask for a more awesome beta. After she betas my MS, she goes over her marked-up copy with me and explains all her comments. She's sharp. She's brutally honest. We've been together for so long that we can say mean things to each other without hurting feelings. And she can be blunt. ("That's corny and stupid.") But this way I know when she likes something she's not sugar-coating. My story is based on a female POV. Since I'm male, it's helpful to ask her questions about women to make sure I get things right ("So do you apply the moisturizer or the foundation first?"). I'm constantly pestering her with ideas about my current MS and the next novel I want to write, and she humors me without losing patience.

My novel would be a lot suckier today if I didn't have her.

I married the girl who had already been my favourite beta for years.

She's a perfect match for me - very gentle and good at cheerleading, but very, very thorough. And I trust her judgement. Every time she's said someone was acting OOC or illogically or I'd lost their voice, or that a scene was in the wrong place or didn't fit or needed more development or setting up first, she's been right and I've ended up being glad I went with her judgement. Even when it's meant cutting particularly favourite bits and two whole supporting characters altogether. *cries bitter tears*

My boyfriend is a reader but not a writer. He doesn't read much in my genre. He's read some things I've written but none of my novel mss. Partly this is because I write in a language he is not as fluent in as I am, but honestly I don't think he'd be great as a beta reader for me anyway. But he's incredibly supportive of me in every other way.

Incidentally, my two best critique partners are also two of my closest friends, which is something people say is a bad idea, but it works for me. Because they are honest and awesome.

I rely heavily on my wife for beta reading. She's an avid reader and owns a huge library of books so I can first off count on her as a reliable source of judging the entertainment value of my own writing.

Another thing is, she's brutal when it comes to critiquing my manuscript. Whether its grammatical, pacing, sentence structure, plot holes, she seems to capture anything. She reads in batches and hands me back my printed manuscript with page after page of red-ink comments. I love some of the comments where she would just circle something and jot down "This makes NO sense. Re-write all of this."

But yeah, if I couldn't guarantee she would be a hard ass, I wouldn't let her beta read. Thank god she has no problem ripping my manuscript apart.

As for line edits (grammar / punctuation / etc.), more technical writing, I pass that over to my father who is a retired english teacher of 30+ years. for 7th and 8th grade ( my target audience ). So i'm lucky enough to have him spot errors, but he has a real problem with being hard on me. Too much of the "Proud of my son writing a book" gig lol.

But besides them, I have friends beta read and also just friendly folks from random writing boards / twitter / blogs beta reading as well. The more the merrier.

I pick my husband's brains about certain aspects that I want to add into the story so that it makes sense. However, he will not read my writing. He told me point blank that he doesn't want to read the same thing over and over again. Plus, he's very picky, to the point that I might smack him. We decided that it's best for him to avoid reading it unless I become rich and famous. Then, he has to.

I usually use close friends/family as beta readers only AFTER I've had some writers look at my work. Then I use my family/friends just to read it as someone who'd pick it up off the bookshelf.

Isobel Lindley said:

I married the girl who had already been my favourite beta for years.

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I did this, too!

Works well for us in general, though it's had a few rough patches. She has an uncanny ability to tell where I'm trying to go with a piece, and to point out the parts that aren't getting me there.

I guess my bias my show as I'm currently don't have a significant other. But in my experience with family, I don't really trust opinions from my aunt who acts like a critic (not a critiquer, a critic) of my work before I've even shown her a rough draft.

Never mind the conflict of interest of commenting on something, then when you read it turns out to be something totally different. I really don't see how a significant other for me would be any different.

Plus a lot of commenters I've had that were non family were either in it to inflate their own writing ego's by crushing others motivation by being ruff and tumble, or using it to promote payed editing services or their own book. True story, don't use a payed comic script editor you don't know as a critiquer for a novel. (Even if your like me and doing a graphic novel and light novel.)

srgalactica said:

Does your significant other read your work and what has been your experience? Do they beta read, critique, etc? Are they also writers?

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My husband doesn't read my work until after it's published and I don't ask him to. He's not a big reader and when he reads it is not in my genre. He's very supportive though and encourages me when I reach those rough patches that slow me down.

I have not shared my official writing with my fiancé, though he is very interested. I am currently working up the nerve to let him read my novel, but I am waiting until I finish my second edit.

He has, however, read a lot of my informal writing, such as blog posts. I am comfortable with that, but I'd like him to read the stuff that actually matters.

My wife, with her private school education, has a far better grasp of grammar than I do and is viciously critical. Which is why I keep my babies away from her until they are definitely up to withstanding what she would throw at them (usually long after publication... ).

Seriously, we discuss ideas (she is a great test for concepts) but she does not read or actively crit anything. The last time she read anything of mine was Gods of the Sea (post publication) and her opinion was that it was better than the other stories in the anthology but I had got the FMC's hair style wrong when describing it (the FMC is her creation, I had permission to use her for that story).

I think it is always useful to have someone around with a different brain than yours to throw ideas at and to give you an alternate opinion to things. I would not rely on any member of my family as an impartial source of critical feedback, however.

My wife isn't generally a horror or fantasy reader, but she reads and critiques my stuff eagerly. If she tells me I've got something right or got it wrong, 99% of the time, she's right.

My partner betas all my het and lesbian erotica and the rare non-erotica I write. He's the most amazing critique-er, able to give even harsh criticism without any sting. He also helps me hash out ideas and get to the bottom of why a scene isn't working or where to go with a plot when I get stuck, even if it's something he wouldn't personally read.

He does badger me to write stories for him though, even when I'm swamped.