So you’ve finished writing a story—congratulations! You’ve fought many battles, and the war is almost over. Now that you have your manuscript together, it’s time to have a beta-reader take a look at your work before it goes public, whether it’s on your own website or in another showcase like Rooftop Sessions.

The term “beta-reading” comes from the computer world’s term “beta-testing.” Beta testers go through newly-created software and check it for errors before the program is passed on to the general public. Similarly, a beta reader reads through a story before it is published, catching any mistakes or overall problems with the work.

Now, you might be thinking, “Hey, I wrote the whole story on my own! I know it backwards and forwards, and I proofread it when I was done—it’s good enough as it is.” Self-editing your work is essential, but it only takes you so far. As the author of your story, you’re still too close to the work to catch all the errors. No matter how much you worked on polishing your work, there are always going to be things that you miss out on. A pair of fresh eyes will always prove beneficial, even if they’re doing a simple read-through for typos. Spell Check and Grammar Check only catch common typos (e.g. missing punctuation, major misspellings, etc.) They will miss things like the “to/too/two” errors, which you need to correct yourself. Sometimes you may miss a big error, too, that you completely overlooked because you were caught up in the story itself. Your readers will be very surprised if, at the beginning of the chapter, a minor character says they’re going to the store, and suddenly at the end of the chapter they reappear in the living room watching television as if they’d been there all day!

All good writers typically run their work past a second reader before creating a final draft, even if they’re self-publishing the work. If you’re sending your work to an editor for consideration, keep in mind that the editor is NOT a beta-reader (or a proofreader or writing tutor, either!). Editors expect the work they receive to be the final draft, as error-free as it can be—they do NOT go through and make repairs to things that the author could have taken care of before submitting the work.

Selecting a Beta-Reader

Take care when selecting someone to beta-read your work. Your best friend and Beatle buddy may not necessarily be the best person for the job—he or she may feel afraid to give ANY critique that you might construe as negative. There’s nothing wrong with letting a friend read your work just to get an overall feel for it, but you’ll probably want criticism that’s more in-depth than “Wow, I loved it! What a romantic story!” The whole point of beta-reading is to get outside criticism to make the work even better than it is in its current state, and that usually means that things need to be corrected. Professional writers will readily admit that their work is never perfect, that there are always areas that could use improvement.

The ideal beta-reader would be someone you trust not only with your work, but also a person with a good grasp of English usage and grammar who also knows how to edit writing and knows what to look for. For Beatle fan fic, you’d want a person that’s not only good at editing in general, but also knows a little about history and the Beatles’ lives. That person will have a grasp on the audience you’re trying to reach as well as the standards of the genre you’re writing in (romance, sci-fi, etc).

Preparing the Manuscript for the Read-Through

Be sure to send your beta-reader a good copy of your work—in other words, 12-point font, Times New Roman or something similar, black on white “paper.” It’s better not to be cutesy and creative in the physical aspect of your work--nothing leads to a headache faster than a swirly lime-colored font on top of a magenta background!

Also take the time to find out what word processing program your reader will use to examine your work (Word, WordPerfect, etc.). Rich Text (RTF) files, which cannot harbor viruses, are the best – you can save your work as an RTF file in most word processing programs.  When in doubt, send the story as a plain text file so it can be opened on Notepad, if nothing else. And don’t forget to scan the file for viruses before you email it!

Many writers have particular concerns about their work that they want the reader to concentrate on, so mention those concerns in a cover letter/email you send with your work. (e.g. “Something doesn’t seem right to me in the concert scene, so could you please take a look at that part carefully?”) However, don’t wear out the welcome in that respect by not having the courtesy to, for example, run the work through Spell Check on your own. Allow your beta-reader to concentrate on the major parts of the work and not get caught up in fixing simple typos for you. In other words, catch as many errors as you can before sending it on.

Remember, your reader most likely DOES have a life beyond editing your story! Most people who agree to beta-read will probably get the task done promptly, but don’t always expect an overnight reply (especially if the person is reading through your 20-chapter novel). Your work deserves a balanced evaluation, so just play the waiting game and give the reader time to do a thorough job. If you send the person a 2-page story to look over and he or she hasn’t responded to you within a reasonable amount of time (let’s say a week, in this case), you’re always entitled to send a follow-up note asking how things are progressing. If your reader has seemingly fallen off the face of the earth and never gets back to you, you can pass the story on to someone else to read.

Finishing the Job

Once you receive your manuscript back and read the comments or corrections, you always have the option of discussing it with your reader for clarification. Instant Messenger conferences can help in this situation if there are particular questions or concerns you still might have. Back-and-forth discussion is critical when it comes to beta-reading; this is why most writing professors in college have adopted the “writing conference” approach, where the professor and student sit down together to look over the student’s work before it is handed in for a final grade. The same thing applies to fan fic—it doesn’t hurt to ask questions!

Good beta-readers do not rewrite the work for you. They will give you suggestions and help you out as much as they can, but it’s up to you to do the actual rewriting. You know the story best as the author, and your creativity is what makes your writing unique. You might as well give the beta-reader a co-writing credit if you expect him or her to do significant re-writes for you.

You can do what you want with the criticism you receive about your story—after all, it’s your work! You do not have to use every suggestion.  However, nothing could be more frustrating to a beta-reader than to make tons of suggestions and see them all tossed by the wayside when the final product appears online. Your reader had your best interests at heart, whether he or she gave you a rave review or picked out a plethora of errors, so don’t ignore them or take what he or she said as a personal insult. If you snap off on your reader and take comments as insults, you’re pretty much guaranteeing that your reader will be reluctant to provide the service to you in the future. If you are truly in doubt about what your reader told you, go get a second opinion from another beta-reader. However, if you keep hearing the same suggestions from those who are trying to help you, most likely there IS a problem with something in your work and it needs correcting!

At this point you can make those last-minute corrections, and your manuscript should be in very good shape, so send it on or put it on your website. When you do put up your story for public viewing, credit should be given where credit is due. Thank your reader on the introduction page for giving your work the once-over it needed before hitting the Internet (and, of course, you’ve already sent your reader a thank-you message via email upon receiving the comments, haven’t you?). After all, you truly couldn’t have done it without him!

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Tina Kukla has been writing since she was 8 years old. Besides filling up a filing cabinet with short stories and historical novels over the years, she is also the author of the Beatles fan fic novel "Live at 12 Cold Creek Street" and its sequel "Days in the Life," which is featured on her website, Beatlegirl's World.

A lifelong Chicago-area resident, Tina is a also a preschool teacher and holds a master's degree in education. Besides writing and the Beatles, her other interests include reading and anything to do with computers.

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