Sabrina's Creative Journal

Apropos of a discussion with legionseagle et al about writer's clubs (both the kind wif a nail in the end and the other sort), I have been pondering the ever-fascinating question of editors/betas/what d'yer call them, in a sort of back-brain way.

The basic first instinct of a writer seeking critique seems to me to be to seek out another writer, preferably one whose writing one admires, and ask them for advice.

And it occurs to me that this, which I admit often does work very well, probably works more-or-less in spite of itself.

I say more-or-less in spite of itself because I suspect that the place most people start when picking a beta reader (when you CAN pick, as opposed to being in a situation where there is exactly one person in your fandom who you know how to get hold of who's willing to read your stuff - and that can work out splendidly, actually), is by looking for a writer who has one or more qualities that you think you'd quite like to have, and hoping that those qualities are transmissible through editorial queries. And, as I say, it can work.

But if I may just put in a quiet word for the beta-reader who is first and foremost a, well, a reader?

A good reader. A reader who, in a perfect world, reads widely, in the genre you want to write, in a fairly engaged way, and has strong opinions not so much about how you ought to write, but about what they like to read. and whose reading one admires - by which I mean that when they recommend things to read, you tend to like those things, and when they review or discuss things you have read you tend to find what they have to say interesting, smart, and a pretty good guide to things you yourself might like to read, and when you given them something of yours to read, you know that they are going to read it the first chance they get and you're happy when they like it and look forward to their comments a lot. If they happen also to have a solid grasp of structure, grammar and style, a good ear for prose, and domain knowledge relevant to your genre, well, all I can say to that is I've only ever found one of those and, Reader, I married her. (But we're not exclusive; I bet she'd beta read for you if you bought her a drink first. She likes margaritas, btw.)

Now, many writers, possibly even most writers, are Good Readers. But it's not guaranteed. I am not, in this context, a Good Reader, despite being a professional editor; I am a Good Reader of NON-fiction, which turns out to be a whole different skillset. So I do think that in the endless search for Really Good Beta Readers, there's a whole pile of excellent and enthusiastic readers out there, being badly underused.