Midwifing a Story: Beta Readers and Critiquers

A “story midwife” is someone whose insightful feedback helpsthe writer to make the story more fully what it is intended to be. Awhile ago, I wrote about Trusted Readers, the unsung heroes of thisprocess. Sometimes they receive thanks in the Acknowledgements page of a novel,but rarely for a short story. Now let’s talk about more visible helpers: betareaders and critiquers.
Most of the time, there is little functional differencebetween beta readers and critiquers. Both read a story in draft form andrespond with comments and analysis. Unlike a Trusted Reader, a beta reader orcritiquer is usually either a writer or someone knowledgeable about theinternal workings of fiction, like a professional editor. So the feedback maygo more along the lines of technical criticism and less a generalized “thisdidn’t work for me.” A  beta reader actslike a Trusted Reader-with-expertise, whereas a critiquer focuses onpinpointing weaknesses and often suggesting solutions, many times in a workshopor other group setting. For this blog post, however, I’ll use the termsinterchangeably.
Critiques often take place in a structured setting, such asa workshop. My first experiences with exchanging critiques were done throughthe Science Fiction and Fantasy Workshop, a by-mail-with-newsletter forum runby Kathleen Dalton-Woodbury (back in the 1970-90s or a little beond, if Iremember correctly). I’ve also attended ongoing face-to-face workshops, as wellas weekend groups at conventions. All have involved both giving and receivingcritiques. Like many writers, I have cultivated a small group of “go-to” betareaders. Although it’s often not stated explicitly, the understanding is thatover the course of time, each of us will critique a story from the other. 

For me, and for many other writers, a workshop format isinvaluable, especially at the beginning of our writing careers. (Workshops alsohave pitfalls, which is a whole other topic in itself.) For those of us whohave difficulty seeing the faults in our work or understanding writingprinciples from books, having a patient, sympathetic fellow writer “to explainthings in words of one syllable” can boost our insights and progresstremendously. Learning how to look critically at someone else’s work trains our“editorial eye” and helps us to see our own stories more objectively. Finally,workshops foster camaraderie and offer crucial support along the lonely road topublication. Many of those other beginning writers from SF & FW have goneon to notable careers – we “came along” together, learning from one another.
Yet another thing that distinguishes critiquers is thegranularity of the comments. Sure, you sometimes get sweeping “this characternever worked for me” but you are more likely to get a detailed list of all theinconsistencies in motivation that caused a lack of connection for that characterand how that affected other aspects of the story. Depending on where the writerand critique are in their careers, comments may come in the form of shorthand,relying on the shared jargon of the craft. A Trusted Reader might say, “I gotpulled out of the character’s head,” and a critique might abbreviate the sameobservation as “POV bobble.” (See TheTurkey City Lexicon for useful and occasionally humorous examples – Idiot Plot,Handwaving, and Infodump, for example.) Such shorthand is more than aconvenience, for it assumes the writer understands the principles ofstorytelling and prose craft and knowshow to fix them. 
A beta reader may or may not make suggestions as to how toimprove a story’s weaknesses. Much depends on the relationship between writerand reader, as well as how the request of a critique was framed. Many writersstrongly object to such suggestions, seeing them as attempts to rewrite thestory according to the beta reader’s taste and vision (not their own). Othersfeel that even the best-intentioned suggestions impair their own creativesolutions. Some go so far as to eliminate a suggested change, no matter howgood it is, just because it came from someone else. Yet other writers are happyto see possibilities other than the one that didn’t work.
Beta readers offer a “second pair of (knowledgeable) eyes”that furnish feedback before a story is submitted to a publisher. Sometimeseditors freelance; that is, they do not acquire books, but they work with amanuscript as if they were preparingit for publication. This is a fairly recent phenomenon, one that has arisenpartly with advent of self-publishing, partly from the increasingly competitivemarket in traditional publishing (and the need to fine-tune and polish amanuscript to present the most professional presentation possible). Sucheditors may do much of the work of a publisher’s book editor, but they do it before the sale, not after the publisheris committed to the book. They are one of the few legitimate examples of awriter paying money before publication (the antithesis of Yog’s Law: “Moneyflows to the author.”) For all thebenefits of hiring a freelance editor, there are drawbacks: they cost money;they may envision the project in a different way than the acquiring or bookeditor; they may teach or mentor but they do not offer the opportunity for theauthor to practice critiquing skills herself. Still, many of them have superbprofessional editing credentials and are worth every penny under the rightcircumstances.
If you’ve detected a bias here, it’s real. Because I learnedwriting craft from in-person workshops and by exchanging critiques with writersof about the same skill level, I think in terms of learning to see and to do atthe same time, and I value the fellowship of a peer group of writers. Otherthan running your story off on a mimeo machine (which tells you how long I’vebeen at this) or paying a printer or vanity press, there wasn’t anyself-publishing. If you wanted your story professionally published, you had tosell it to a publisher, who hired editors and (most of the time, anyway)hammered your prose into shape (and handled cover art, marketing, etc.) Now thatwe have both electronic and Print On Demand formats, I believe the need forcritical feedback is even greater than before. It’s all too easy to take arough draft with plot holes you could drive a tractor through, format it, andslap it up on an ebook site. It’s up to us, the writers, to make sure thatwhichever route we take, we do not compromise on quality. Since I’m as blind asthe next one about my own work, I cherish my beta readers (and send themvirtual roses and chocolate, not to mention praises in the Acknowledgementspage of the published book!)
The painting is by Joseph Wright of Derby (1734-1797