Fastest a beta has ever bailed on your novel and why.

lolchemist said:

This was many many years ago but I ended up beta-ing a vampire story that turned out to be VERY sexual (like the vampires were stealing people's essences through oral sex and there was an anal rape scene where the victim overpowered the rapist by squeezing his butthole so tight he immobilized the rapist with pain and then started stealing his essence with his butthole)

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That's the most bizarre thing I've ever heard.

I shan't comment on tight butthole-essense grabbing.

Wait, maybe I just did.

Anyhoo, I have had three betas bail by neglect. I sent my work and heard naught, and never hear naught. That hurt, especially because the persons asked to read my work. I don't get that.

I've had a few non-betas (family/friends) bail after the first chapter, telling me it was not their cup of tea. Which I understand, but that was after they asked me to send the thing, and after I told them, in no uncertain terms, what the story was about and the level of expliciteness.

I'm depressed now. Rats.

Unimportant said:

I agree. It's why I like to look at opening chapters first before I commit to an entire book. But when I have to say "nope, don't send me more, I hate your character" (or whatever) I still feel like I'm bailing on the author.

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I think this makes sense for several reasons. Personal taste is one. Also, none of us have unlimited time, but the amount of time each of us might have available differs. So I might have enough time to Beta person A's entire manuscript, but if person B's requires more work, or wants a more detailed crit, I might only have enough time for 3 chapters.

I've had betas who tacitly bailed -- that is, never got back to me. These were always people I only knew through the Webz. Peoples who have to look you in the eye every now and then will probably have to come up with an excuse eventually.

My BFF is my bestest beta, and has been for more than thirty years. And I'm hers. And my agent is a great beta, too, and always responds quickly.

I used to beta a lot, but no time for more than a quick SYW pass these days. I've had people who never responded to a detailed crit. Not cool, IMO -- I spent hours, and you can't cough out two words, like, um, thank you? If I do start beta-reading again, I will need to have a better knowledge of that person and his writing before I say yes.

Neophytes prone to elementary errors need either a super-patient mentor or a shelf of good books to study and compare to their own work. Things like bunged up dialogue punctuation, you should be able to correct by simple observation. What pro-published books are you reading that do anything like this:

"I'm going to bed." She said. "Okay." He replied. Oh, and take the hedgehogs with you. he added.

Phaeal said:

Neophytes prone to elementary errors need either a super-patient mentor or a shelf of good books to study and compare to their own work. Things like bunged up dialogue punctuation, you should be able to correct by simple observation. What pro-published books are you reading that do anything like this:

"I'm going to bed." She said. "Okay." He replied. Oh, and take the hedgehogs with you. he added.

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Completely agreed. While I never had a beta reader, this is a huge pet peeve of mine. People who say they're writers, and don't know simple grammar rules.

measure_in_love said:

Completely agreed. While I never had a beta reader, this is a huge pet peeve of mine. People who say they're writers, and don't know simple grammar rules.

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Quite. Except the example by Phaeal presented a punctuation issue

*I'm a nit-picky beta!*

Part of the problem is that most writers beta too early. Some of them throw their first draft out there without realizing that it's a chore to read. They think that the beta will sort everything out for them and it's not fair. I love to help people despite my own writing flaws, but lately I'm becoming more and more cautious of the stuff I take on.

I just put my own work up for beta and I was highly reluctant about it because despite it being in its fourth draft, I still don't think it's worthy enough for others to read. Hell, at this very moment my ms is in beta and I'm STILL finding grammatical errors, ugly punctuation, superfluous dialogue, and frankly, embarrassing mistakes. I cringe to think that the betas will find the mistakes that I've since discovered.


*face palm* To my betas:

I've jumped from manuscripts going down in flames--mostly after the first paragraphs of really sucky spelling, punctuation, and grammar--but I don't pull the ripcord until the first sample is critiqued and returned. A deal's a deal.

I've had potential critique partners hit the silk from my golden prose at the get-go or a few times well into it. One or two must've been swept into a black hole, as I never heard back, and a few were quite happy to compare my WIP to a surging summer septic tank.

It's all part of the process looking for the perfect fit.

Hmm the fastest was....they messaged me and I was excited for them to read it...then I sent them the first few chapters and they never answered me. I felt sad, she seemed like a good person.

I usually don't bail unless the writer is a jerk and doesn't take discussion or criticism well. That happens after a few rounds. Creative personalities I guess.

I've had beta readers who just didn't bother responding. I eventually ended up blessed with five wonderful betas at various stages of my ms--who were nice enough to finish to the end--but I did them the courtesy of providing a manuscript that was 99% free of spelling and grammar errors. If you're serious about your craft, that's the very least you can do for someone kind enough to give of their time. Why should they have to wade through slop?

I had a friend bail on me once after a day because there were witches in my story. Then she paraded around for weeks handing me pamphlets and things she printed off the internet about why witches are evil and Halloween is evil until I told her I thought the information was great and planned on using it in my next story about witches. We're still friends. Lol!

The fastest I bailed on someone was after two days of giving myself a headache trying to make sense of what they were writing. I pointed out the problems I had with it and why I couldn't continue. She proceed to throw a pint sized tantrum and we haven't spoken since. No big loss there.

richcapo said:

My bailer was a class act about it. They wished me well in addition to explaining in detail why they wouldn't read it beyond the few pages they had.

For any possible future beta parties: The book in question is ridiculously long (nearly 400,000 words), complex as heck, violent as hell, and potentially very, very offensive to the pious of whatever religion. On top of that it may not be written so well.

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400,000


...that's a trilogy, not a book.

richcapo said:

My bailer was a class act about it. They wished me well in addition to explaining in detail why they wouldn't read it beyond the few pages they had.

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Thanks for that! I have to say I balked at first a little about "citing religious reasons", because I don't like to perceive myself as someone so delicate about having religious sensibilities offended that this alone would make me quit, but of course you are right, "religous reasons" is in a way a somewhat accurate summary of my feedback. It's not about offended sensibilities though; I mean I think for instance that something like Wuthering Heights is outrageously blasphemous in places and I absolutely love that novel.

I just felt that the novel had a fairly pronounced ideological agenda I couldn't really get into. So maybe philosophical reasons?

Another thing in my defense: I did say in my first message that I might not have much time for this and might not read the whole thing.

I'm really quite optimistic that OP and I parted on good terms, but after reading all these other people describing their disappointment with flaky betas, I feel a bit bad. So, sorry again.

I have maybe been agreeing to this kind of thing a bit too casually in the past, assuming that even perfunctory feedback is better than no feedback at all, but I don't want to play with people's hopes for throrough feedback and I vow to be more committed about these things in the future.

I've had an irl friend bail on my first book. She said she'd be happy to read it, I sent the MS to her, and never heard about it again. I'm too chickensh*t to bring it up in case her reply is, "Dood it is so boring I forgot all about it."

We're still friends...I think. ^__^

lolchemist said:

This was many many years ago but I ended up beta-ing a vampire story that turned out to be VERY sexual (like the vampires were stealing people's essences through oral sex and there was an anal rape scene where the victim overpowered the rapist by squeezing his butthole so tight he immobilized the rapist with pain and then started stealing his essence with his butthole) I emailed the writer back like "GURL SORRY but I'm really bad with sex-scenes!" I want to guesstimate that I lasted 40-45 minutes LOL

I think not replying back is so rude! You don't need to insult the writer like 'He did WHAT with his butthole???' but you can just say you actually hate vampires lately because of Twilight or are uncomfortable with gratuitous sex scenes or whatever and just wish them well.

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Seriously. I wish I could've invited you to my webcam just 5 minutes ago. I literally at this so hard that my uncle might've heard me and thought I was crazy. For a minute I thought he was going to walk into my room and ask me what the heck was going on. That's the funniest post I've ever read in AW, and I've been here since Dec., 2 months.


Fastest a beta bailed on me was on chapter 5, I think. She hated my MC. She also hated my subject matter. I don't even know why she offered to beta it in the first place. Weird little person. I emailed her my whole manuscript sacrificing transfer minutes on my 4G internet device all to have her say that she hated my subject matter and my MC, so I said "You know what? Delete my MS from your hard drive and my email address from your address book. You're the worst beta ever, beta'ing for something you knew from the very beginning wasn't what you liked to read." In the post in the Beta forum I was very thorough about my novel. The only detail I left out was posting the entire manuscript itself. She even told me she had made another writer stop writing forever. I went off on her and I don't regret being rude. There are some cases in which you have to be rude.

Puttput, I keep looking at your sig and being a bit upset:

SUPERAWESOMENEWBOOK: Fantasy - Third draft done and in the hands of someone awesome. The anxiety is making me want to vomit.

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Now I know that awesome person can't be me, coz I only have the first 7 chapters, not the whole draft, but.... I hope I make you want to vomit too? Even just a little bit?

Kallithrix said:

Now I know that awesome person can't be me, coz I only have the first 7 chapters, not the whole draft, but.... I hope I make you want to vomit too? Even just a little bit?

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Bunneh, you make me want to poo. between you and that awsumz beta, I'm a very dehydrated hippo.

I bailed after my first crit on the first chapter was met with defensive aggression. I try my best to be constructive and to point out both what I liked and what I didn't in all my crits (because nobody likes just being told why they suck), but this person basically told me my opinion was invalid because everyone else was fawning over it. 'Kay. Bye.

I've had the no-response people too, where they ask for the MS and then apparently disappear off the face of the earth.

Also, that whole thing about the vampire butthole... Wow. I still kind of want to read it, even though it sounds like something straight out of bad hentai.

This was an alpha reader, 3 days, 9 chapters due to the fact I hadn't given her good enough feedback on her WIP.

I've had to bail as a beta almost every time I've tried doing it. Real life has a habit of getting in the way. These days I just try to comment on stuff in the SYW thread (horror mostly) and have helped a couple people format their works for Kindle. Since I'm a tech writer in the real world these days I read for enjoyment not for critiquing. It's best that way.

(and to those AWers who've I "stood up" as a beta I profoundly apologize)

One of my best friends from college. Well, she hasn't bailed so much as distracted herself from reading it, from the moment she received it... two years ago now? When Hubby and I were writing, I'd regale her with the developments of the day, and she drank it all in. Once I put a copy on her computer... Well, she's too busy reading slash fanfiction, and Attention Deficit Ooh Shiny's her way right past the beta reading she said she'd totally do.

Bless...

I would hope the only reason I would bail if I did Beta, is only because I personally have a hard time reading really long sentences that function as dialogue tags. I can read really long books as long as they get this part right.

I prefer to read:
He said. Story continuation.

Instead of:
He said as he was smoking a pipe, the brand of tobacco of his choice.

Because it feels like a really long Tom Swiftly.

But I would probably first have them tell me what genre they want to do, and tell them honestly if I read that genre.

lolchemist said:

This was many many years ago but I ended up beta-ing a vampire story that turned out to be VERY sexual (like the vampires were stealing people's essences through oral sex and there was an anal rape scene where the victim overpowered the rapist by squeezing his butthole so tight he immobilized the rapist with pain and then started stealing his essence with his butthole) I emailed the writer back like "GURL SORRY but I'm really bad with sex-scenes!" I want to guesstimate that I lasted 40-45 minutes LOL

I think not replying back is so rude! You don't need to insult the writer like 'He did WHAT with his butthole???' but you can just say you actually hate vampires lately because of Twilight or are uncomfortable with gratuitous sex scenes or whatever and just wish them well.

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I have nothing meaningful to contribute to the conversation, but boy did I need that laugh! Thanks for that.