I’m undertaking a 1000-day reinvention project, blogging here daily to track my progress. In Wednesday Writing, I consider my writing practice and skills and how to improve upon them.
I learned of the concept of beta readers in the book Write Useful Books: A Modern Approach to Designing and Refining Recommendable Fiction by Rob Fitzpatrick. He writes:
Beta readers are neither paid professionals nor kindhearted friends. Rather, they are actual, honst-to-god readers who want what you’re creating so badly that they’re willing to endure an early, awkward, broken manuscript just to get it.
I checked out advice and threads about beta readers on Reddit, and I discovered that, in fact, many indie authors do pay beta readers.
I am keeping in mind that Fitzpatrick’s book is (1) a description of what works for him and (2) a systematized concept for writing books that he put together so he could write a book about it. It’s not the one golden path for writing a book.
Has anyone critiqued the idea of using beta readers? Yes. Novelist Dean Wesley Smith, who has written and published nearly 200 novels. I’m not familiar with him, but I’m intrigued by his blog post Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing: Beta Readers Help You.
He summarizes the history of critique groups and beta writing, going back all the way to when writers used to write on typewriters, producing a single draft. In the second half of the 20th century he writes, “sometimes a writer would have a trusted first reader, but the longer-term professionals did not. They continued to write one clean draft and give it to their editor for print.”
He says, “They trusted their own skill and art.”
That’s how I want to write. While I’ve only had one book published, I’ve been writing for years, and I trust myself to produce something worthwhile and fun to read.
From the late 1960s and into the 1980s and even now, writers started congregating in critique groups. Working through their writing in these groups and taking feedback into consideration gave writers the idea that they had improved their work. In 2010 the indie movement began, leading to the current beta reader craze.
Smith writes:
And beginning writers, being afraid, very, very afraid of god-knows-what, decided that they needed a bunch of readers to make sure their manuscript was a very, very smooth and smelly pile of mush. So they roped in friends and other writers to be “beta readers.”
In other words, they copied the peer workshop experience right into the middle of their own publishing work.
Often a writer could have up to ten “beta readers” on a book, the best way to guarantee that the book will be not only dull, but boring.
Smith writes that the use of beta readers derives from fear. New writers fear they won’t do something correctly. And, initially, their storytelling skills suck. They have a lot to learn. They aren’t willing to just get their work out into the world and get feedback that way:
But now, in this indie world, writers have lost the courage to just put a story out there and see how it does. Now the story must be pounded into mush by a half-dozen beta readers to make sure the writer’s fear is controlled. Kind of sad when you actually think of it.
Smith suggests that peer workshops should be used to give the writer ideas for the next story, not to change whatever story is being considered by the critique group.
Smith didn’t ever use comments from a peer workshop to fix a story. He didn’t want a collaborator, much less multiple collaborators.
He writes of someone whose work he admires:
Just a few days ago a wonderful writer who I have seen some fantastic work in online workshops, (where I get to see first draft stuff) told me that her most recent book was at her beta readers. Seven or eight of them I think.
I wanted to say that it wasn’t her book anymore, it was “their” book. But I said nothing, just as over the last years since this horrid practice started I have said nothing.
Writing by committee makes dullness. It takes out your writer voice, and often your character voice.
And I honestly have no idea why writers don’t have more pride in their work. That is the aspect of all this that bothers me. No one touches my work. It is my work. Period. Good or bad.
He exhorts writers to “Grow a backbone and believe in your own writing.” You might get one trusted reader, but ignore what they say that doesn’t align with your vision. Get a copyeditor to find typos.
I note that he doesn’t even recommend using a developmental editor. I’m speaking with one today but I’m feeling less and less like I want to go that route. In building a new business or income stream there’s always this feeling like you must hire a bunch of service providers to ensure you’re doing all the right things. Maybe that isn’t necessary, like using beta readers isn’t.
I really resonate with this advice, not just because getting and managing beta readers sounds painful. I resonate with it because I want to do my own work, enact my own vision, create what I am proud of that I want to create, then launch it into the marketplace and promote it, feeling confident it represents, in my heart, something really good.