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Libby replied to the topic Beta Reading Discussion in the forum Blogs 4 years, 8 months ago
This is in answer to Thea’s post about asking the writer if they have questions. It’s also a general comment.
Knowing whether the writer has specific questions is very helpful. Re genre I’m less confident with those I know little about and would rather leave them to someone else. Women’s commercial fiction or literary fiction, though the latter in particular is a bed of subjectivity, are familiar territory, as is realist fiction in general. But fantasy, for instance. I haven’t read enough. And very long novels: it’s generally only first chapters I look at any case but with drafts of 200k words plus, such a large structure is too foreign to me. Police procedurals: if a PP isn’t working, I wouldn’t have much sense of what’s amiss unless it was generic problems such as showing vs telling or character development.
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Hi @libby, to tie in with your comment about reading the first few chapters, I wonder if sampling say the first 5K words of an MS might be helpful in deciding whether to take on a beta read? I think this would be better than reading a synopsis as it would give a sense of the style of the writing while not revealing the book’s ending. As for a 200k MS, yikes! That would be a huge undertaking for a beta reader and would have to be made clear from the off.
@Thea – I entirely agree with your suggestion of sampling before committing; it rarely takes long to decide ‘not for me’ with a book bought (or not bought) for pleasure; even more important if one is to give valuable feedback.
Absolutely, and if it’s an audio book I always check out the narrator’s voice too.
Very impressed by your annual haul of 200 books, wow!