In praise of having multiple beta-readers

@SinclairGroupLLP encouraged me to stick with it when I was intimidated by the length it was turning into, and was drip-feeding him a couple thousand words at a time.

Given my prolixity, there's no way I could let you get away with being intimidated by a story that's shorter than most of my chapters! Can't wait to see what folks think about it.
 
@Actingup and @Nynah tag-teamed me in a google doc, helping me think about pacing and tone and plotting. Watching both of them pick apart my story via google doc comments is the closest I get to BDSM, but I kind of loved it...
Having good beta readers has made my stuff sooo much better (Thank you again @THBGato @SugarStorm and @DawnDuckie) Getting the ideas, thoughts and comments directly in a Google Doc is the best way to do it I think. I absolutely love reading the comments in the doc, and getting the ideas and suggestions tied directly to the text like that is a great way to understand what the beta reader is talking about.
And now I'm excited that @PennyThompson is writing a slow burn lesbian story!
 
Some people struggle to find a single beta readers. Others casually brag about having five.

There's probably an allegory about dating market in there.

Well, nice people tend to have many friends, assholes not so much. I have three*, which is probably more than I deserve.

*) Friends**, not assholes. I have normal amount of assholes.

**) Friends on Lit. Not sure how many I have in real life. I know I used to have some, when I was younger, but a few have died, and some I haven’t seen in years which probably means we’re not very close, and…
 
More observing that the majority of guys who complain bitterly about never having a date tend to not be very pleasant or lovable, nor actually interested in something beyond the transactional. But I really don't want this to turn into a red pill discussion about dating strategy🤣

I don't pretend this is everybody's experience, but when I went onto Match.com asking about women who wanted to be beta readers for my smut stories, it didn't go so well. And I asked nicely!
 
The magic number of beta readers, imho, is two, in that, if one person tells you about an issue which you don't immediately see yourself, it may just be their personal view or quirk, if two of them tell you the same thing independently, then it's likely you have a problem.

After that, you get diminishing returns. If four people have already told you that the story is 'fine' how likely are you to listen to being told it had major structural issues by the fifth?
Different betas bring different strengths.

For instance, on one chapter of a story I had something like:
- Cheer Squad Beta
- Good At Catching SPAG Errors Beta
- Specific Cultural Stuff Beta
- Legal Stuff Beta
- Person Who Really Gets What I'm Trying To Do Beta

If I'd been looking to all five of them to do the same stuff, sure, that would've been largely redundant. As it was, though, they complemented one another. Legal Stuff Beta only saw it after the others had all been over it, and she still spotted a big problem that nobody else had caught because it was in her field.
 
My biggest fear with asking for beta readers, and the thing that has kept me from doing so, is what if they want me to beta read in return? I don't know what I'm doing how can I beta read for someone when all I'd probably be able to say is, "Looks great, keep going."

Bouncing ideas off of someone else or being a sounding board, yeah sure I could do that all day. (If the day was sufficiently free.)
 
My biggest fear with asking for beta readers, and the thing that has kept me from doing so, is what if they want me to beta read in return? I don't know what I'm doing how can I beta read for someone when all I'd probably be able to say is, "Looks great, keep going."
Beta reading is often a reciprocal relationship between authors; the two lovely people I've read for here made it very clear that they would be more than happy to return the favor (that involves me actually writing something for them to read rather than faffing about on the Internet or posting here but that's neither here nor there). 🫣

However, I think if you make it clear what you can offer as a beta reader, then that will be up to the author to decide, especially if they can give you directed parameters to work in. Readers who offer support along the process are quite valuable as well (since this is a free site and all authors have as baubles to fuel them are comments/likes). But I don't think you should sell yourself short on beta reading without at least being willing to try it. Most authors won't ask you to take their stories and gussy them up to win awards; a lot of them are just looking for feedback on whether or not the story as a whole or a particular part of the narrative "works" or "makes sense". ☺️
 
My biggest fear with asking for beta readers, and the thing that has kept me from doing so, is what if they want me to beta read in return? I don't know what I'm doing how can I beta read for someone when all I'd probably be able to say is, "Looks great, keep going."

Bouncing ideas off of someone else or being a sounding board, yeah sure I could do that all day. (If the day was sufficiently free.)
Beta reading doesn't imply that you need to know what you are doing. Just being a reader is usually enough.

Does the story flow, is there something that confused you, something that doesn't make sense? You don't need to know how to fix it, pointing it out for the author to review can be plenty.

But if someone does ask, tell them what you just told us, that may be just what they want.
 
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