5 Things to Look For in a Beta Reader

When you finally finish your NaNoWriMo novel, the options for taking the next step can be overwhelming. Today, writer Sarah Beaudette of The Spun Yarn gives you a few tips on finding beta readers that will help you take your novel to the next level:

When NaNoWriMo ends, you’ve probably finished both your draft and your self-congratulatory cake, bottle(s) of Scotch, really involved vegan lasagna, (or whatever you do to celebrate). Once you’ve taken time away from the manuscript to regain some precious objectivity, you are now entering The Editing Realm. 

Here’s where it gets tricky if you actually want this baby to make it into the world. For one thing, you’ve got a lot of options: self-editing, developmental editor, self-publishing, traditional publishing… the list is nearly endless.

BEFORE you engage in this choose-your-own-adventure terror, it’s fairly standard to get a few beta readers. If your book is your baby—something you and the universe have created using your genetic material and life experience but which will ultimately live out in the world—who are the first people you trust to hold this fragile, precious, bloody thing?

The people who love you and who you love the most. Natch. Many writers send their newborn draft to their parents, partners, and best friends. This is all good. The writing experience is raw. You need to be acknowledged for the incredible work you’ve put in. You need to share the exultation, and to hear how beautiful it is, how perfect, how new.

After that? It could be a few years or a few months, because your book is not actually a child, but it if it were, you would need to send that kid to kindergarten. You would need to put that beautiful child into the hands of an experienced, loving, qualified stranger, who can help you guide it to its ultimate potential. 

Here are a few things to look for when you’re casting your beta reading net:

1. You need compassionate strangers. 

You need to know what you’re really looking at here. The [kindergarten teacher/beta reader] loves [kids/books], and they can be honest about what your [kid/book] needs to succeed, in comparison to the hundreds of other [kid/books] they’ve seen. 

2. You need people, plural, so you can view suggestions as objectively as possible. 

Your instinct is going to be to disagree with people, because you wrote it the way you wrote it for a reason: My kid is perfect! You’re open to feedback, but it should be persuasive. It’s hard to get more persuasive than two people who have never met one another, and who independently agree on the same thing. If two babysitters say that Jimmy likes to smear his boogers on the dog when you’re gone and neither babysitter has met the other… well. When it’s time to decide how to edit, you want that decision to be clear by virtue of consensus. When it comes to beta readers, one is not enough. 

3. You need professionalism: people who stick to a deadline, and actually, you know, read the whole book. 

You think we jest. Ask your writer friends how many people (even within their inner circle), have read the whole book, in a reasonable amount of time, and have given a thoughtful, thorough, opinion. You can tell when someone skims. If they skimmed, how can you trust that feedback? And why did you go to the trouble in the first place? Were you trying to write the best book you could write, or did you just want to tick the beta reader box and go on telling yourself your kid is perfect?

4. It would be great if your beta readers have read a lot in your genre. 

Each genre has its own standards, conventions, tropes. If you wrote a western, you don’t want people focusing more on your prose than your action. The reverse is also true. If you wrote an upmarket women’s fiction manuscript, a thriller fan might think it’s moving more slowly than it should. Moreover, someone who reads a lot in your genre can tell you when you’re relying too heavily on genre tropes. They can also tell you when you’ve got something the genre hasn’t seen enough of, and really needs.

5. You need your beta readers to bring the reading experience to the table. 

If you wrote a YA, who but an actual teen can say if your dialogue is like, so awkward? If you set your story in Alaska, you better know an Alaskan. If you really think you nailed it, test it. Be courageous. Who is your book is for? Find those people. They want you to succeed and they’ll be excited to help you level up.

Like anything, finding beta readers takes some work. There are services out there that help standardize the experience, give you what you pay for in terms of demographics, deadlines, structure, depth, and actionability. Or you can do it on your own. That’s the great thing about writing today. You actually can choose your own adventure, and if you want to survive this gauntlet and come out with a wise, seasoned, brilliant book that will take over the world, you’re going to need some help along the way. 

Sarah Beaudette is a writer and Chief Editor at The Spun Yarn, where they believe that writing is hard and getting honest feedback shouldn’t be. Learn more about feedback that empowers authors to make decisions at thespunyarn.com.

Top photo by Tamarcus Brown on Unsplash.