- try @needabeta
- ask around to see if your particular fandom has a similar organizer
- talk to fandom friends, especially other writers. They might help or they could point you in the right direction
- know what you’re looking for and put out a post seeking it.
Examples of that last point would be something like,
“I’m looking for a Spanish speaker, preferably from Argentina, to help me add some Spanish into my fic and give me some cultural insights.”
“I need some help wrangling my tenses on my latest fic. Is anyone able to help me out? I’m writing about [ship, fandom, etc]”
“Can anyone help? I’ve got a story that I want to set in London, but I’ve never been there.”
Does anyone else have some tips to share? Or examples of finding (or being) a beta?
-Mod Pi
If you’re a writer and you want to be a beta reader, please don’t do what I did when I first started beta reading.
When I was younger, I got started in literature as a writer. I had my own developing writing style and my own writing voice. I felt that this was the “right way” to write. Clearly, I was wrong!
I would beta read with the subconscious bias of trying to fix other people’s writing with my own writing style and writing voice, instead of looking out for stuff that’s actually helpful. Trying to force your own writing style and writing voice on someone else, especially a young or inexperienced writer who doesn’t have a full grasp on their voice and style yet, is very detrimental to their confidence and writing growth.
So here’s some stuff that’s actually helpful!
Reading and In-Story Stuff
1. Your first impressions, (both good and bad) especially of worlds or characters, and why. This helps with the writer being able to understand how readers see their characters.
2. What you liked about the world. This helps the writer understand what the readers connect with and enjoy, and what they relate too.
3. What you didn’t like, but because the story was immersive, not because the writing was bad; a character who made you genuinely angry and you want to kick him in the nuts or something, or a world flaw that makes sense and to actually go into the world and start helping the characters start riots. This helps the writer make sure that what’s meant to make readers angry, are actually making them angry.
Writing and Writerly Writing Stuff
1. Commentary on the pace of the story. Writers read their stories over and over and over, so most of us get blinded by how fast things are actually escalating, or how long the story seems to drag. A reader will be able to tell right away if things are just moving way to fast, or aren’t moving fast enough and things are boring.
2. Some of your favorite lines and word choice and why. Sometimes writers don’t actually notice the clever things that they say, and readers will find a more unexpected outlook on the story then the writer.
3. Clunky phrasing or awkward sounding sentences. Sometimes this can be dialogue, sometimes this can be transitioning paragraphs. This is never really particular word choice. Again, writers have been staring at their stories for hours for days on end, so we just get blind sighted by things that are obvious to other people.
Respectfulness and Considerations
1. DON’T fUCKING cOMmENT on THE sPELLiNG oR gRAMMaR. If a writer sends you a 3,894 word chapter with intense drama, 2 different plot twists, an important new character reveal and a major character death, and all the reader cares about is 4 different misspelled words and 3 grammatical mistakes… that’s annoying as all hell. Unless this story is going to be posted/published in the next 23 minutes and it needs super speedy proofreading with no comments whatsoever on the story itself, then okay, this is fine. Or if they directly ask you for grammar and spelling help (maybe because they’re not writing in their native language or if they don’t have a full grasp on all of the writing rules yet) then go ahead. But it’s disheartening most of the time and the story itself feels ignored.
2. If you come across a paragraph that’s just not doing it for you, stop and consider for a few moments as to why. Try and figure out what the issue is first, and if you can’t, ask for clarification as to what’s going on. And then add your critique. Try to explain why it’s not sitting right with you, not just giving an example as to how you’d re-write it.
3. Not all writers are the same and not all writers are looking for the same things. It helps to ask. Ask ask ask ask. Ask them what they’re looking for, what they want help with, and what they expect from you as the first reader of their story. Some might want brutally honest and vicious critique where you rip their story down sentence by sentence. Some writers might actually hate this with a flaming passion and won’t want this at all, and would actually much prefer more positive, gentle, encouraging feedback.
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For writers looking for beta readers, especially from other writers, please be mindful of the time you’re requesting from strangers. If someone you’ve never met before went up to you in Starbucks and asked you to read their unpublished novel, or listen to their mixtape, would you?
In my experience, It’s always much much easier to reach out first and offer to read or review someone else’s work. Not once, not twice, but several times. You get back what you give, and this applies with time and attention as well.
Building a genuine relationship first helps a ton. Build up trust with other writers, and become a regular reader of their work. Get in touch with other fanfic writers in your fandom, or get in touch with other writers in your genre. Read tons of fanfic and stories, and leave genuine reviews in the comments.
That’s all the advice that I can give right now, but hopefully it helps.
Tag: life skill
do your research
before reading the book, it’s always a good idea to look up the author and when the book was written and published. by looking that up, you can learn about the historical context of the book and get a deeper understanding of the plot, characters, and the author’s purpose behind reading the book.read the intro and summary of the book before beginning
if there’s an introduction to the book, be sure to read that for any relevant information that may help you analyze the book. find a summary of the book online to prepare yourself for a good reading. i know, i know, it feels like a bit of a letdown if you know the ending beforehand, but without it, you may get caught up in the plot and lose the important thematic details of the book. it’ll allow you to read the book with an open mind.figure out what you need to do
do you have a list of vocabulary for the book? find out each definition. do you need to analyze a character? get a sheet of paper and get ready to take notes on the characters. do you need to write about the theme? get post-it notes and mark the quotes that you think are relevant to the plot.
either way, just be prepared for what you have to do with the book.don’t highlight; write
oftentimes, people will simply highlight pretty much anything in the book. i’m not a huge fan of the highlighting – annotating method because you may want to sell the book later on or reread it without bombarding your eyes with bright color. the highlighter ink may even bleed to the other side of the paper. i think that it just ruins the reading experience and future potential. it also encourages passive reading.
instead, use sticky notes or sticky tabs to write down notes and place them in the book. keep a piece of paper by your side to take note of every character’s name and important plot points. using a color key with sticky notes may be helpful as well.
if you must, i would suggest underlining with a pencil so that you can erase it after you’re done with the whole process.take copious notes
write down the words that you don’t know in the story and look them up. write down characters and their changes over the course of the book. write down times / settings when they show up. write down important quotes and passages + page numbers. write down every single thought that you have about the book because it may become relevant later on.make a summary of the chapter after you finish one
i personally like doing the summaries on index cards and then put them in order after i finish the entire book. i can then look through them to see the plot progression and character growth over the course of the story without hunting through the book or my notes.wait until you finish the entire paragraph / passage before writing notes
if you stop halfway, you may miss important information that’s revealed at the end of the passage. besides, you may develop new thoughts after reading the entire passage / paragraph.look for literary devices
you know, your metaphors, allusions, similes, personifications, etc etc etc. it’s good to be familiar with literary devices because they will often give an insight to the story and frequently become relevant to questions on the test / writing things. here’s a good site on literary devices.hope this helped and good luck! if you’d like to request a post, go here and if you’d like to see more helpful posts, go here !! thanks 🙂
When I explain cultural misappropriation to children, I use the example of The Nightmare Before Christmas.
It’s effective because especially for children, who don’t have enough historical context to understand much of the concept, you can still fully grasp the idea.
There was nothing wrong with Jack seeing the beauty and differences in Christmas town, it’s when he tried to take what is unique about Christmas town away from those it originally belonged to without understanding the full context of Christmas things is when everything went wrong.
When Jack tries to get the folk of Halloween town to make Christmas gifts for children, etc., children understand that the Halloween town folk do not have the full context for the objects they are making, and they are able to see that the direct repercussions and consequences are very harmful.
what i like about this is the implication that if jack had taken the time to understand christmas town, bringing christmas to halloween town would not have been harmful. that’s how it works, folks. cultural sharing is GOOD, it’s only misappropriation when it’s done in ignorance and disrespect.
There’s an interesting level here in that Jack tried to understand Christmas town. He could see the magic while he was there, and he did try to explain it that way to citizens of Halloween town. But they weren’t interested in the kind of life he was describing, so he started “rebranding” Christmas so that it was not like Christmas but was like Halloween. The people of Halloween town, never having actually encountered Christmas, have no way of knowing that what they’re being told about Christmas and “Sandy Claws” is inaccurate. Jack also tried to study Christmas and its culture, though he couldn’t quite get it; eventually, he literally decides to take it for himself, even as he knows it’s not really for him. He started out feeling sad the others in Halloween town didn’t ‘get it,’ but he then decided it’s not important to fully ‘get it’ but instead to have it.
So it’s not just accidentally removing things form their context; he has intentionally disregard the meaning of the rituals he purports to be recreating, making them more fun for the recreaters but not like what the rituals are supposed to be and without the related significance.
This is the best way to conceptualize the wrong way to share culture I have ever seen and I think I finally get where people are coming from when they talk about “cultural appropriation.”
This is an EXCELLENT explanation through example!
I’ve seen this post go around before and reblogged it, but this time, the distinction between “get it” and “have it” really jumped out at me.
Tumblr Exodus 