Beta Readers for Novel-length work

[Ink Slinger]

That...sounds like fun.

[Kali]

Ob. urban fantasy Harry Dresden reference!

---
I chased a bit of scrambled egg around my plate, finally cornering it between my fork and my toast.  "It's incredibly rare," I said, shoving the bite into my mouth before it could escape again.

Ethan backed me up, nodding.  "There's a lot of magic in the world," he said.  "Vodoun, shamanism, root work... Everything has its own area of specialization, but what Rachel and I do -- and evidently what Jilly does -- is different.  Some practitioners accomplish what they do through the intercession of spirits or even of dieties, but we directly access energy, change it, manipulate it, and let it go as something else."

Father Christopher didn't look thrilled with the idea of Ethan espousing the existence of other gods, but he let it go.  "How rare is rare?"

I glanced at Ethan; he was looking at me.  I shrugged.  "I only know of a couple others," I said.  "Ethan's from New York. There's that woman who writes romance novels, and a guy in Chicago."  I snorted.  "Seriously, if you think the things I get up to are crazed, you should read the Chicago newspapers sometime."

"I also know of a kid up in Canada," Ethan volunteered.

----

'Cause it's just not an urban fantasy if you don't give a nod to the masters in the field.

[meh]

---
I chased a bit of scrambled egg around my plate, finally cornering it between my fork and my toast.  "It's incredibly rare," I said, shoving the bite into my mouth before it could escape again.

Ethan backed me up, nodding.  "There's a lot of magic in the world," he said.  "Vodoun, shamanism, root work... Everything has its own area of specialization, but what Rachel and I do -- and evidently what Jilly does -- is different.  Some practitioners accomplish what they do through the intercession of spirits or even of deities, but we directly access energy, change it, manipulate it, and let it go as something else."

Father Christopher didn't look thrilled with the idea of Ethan espousing the existence of other gods, but he let it go.  "How rare is rare?"

I glanced at Ethan; he was looking at me.  I shrugged.  "I only know of a couple others," I said.  "Ethan's from New York. There's that woman who writes romance novels, and a guy in Chicago."  I snorted.  "Seriously, if you think the things I get up to are crazed, you should read the Chicago newspapers sometime."

"I also know of a kid up in Canada," Ethan volunteered.

----
 

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

i'd be more inclined to have a character of mine reading about the adventures of the wizard in Chicago, fwiw.

[Kali]

Ah, that's no fun!  Besides, then I couldn't work in the other references. 

[J_M]

Reading back over this, you may want to be careful as to how far you reference other authors' characters and worlds.  A casual reference like mentioned in the paragraph above would probably be fine, but if you start referencing either actual events or using that world to spin off your own book(s), that could be considered a breach of copyright (as well as from a reader's perspective, cause continuity/magic mechanics problems.)  If you're talking about fanfic, again, that's one thing.  If you're intending in any way to make money off of it though, may want to clear any references through JB and any other authors who you're referencing, just to keep yourself out of trouble.

[drza]

Woot!  Thanks for all the replies.  I'll come crawling when I'm closer to the end of this, probably about the time I've "finished" and am ready to give it a once-over myself.  Then after I've gone through it and fixed the little things that bother me, I'll start sending it out in pieces.  We'll see how I divvy it up when I see how long it is.  Number of pages, or a few chapters at a time or something, probably.

Back to the salt mines!  Time to write the scene of yet another of Rachel's phenomenal screw-ups in which she learns why legends talk about silver bullets but almost never enchanted baseball bats.

I can't make any promises (my schedule tends to be crazy), but if you're still looking when you're finished I might be able to help you out.  I will hopefully be finishing up my own sometime in the near future, so I could very well be looking for Beta readers myself in the near future.  Seems like it'd be good karma for me to volunteer, so let me know.

[Kali]

RISE FROM THE DEAD!!

I'm resurrecting this post 'cause I want to give people who responded before a little reminder that they did, in fact, respond before.  And to open the door to anyone else.  Check the first post for what I'm looking for in beta readers, and let me know if you want to read! It is right now 82,632 words long, according to MS Word, and is broken up into two unevenly sized documents because Word started freaking out when the first one got too long.  There *are* a few empty space breaks, but I have NOT put chapters in yet.  That'll probably be done after betaing, when I'm sure I'm done all the editing and can make the breaks appropriately.

I have no idea how long authors generally give beta readers to get through something this length. Naturally I don't want to wait forever.  If nothing else, I do NOT want to be sending my query to agents anytime near Christmas.

I will say that this is done now.  100% done, as long as I can keep my fidgety little fingers out of it.  What I might do, what I'm thinking about doing, is making a questionnaire of sorts to send to people.  What I'm thinking is you'd read it, send me your comments, and then I'd send you the questions I want specific feedback on.  And it would be very specific.  Things like, "Did ____ plot point seem contrived, or did it the explanations given satisfy you?" or "Did the conversation where _____ happened work, or was it too much an "As you know, Bob" scene?"

<evilWillow>Questions?  Comments?</evilWillow>

Edit to add:  After a comment (thanks Meg), I thought I'd say I'm willing to send you a hard copy if you'd rather have that than an electronic copy.  And I'm not looking for more than 5 or 6 people.  Of course the more opinions the better, but the more people who have it the longer it's going to take and... Ok, I suck, I'm impatient.

[۞†Grey Warden†۞]

I'll help if you don't mind honest brutality or unswerving fandom i can go either way depending on the book and story PM me the basics and ill help.

[Enjorous]

I'll throw my hat into the ring as well.

And when you say

If nothing else, I do NOT want to be sending my query to agents anytime near Christmas.

I'm assuming you mean you want it done well before then, am I correct in assuming so?

[Kali]

Yes, I would like it well before Christmas.  I'd like it no later than the middle of October, though honestly I don't know what the "normal" timeframe is for getting critiques back from beta readers.

And er... Yeah, actually, I do mind honest brutality.  I need constructive comments, not brutal ones.  "This sucks" is brutal, but not helpful.  "The character of Ethan is too overpowered for my tastes.  I couldn't like him enough to get into his part of the story" is honest and a little more constructive.

[۞†Grey Warden†۞]

I was just trying to sound like all the good critics. Sorry, i can be constructive and get it back to you within a week or so.

[Enjorous]

If you want me to go over your spelling and grammar with a fine tooth comb a month is pushing it imo. But for everything else it seems doable to me.

[jeno]

I can do a beta read - I've got lots of free time on my hands. Not to mention I've been looking for a new UF to read. 

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

I'm resurrecting this post 'cause I want to give people who responded before a little reminder that they did, in fact, respond before.  And to open the door to anyone else.  Check the first post for what I'm looking for in beta readers, and let me know if you want to read! It is right now 82,632 words long, according to MS Word, and is broken up into two unevenly sized documents because Word started freaking out when the first one got too long.

What machine are you working on? I've handled novels twice that long in Word and not had any problems.

I will say that this is done now.  100% done, as long as I can keep my fidgety little fingers out of it.  What I might do, what I'm thinking about doing, is making a questionnaire of sorts to send to people.  What I'm thinking is you'd read it, send me your comments, and then I'd send you the questions I want specific feedback on.  And it would be very specific.  Things like, "Did ____ plot point seem contrived, or did it the explanations given satisfy you?" or "Did the conversation where _____ happened work, or was it too much an "As you know, Bob" scene?"

This is a good thing to do for getting feedback from betas, definitely; but don;t show them before, however tempting.

Edit to add:  After a comment (thanks Meg), I thought I'd say I'm willing to send you a hard copy if you'd rather have that than an electronic copy. 

A few hundred pages of manuscript are non-trivial either to post or to afford the ink cartridge for your printer, I'd have thought.