Beta Readers?

[jackofallgeeks]

I've heard the term before, usually as a verb in Miss Leslie's vocabulary ("I was going to have her Beta my fic first"), but I was wondering if one might explain to me what a Beta Reader is.

Tangentially, I was wondering if any of you out there would be interested in helping me out with some feedback on my story, likely as I write (and rewrite) it. I was thinking of setting up a mailing list that I could send my novella-in-progress out on, and get something of a stream of feedback in return, telling what's good, what doesn't work, what they think of the story, and how they think they'd like to see it progress. I'm really getting more of a concrete idea of what i'm doing with my story -- I even have something of a starting place to jump off of and get my Protagonist into It All -- the piece I've been missing all summer. But I'm sure I can't find all the flaws and redundancies in my story, and so I need wordmonkeys Beta Readers (or something) to help me out.

Or something. Any takers?

Comments

[timv.livejournal.com]

How, ummm, long is it? Cause I would be willing to, but I don't know WHEN I could do it.

[jackofallgeeks.livejournal.com]

Right now it's about a page, though I think I may shift it a little bit to make the Two Scenes I have into One Scene, which would flow better, I think. But I tend to second guess myself alot, which is why I'm looking for Betas -- for a Third Opinion.

If you're interested in helping out, I'd probably send it more-or-less as it comes, in sections of about two to five pages or something, depending on how productive I am at any Arbitrary Division of Time. What I'd be looking for mostly isn't so much mechanical type stuff (grammar, word choice, sentence structure), unless something is glaringly painful, but more opinions on the character ("Henry seems like a nice guy, but Myra's a bitch!"), thoughts on the plot as it's going, holes that don't seem to make much sense, and maybe suggestions on what you think would be neat to see. or something. As much or as little as you have time to give, anything could help potentially.

[timv.livejournal.com]

Arbitrary Division of Time
HA

Anyway, yeah, I will try it out, and if it doesn't work, so be it! :)