You Know You've Got the Wrong Beta Reader When . . .

Discussion in 'Revision and Editing' started by Catrin Lewis, Apr 24, 2016.

  1. KhalieLa

    KhalieLa It's not a lie, it's fiction. Contributor

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  2. Subject BGD

    Subject BGD New Member

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    You know you have the wrong beta reader when the reader personally dislikes the dark subject matter before the end of the first chapter, but keeps reading anyway. Triggered feedback is not helpful feedback.
     
  3. AbyssalJoey

    AbyssalJoey Active Member

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    You know you've got the wrong beta reader when he asks you why is it that there are no black guys in you nordic inspired fantasy.
     
  4. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    I had someone here offer (close to insist in fact - I had to put them on ignore in the end)to beta read darkest storm who said "they'd try not to puke at the gay scenes" ... apart from one kiss there aren't any gay scenes since the PoV character is straight and he isn't likely to be watching his mate get it on ... however I don't really want a homophobe as a beta reader for a book with a gay mc on principal
     
  5. Nariac

    Nariac Contributor Contributor

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    They'd really hate my book. The main romance arc is gay. More camp than a row of tents, as it were. However I am sure it would gain the @BayView seal of approval! :love:
     
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  6. Iain Aschendale

    Iain Aschendale Lying, dog-faced pony Marine Supporter Contributor

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    Someone here either said or linked to something that talked about diversity in fiction with the idea of "How about a story about a lawyer in a wheelchair that's about the lawyer, not the fact that (s)he's in a wheelchair." Pretty much based on that idea, I decided to make my MC gay. He's not going to have an S/O and there aren't going to be any romance/love/sex scenes in the book because there wouldn't be if he was straight, but what the hell, why not make him gay? Book's set in modern-day America, so.... yeah, I'll take the hit from the homophobes if they can't deal with a male character admiring a chest with a high muscle to fat percentage or some such, it'll be a couple of lines out of tens of thousands of words.
     
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  7. Catrin Lewis

    Catrin Lewis Contributor Contributor Contest Winner 2023 Community Volunteer

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    OK, cop in a wheelchair. :bigtongue:
     
  8. Veloci-Rapture

    Veloci-Rapture Member

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    Performing some serious forum necromancy here, but your comment gave me flashbacks. Did you too try to get my ex-wife to read something you wrote?

    The reason I'm just now starting to seriously write my own projects, instead of tinkering on ideas in a dark kitchen at 3am before I left for work and carefully disguising the document as a complicated tax form, was because she did that exact thing to literally everything I ever wrote, whether I intentionally showed it to her or not. She wanted me to read/edit her own project, and saw anything I did on my own as "competing" with her, like I was only doing it to take away "her special thing" (writing), even though I had been writing for almost ten years before we even met. Hell, she even threw a fit when she found out I'd registered for a play-by-post roleplaying forum. Twice.

    ANYway.

    You know you have the wrong beta reader when they say "This is great, but which character is supposed to be me?"
     
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  9. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    I think I may have dated her :D
     
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  10. Mckk

    Mckk Member Supporter Contributor

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    I'm sorry to hear that. That sounds awful. I hope she found some peace and I'm glad to hear you're now free to take your own work seriously without fear of mockery and angry outbursts! It sounds like she secretly went into your files from time to time if you have to disguise those documents.

    I must say, that's one of the many things I am grateful for about my mum - I never, ever had to worry she'd look into my stuff. Not my bags, not my drawers, not my books, not the family computer (it was before everyone in the household had laptops!). I never had to hide or lock anything. She wouldn't even open my pencil case without asking, and she took issue with you too if you opened her pencil case without asking :D but that's fair enough lol.
     
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  11. Hublocker

    Hublocker Active Member

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    I gave a friend my first five chapters and she never told me one word about what she thought of it. All I can think of is that she thinks it's really bad.
     
  12. Iain Aschendale

    Iain Aschendale Lying, dog-faced pony Marine Supporter Contributor

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    Sigh. Mrs. A's English is conversational but not to the level where she could read and offer feedback on anything I've written. My best hope of sharing is for Hollywood to adapt the book once I'm done with it, and that would be well past the beta stage.
     
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  13. Cave Troll

    Cave Troll It's Coffee O'clock everywhere. Contributor

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    To think the cameras were rolling this entire time. :p
     
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