Beta Reading
Before I was a writer and an editor, I was a reader. There’s just something about letting yourself get swallowed up by the words on a page and being transported to a different world, a different life to experience all the adventure that can be found there. So as a writer and editor, I fully understand the power of that story magic and the labor of love it is to be able to evoke it in your readers.
Beta reading entails a complete reading of the manuscript for holistic feedback from a reader’s perspective. As a beta reader, I don’t make any edits or comments within the text, butI will offer detailed, specific feedback on various aspects of your story, and you’ll receive a six–ten page report that addresses questions regarding plot, pacing, tension, characters, and language. When you contact me for beta reading, I’ll send you my standard list of the questions I aim to answer, and you’re welcome to add or subtract as you like and send it back to me or just let me know that the questions are fine as they are.
Here are a few examples of the questions I address in a beta read:
- Was the story interesting from the very beginning?
- Were there any places that were confusing or unbelievable?
- Was the dialogue natural, and did it seem true to the characters?
- What were the best parts of the story?
- Were the characters believable and/or likable?
- Was the ending satisfying?
- Did the description/exposition seem too much or too little?
- Were there many obvious language (spelling, grammar, punctuation) errors?
- Were there any discrepancies or inconsistencies in the plot/setting/characters?