Beta Reading is ……
Dangerous, at times.
Helpful sometimes.
Yet, I am still keeping an open mind.
I introduced my piece to be a flash fiction.
Beta Reading comments were:
Too many character introductions needed more built.
Too much is happening too quickly.
Isn’t it surprising?
Some advised to choose a topic that is not too vast.
Some protested the transition from one POV to the other.
And there are the usual grammar police, going beyond wholesome experience and the message, picking up gerunds and transitive verbs.
Instead of spending ten words on describing WHEN SOMETHING HAPPENED, I changed the respective tense of the verbs to create different time stamps in the plot. A question about this experiment was normal. But, eviscerating an author’s inefficacy based on an experiment is too fanatical.
I have been writing for thirty years now.
I started publishing because a few accidental and private readings by teachers made them ask me for my write ups for school magazines and their private magazines.
My mistake was I asked entry into groups or asked a big publishing house editor for viewing my things.
Groups have their respective political goals and backstabbing methods through numerous private channels surrounding the forum. And I was not a whisperer.
Big publishing houses would not entertain anything outside their propaganda. Their employee editor has not much choice other than picking up a few money churning keywords. Neither big publishing houses can fancy to penetrate a new market with a new author.
With all the experiments and ideas of a potential market, I had to go self publishing. Often publishing under a publisher’s brand is self publishing too, with respect to author’s expense of printing, responsibility of distribution and marketing. So I have decided to do it without publishers’ names tagged along.
I have decided to do it ALONE.
Hence, I sought beta readers.
I do read other authors’ works in progress. I generally give them a reader’s feedback. I don’t suggest a plot point change or expression enhancement. I just convey what has satisfied me and what has not.
My readers made me think if I am seeking feedback from the right crowd. Hence, I would not accept the feedback that suggests elaboration or change of topic of the flash fiction. The efficiency of an author lies in depicting a story, illuminating a story within given limits of different formats(bytes, mini saga, flash fiction, shorts, novella, novel, epic). Whatever may be the topic, the story should be fulfilling and the message must be loud and clear.
Besides, one of the readers, bragged that none of the contemporary author aspirants are good enough compared to the erstwhile ones. This is not a new complaint.
But I do seldom find the benchmark lies on classics from all over the world. The comparison of every writing is with the contemporary best selling books.
Hence, fantasy is sought in an upmarket novel. Fantasy is sought in sci-fi. Mythology is sought in political novels. Sorcerers are even sought in a Spy thriller or Police Procedural. Especially, while the author seeks feedback before publishing.
[Probably because fantasy gives lots of space to readers’ imagination which cannot be invaded by visual media. Otherwise, all other genres are better enjoyed over visual media at present.]
It is difficult to choose from piles of feedback. An author needs to be aware that her creation was a flash fiction, not the first three pages of a novel.
To justify my points I would try mini saga format for classics:
If “One thousand years of Solitude” would have been a Mini Saga:
Crossing vicissitudes, some people escaped their sanguinous past; formed a township. The Gypsies explained to them, “The earth is round.”
While searching for her delinquent son, the mother discovered a trade route; ushered in government, taxes, labor. Revolution insinuated.
Scandals, conservative superstitious cover ups were all blown by a storm.
If “Old Man and the Sea” Would have been a Mini Saga:
The old fisherman dreamt of seas and lions, though caught nothing for the past eighty four days.
Then he found one. While he was sailing with its carcass, imagining freedom from debts, the sharks attacked.
The fishing dock was abuzz with an eighteen feet piscean skeleton. He was asleep then.
It is not the responsibility of the beta reader to be satiated from what they get. It is the author’s choice to pick among feedback and move on.
Therefore, I chose the rare helpful ones and discarded the dangerous ones.
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What do you think?
Let me know in the comments.
