Unhelpful beta-readers

This is the edit-nazi in me talking:

Why haven't you put your work through a decent spell-checker? The reason you're having trouble getting 'overall response' reviews from people you read your work might be that the spelling errors are so distracting, it prevents them from really focusing on the more literary elements of the piece. Do you just lack the software? Because I've been there and done that, and there are several ways to get around not having MS word.

Otherwise, I recommend getting a beta from AW. There's a forum devoted exclusively to that. You can also, if you're daring, post your work places like fictionpress.com and writing.com, which automatically copywrite work posted by authors (though this still carries the risk of plagiarism). That would open it up for public reviews if you're having trouble, though I can't guarantee anyone would take the time.

Hi Xeen - I agree with dpaterso in posting a bit (1,000 - 2,000 words) in the appropriate share your work forum. You will get comments. But, as a word of caution, make sure you fix as many of the misspellings and typos as you can before you post on SYW so critiquers don't get bogged down in mechanics you have the capability of fixing.

Friends are probably the worst beta readers. They either love whatever you've done regardless or they don't want to hurt your feelings. You're better off having someone you don't know personally do a beta read. Puma

Yes... maybe posting something in the SYW forum will help you out. I have to agree with Sonn, though. I wouldn't dream of handing my work over to a beta when it still has spelling mistakes...the most simple of errors to correct. It shows, IMHO, that you don't really take it seriously. That's going to be felt by the beta, who will be distracted by the errors.

Did you give your beta readers any indication of what you were looking for? If you didn't educate them first as to the role of a beta reader and what you expect from them, they may have no idea what you want from them and are stumbling around in the dark and just give you what they think you're looking for.

If you've still got that many spelling errors, you can't have read your work over many times. I find re-reading one of the best ways of smartening up the work. Leave it a few weeks and read it again. I read it out loud - that really points out problems. So I think you gave your work to be read far too early in its evolution.

You need to find the RIGHT people to be your betas. You have to decide on the criteria. Sometimes the best ones come from your circle of friends (mine do), and sometimes they're complete strangers. I usually need to know a person enough to consider them a beta -- I'm looking for people who are honest, like stories, can be critical but also fair, won't hold back from me if something doesn't work for them. I'm lucky enough to find a few in my circle (including a few folks on AW).

I'd suggest testing the water with Share Your Work, and eventually you may find some folks you click with, whom you think may be good betas for you. A lot of times, I think beta reading is all about relationship. You can't just dump the book on someone's lap and say, "read it and tell me what you think." You need to build some sort of relationship with them first, based on honesty and truth. I think that's very important.



p.s. Speaking of spelling mistakes, I know I have a lot of typos and I don't mind my betas pointing them out, but not when they don't have anything else to offer. One of my betas actually likes to point out all the typos and grammatical mistakes, at least in the beginning. But when she stopped doing that and just read... then I KNEW I'd got her.

It's going to be very difficult finding a few beta readers. I give my MS to a few and they never came back.

It's better to have a few strangers read your stuff, because your friends and family, will just tell you it's great even though they don't even like it. They don't want to hurt your feelings.

Hey, if it makes you feel better, I'd be happy to beta your stuff! (If it's interesting.)

The wrong betas are people who are too lazy to read a MS.

when I do a beta read, I tell the author that I do not spell check for them, or mess with grammar. What I read for is story clarity and whether or not the writing makes me want to keep turning pages. After all, I'm in search of a good read, just like any other reader. I'm not a fourth grade grammar teacher.
However, when someone sends me a mss that has a misspelling in every sentence, and they've used 7 different font styles, and the POV is so convoluted as to make the story incomprehensible, then I simply tell them, this is unpublishable. It's not even a first draft, it's a mess.

Hate to be rude. But if you can't spell, and manage basic sentence structure, then you are not a writer. Not yet, anyway. Go back and learn some basics, then keep writing.

BlueLucario said:

It's going to be very difficult finding a few beta readers. I give my MS to a few and they never came back.

It's better to have a few strangers read your stuff, because your friends and family, will just tell you it's great even though they don't even like it. They don't want to hurt your feelings.

Hey, if it makes you feel better, I'd be happy to beta your stuff! (If it's interesting.)

The wrong betas are people who are too lazy to read a MS.

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Wow!!! Blue, I am so glad you said this. I was afraid to.

I have learned one thing about "willing" beta readers... They will not read your ms unless they also have an ms that needs reading. In other words, they want something in return (which is understandable). If they don't have an ms, they won't read. Period. Regardless of what they tell you. It is just way too hard to read half-baked stuff unless somebody is reading your half-baked stuff.

--ray

raywhite said:

Wow!!! Blue, I am so glad you said this. I was afraid to.

I have learned one thing about "willing" beta readers... They will not read your ms unless they also have an ms that needs reading. In other words, they want something in return (which is understandable). If they don't have an ms, they won't read. Period. Regardless of what they tell you. It is just way too hard to read half-baked stuff unless somebody is reading your half-baked stuff.

--ray

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Heh, you can't trust a few either. How do you know they aren't gunna run off and publish your stuff? (Just me being silly.)

Usual disclaimers apply: just my 2c, that's not worth a lot.

raywhite said:

Wow!!! Blue, I am so glad you said this. I was afraid to.

I have learned one thing about "willing" beta readers... They will not read your ms unless they also have an ms that needs reading. In other words, they want something in return (which is understandable). If they don't have an ms, they won't read. Period. Regardless of what they tell you. It is just way too hard to read half-baked stuff unless somebody is reading your half-baked stuff.

--ray

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I am sorry to say, this has not been true in my experience. Since I started writing and found AW last September, two readers drifted away, one because my writing was too dark + RL commitments, and one because we had a falling-out. But the rest are still with me, and I have other readers lined up for when I actually finish the monster.

I have been betaing like crazy meanwhile and learned a lot. This is going to sound a bit off, but I discovered that new authors that are actually published (say, short stories but are still working on their novel) are usually very open to criticism, look for it and are grateful for it, and give me engaging if imperfect works to read. The people I want to beta my novel NOW are the people whose work I cannot walk away from.

On the other hand, people whose stuff is IMHO not as ready yet are often too attached to their pretties and may take comments as personal attacks. Those are rarely intended as such; usually people who don't like you or your work do not spend time on your work. They just walk away, or say something noncommittal like, "yeah, it was fine."

When I posted in SYW for the first time, my work was crap. I listened to people who beat my work up, because they were trying to make it better - and I went back to my work and rewrote again and again and again until I got somewhere with it.

If you are serious about making your writing better, I think you should spell-check it and post it in SYW forum.

Best of luck with your writing,
Rose

Welcome to AW, Xeen! I will say this-it's really tough to find a good beta sometimes. I know that if you post a piece with a lot of spelling mistakes that could be caught by your word processing program, there are people who might be turned off by it. I know I'm OCD and I can't even read my own work without spelling or grammar mistakes jumping out at me.

that said, I would recommend looking outside your circle of friends for a beta. A lot of time, friends aren't going to be willing to tell you exactly what needs to be cut or rewritten from your ms.

I would recommend the share your work forums, but if you're really serious about getting critiques, there are online groups that offer that. I belong to critters.org which handles sci-fi, fantasy, and horror. There is a participation requirement, though I have to say that reviewing has given me as much insight into what I can change about my manuscripts in editing as being reviewed.

If you don't write in the above mentioned genres, there's also critique circle (just google the title) Or there's the crit group I started on LJ, linked in my signature. (sorry for the self-pimp, but there you have it)

I would say if you continue to have friends read it, just let them know ahead of time what you're looking for. Let them know if you want them to give you notes on whether the scene works and ignore the spelling, as you plan to fix that later. (after all, if you are continually fixing grammar/spelling/wording with every rewrite, you may just end up in a neverending cycle)

good luck with your search for a beta reader!

BlueLucario said:

(If it's interesting.)

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That's rich. Utterly rich.

L M Ashton said:

Did you give your beta readers any indication of what you were looking for? If you didn't educate them first as to the role of a beta reader and what you expect from them, they may have no idea what you want from them and are stumbling around in the dark and just give you what they think you're looking for.

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This is a VERY good point. I have two Beta readers I rely on absolutely. They are very well read across alot of different genres and very openminded. They are both avid readers but neither is a writer. One does have an eye for detail and will point out things like a name spelled differently on page 7 and page 222, as well as typos, those words spell check won't catch, ( like hoard and horde) and those awful hun? moments that happen when you cut and pasted something and oops...

I never give them anything until I'm on the last draft and polish, and they often have differing opinions. I did have to educate them both as to what I wanted at that point. I was grateful for the copy edit stuff, you can't have too many eyes, but that's not really what I'm looking for. I ask them to tell me anything that pulled them out of the story, anything they felt unbelievable or unnatural to the characters or plot, anything that was unclear, anything that bored them or annoyed them, anywhere that left them lost or confused, anything else they want to add, anything I have nagging concerns about, and finally did the ending live up to the story?

I know they take it very seriously and put a lot of time and effort in it and both have given me some brilliant suggestions. I thank them in my ackowledgements, and when they're done I send them a gift certifcate from Amazon as a small thanks for their time and effort. I won't go near critique groups. In my experience they can be really toxic at times, and I'm not wanting other people to write my story, or influence how I write it. I don't show anyone my work untill I've finished my story, and am reasonably happy with it. At that point I find good Beta readers are gold, but as LM Ashton said, only if you tell them what you need from them.

raywhite said:

Wow!!! Blue, I am so glad you said this. I was afraid to.

I have learned one thing about "willing" beta readers... They will not read your ms unless they also have an ms that needs reading. In other words, they want something in return (which is understandable). If they don't have an ms, they won't read. Period. Regardless of what they tell you. It is just way too hard to read half-baked stuff unless somebody is reading your half-baked stuff.

--ray

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Not true. I had a beta trade with a guy and halfway through he decided to pull his MS because he wanted to do a full rewrite. He still beta'd my MS and did an damn good job of it too.

I've beta'd four or five novels and am working on two right now (albeit slowly). I DO expect that when I have something to offer some beta readers, there will be readers willing to help me out, but it's not a requirement that I have something for you to beta before I'll beta yours. Sort of a "pay it forward" deal, I guess

skelly said:

Not true. I had a beta trade with a guy and halfway through he decided to pull his MS because he wanted to do a full rewrite. He still beta'd my MS and did an damn good job of it too.

I've beta'd four or five novels and am working on two right now (albeit slowly). I DO expect that when I have something to offer some beta readers, there will be readers willing to help me out, but it's not a requirement that I have something for you to beta before I'll beta yours. Sort of a "pay it forward" deal, I guess

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I've had a similar thing happen. (looks pointedly at Scott above her). I've had a beta pull his ms because he wanted to go in a completely different direction. But he still finished beta of my ms that he had. (and did a darn good job.)

I've beta'ed for folks w/o them reading for me and done the same for others in return. ANd a good beta is worth their weight in gold. If you've had bad betas, try SYW and also look for one in the beta and mentor forum.

raywhite said:

I have learned one thing about "willing" beta readers... They will not read your ms unless they also have an ms that needs reading. In other words, they want something in return (which is understandable). If they don't have an ms, they won't read. Period. Regardless of what they tell you. It is just way too hard to read half-baked stuff unless somebody is reading your half-baked stuff.

--ray

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None of my betas so far were writers, and I kinda like it that way. I really want readers' perspectives, not writers'.

raywhite said:

I have learned one thing about "willing" beta readers... They will not read your ms unless they also have an ms that needs reading. In other words, they want something in return (which is understandable). If they don't have an ms, they won't read. Period. Regardless of what they tell you. It is just way too hard to read half-baked stuff unless somebody is reading your half-baked stuff.

--ray

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I guess those two full MS's I critted within the last month or so, in under a week each, must be imaginary or something. And I'm just now tweaking mine to be able to send for the return favor.

Don't let a few bad betas spoil your opinion of us all. Some of us are courteous.