First off it’s hard to find beta readers. My personal beta readers is to find
within my family/friend base. (I have only found one from a writers group I didn’t
know in advance) But let’s start with family/friend beta readers.
If you ask friends/family to be beta readers make sure to make the ‘rules’
clear.
1. Don’t tell me it’s good just because you are my friend/sister/mom.
2. Ask for constructive criticism. Not just ‘it’s good/it’s bad’, but this part’s
good because… this part’s bad because…
3. Let them know they can quit if the genre/story/plot isn’t in their taste.
Don’t hang them up on reading through 500 pages of something that doesn’t
interest them. Fantasy isn’t for everybody, thrillers isn’t for everybody,
criminal stuff isn’t for everybody and praise the difference in people’s taste.
4. Tell them not to be afraid to point out mistakes (spelling/typos/info/the
tattoo/birthmark/scar is suddenly on the left arm instead of the right arm),
come with ideas, (either completely new ones, or ideas for changes).
Note to ‘rule’ 4. Just because your friends/family come with ideas or changes
doesn’t mean you absolutely have to do it. Listen to their idea and take a
standpoint. You love it? – Roll with it. You kinda like it? – Modify it until
you love it. You hate it? – Don’t do it, but thank them for their input. It may
spark another idea along the way.
Personally one of my best friends have spent God knows how long on reading
through my crap (Yes, back then it was actually crappy!) She isn’t afraid of
saying exactly what’s on her mind and I love her for that. She spits out ideas
with every breath. Some of them I instantly loved, some we discussed and
modified until they were perfect, and some of them I didn’t like, but that’s
how it is with brainstorming/spit balling, you empty your brain for ideas. Some
of them are gold and some of them are shit, but don’t be afraid to let them
out.
The other thing is:
When you try to proofread your own story you aren’t actually R E A D I N G the
words, because you already know what’s written, and what it’s supposed to say. That’s why it’s always
good to get a new set of eyes on it to spot the spelling mistakes and typos and
missing words. I read some place (Sorry I can’t remember where, if you know or
is the person who wrote it, please let me know so I can credit the awesome
idea) that reading your story upside down helps you to actually read the words
instead of running through them like a well-known nursery rhyme. To be honest I
haven’t tried this technique, yet. But I think this works best if you print out
the pages and then read them upside down.
Another thing you can do it put your story away for a while. I’m not talking
about a couple of days, I’m talking about months. Because then you ‘forget’
what every sentence is supposed to look like, and therefor get kinda new eyes
on it. No, actually t more like fresher eyes. And you’ll have a greater chance
to spot mistakes plus maybe see where some threads aren’t followed up on.
If you – like me – can’t put away your story for more than two days then you can
read your story backwards. Then, like the upside down technique force your mind
to read every word instead of ‘scanning’ the sentence.
I hope this helped you.
Praise the world for beta readers, and the work, and sometimes horrible written
phrases they have to go through for us before its gold.
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