Hello and welcome to the board.
You may not realize it but there are about 30,000 members of AW. Which means we see a LOT of new people. Unfortunately, we have also seen a LOT of new people come, ask for a crit or a beta and then leave. They never become a contributing member of the site. Which leaves the regulars a bit irritable.
It's not a problem that you came here to find people to share your work with, many of us have. BUT you will have much better luck if you stick around and become a participating member of the community.
We have a forum called Share Your Work (SYW) for this purpose, but for the reasons I just explained, you need 50 posts in order to ask for a crit. You can start contributing and critting other people's work now though. I highly recommend this.
A couple other things (because I feel generous)...
You are using the wrong term. A beta reader is someone who reads your work when it is finished and you are on the verge or querying agents or self-pubbing. In other words when it is absolutely the best you can make it. So what you are looking for is a critique. Perhaps even a crit or writing partner.
Finally, I think most of us when we are new, hope to post our stuff and receive encouragement about how good it is. We may not admit it, most of all to ourselves, but it's true.
That is not what you will get in SYW (nor should you! so you need to understand this.) The best way to help a fellow writer (and we do want to help each other) is to tell them what could or should be fixed in their story or novel.
But what if my work is good? you ask...Heh, heh, keep in mind we find things we would change in published novels! So the point is when you post in SYW (after 50 posts) or even share with a crit partner, you need to have the attitude of looking for ideas to make your story better, stronger. Don't expect abundant praise, that is rare indeed.
I hope this is helpful, and again welcome. Hope you stick around.
