Beta Reading Guidelines

Below are some guidelines for beta reading sessions which will apply whether the draft is on Betareader.io or in a google doc:

The beta reading stage is one of the most important processes of publication, and the in-depth feedback received helps the writer identify problems within their stories, challenging us to come up with creative solutions. Sometimes there are scenes that are boring, or sections that didn’t go on long enough. Maybe a character has brown eyes in one chapter but suddenly has green eyes the next. Or maybe a scene just doesn’t make sense, or the plot feels contrived or forced. Perhaps there’s no chemistry between the main characters, or the characters just feel flat in some areas. These are things that get overlooked during the long process of putting an entire novel together while trying to keep track of as many references and minute (but important) details as possible. 

As beta readers, your task is to identify sections of the story that you either really enjoy or that you had a problem with. This allows me to see what works and what doesn’t. Depending on what stage the story is in, I’ll be looking for different things before the story moves onto the next phase.

First Draft: This would be considered the alpha reader stage (or the stage writers normally have developmental editing done), and I’ll only choose a few very dedicated (and patient) readers. This draft will be the ‘skeleton’ of the story and will require more experienced readers and will require the most feedback. An example of a first draft would be anything I’ve written and posted to this website, including When Life Gives You Werewolves. While I’m a competent enough writer to form a decent first draft, there will be A LOT of issues with it. All of the feedback received will give me a roadmap for the second draft.

Second Draft: The story is slightly more polished than before and is ready for the beta reading stage. This is when regular readers will come in and leave comments line-by-line about what they like or dislike about the story. Nothing in the first and second draft is guaranteed to stay in the story, as was the case with The Mark of Amulii and The Varcross Key. Large sections of story will be rewritten based on the ideas and comments I get in the feedback (I always get great ideas from you guys!)

Third Draft: This is the final draft before editing, and the story structure will (for the most part) stay the same, but during the rewrite, I may have introduced minor (or major) consistency errors. For example: in the first and second draft, the main character didn’t know the name of another character until he introduced himself, but in the third draft, he knows the characters name before then. This would be an error introduced in revision or rewrite that a reader will pick up right away. This will mostly be a check in consistency and awkward word choices, like a noticeable repeat of a certain word in a paragraph or sentence.

The Final Draft: This will be the draft AFTER it comes back from professional editing and will be ready for the ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) phase. Those that have beta read for me and who live in the US will be getting early printed editions of the book. People who sign up who have not beta read for me can receive e-book copies. I wish I could send printed copies to everyone, but international shipping rates are insane.

Advanced Review Copies will be stamped with “ARC” on the cover and should not be resold or given away. As the name suggests, these copies are to generate early reviews on the day of release (or before then on Goodreads). If you received an ARC, reviewing the story is strongly recommended.

As with all beta reading phases, I keep a record and date of all drafts for copyright reasons. I’m also trusting the reader to treat each draft as though they signed a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA), meaning the story must stay in the document I assigned.

The Beta Readers’ Tasks:

• Read through the chapters, highlighting sections while leaving comments. These comments could be ‘I enjoy this…’ or ‘this doesn’t make sense…’ or ‘I don’t like this because…’. The more thorough you can be in your comments, the more it helps me identify problems. In Betareader.io, you can highlight any sentence and either click the comment button, an emote, etc…
• At the end of each chapter, leave feedback on what you liked/didn’t like about it if you can. Your feedback, whether it’s positive or negative, is important. Doing this chapter-by-chapter allows you as the reader to tell me important things about what you read while they are still fresh in your mind rather than having to go back and try to remember at the end of a 100k+ word novel.
• Being on time! Depending on what deadline I set for each draft, that’s the amount of time I expect to have the session finished. Usually beta reads are about 1-2 months, sometimes longer if I’m between projects. If you cannot commit to this, please do not volunteer because I do limit the number of people who sign up.  
• Let me know if for some reason, you are not able to finish beta reading! This is very important because I don’t want to be left hanging, expecting something that will never arrive. If life happens and you need to drop, it’s not going to bother me. However, going weeks without any communication will. Don’t be that person.
• Don’t get hung up too much on grammar/spelling mistakes. There will be more drafts of this story as the voice and sentences become more polished with each revision. I’ll usually catch these myself with each read through, and I pay a copy-editor thousands of dollars to catch these mistakes before publication.

The Questions:

Keep these questions in the back of your mind as you read through each chapter. They will help you know what feedback I’m looking for. Sometimes you won’t have an answer for a question, and that’s fine. It means nothing in particular about that question stuck out to you.

• Did the chapter hold your interest from the very beginning? If not, why not?
• Did you get oriented fairly quickly at the beginning as to whose story it is, and where and when it’s taking place? If not, why not?
• Could you relate to the main character? Did you feel his pain or excitement?
• Did the setting interest you, and did the descriptions seem vivid and real to you? 
• Was there a point at which you felt the chapter lagged or you became less than excited about finding out what was going to happen next? Where, exactly? 
• Were there any parts that confused you? Or even frustrated or annoyed you? Which parts, and why? 
• Did you notice any discrepancies or inconsistencies in time sequences, places, character details, or other details?
• Were the characters believable? Are there any characters you think could be made more interesting or more likable? 
• Did you get confused about who’s who in the characters? Were there too many characters to keep track of? Too few? Are any of the names of characters too similar? 
• Did the dialogue keep your interest and sound natural to you? If not, whose dialogue did you think sounded artificial or not like that person would speak? Were there times when a character’s dialect was distracting?
• Did you feel there was too much description or exposition? Not enough? Maybe too much dialogue in parts?
• Was there enough conflict, tension, and intrigue to keep your interest? 
• Was the ending satisfying? Believable?
• Do you think the writing style suits the genre of romantic fantasy? If not, why not?

Happy reading! For all news and updates, join my Telegram channel or follow @AeronDusk on twitter.