BETAs needed for YA Fantasy and YA Contemporary

It sounds to me as if you're not yet ready for a beta reader--someone who's the last reader of your completed, polished manuscript before you start submitting it--and more in the market for a writing or critique partner.

For many, the best way to find that partner is to critique the works of other people at AW's Share Your Work board in the same genre as what you're writing. It's good practice for you, and it lets you get a feel for who's on your wavelength, what other people's interests are, their skill levels, all that stuff that ideally aligns well in a writing partnership of any kind.

Once you've done some critiques and made some posts at your genre's boards, getting your feet wet to the tune of 50 posts, you can put up your own work for feedback and see whose critique is really insightful.

Maryn, pleased to meet you

Persy, you can certainly post a request for a writing buddy or critique partner here. I wasn't objecting to the request at all, only to the terminology.

Just the right somebody to bounce ideas, chapters, and critiques with can be a wonderful thing both for you as a writer and for you as a person.

Or if you're more comfortable with it, you can hang back a little, get the lay of the land (yeah, right, cyber-land!), let us all get to see how nice you are and how hard you're working on the craft--and that can get you some volunteers, too.

Maryn, hoping she's not off-putting

It can certainly seem overwhelming at first. There's a lot to take in! Stop in the Newbies threads to introduce yourself, and to read the stickies, which can guide you in all kinds of ways, from how to use the site to finding what you're looking for to what we expect in terms of behavior. (Hint: be courteous. Pretty demanding, huh?)

And don't hesitate to ask questions if you're not sure about stuff, okay?

Maryn, wearing a hostess apron like it's 1958