Today has been a heckuva Monday, and I mean that in the best way possible. For some reason I woke up at 7 this morning and managed not to roll over and go back to sleep, and by the time I usually get up I had already written my quota for the day (and finished Ch. 9 and started 10 in the process). And the rest of the day has been a blur of productivity. It makes me wish I had the morning person gene so that I could do this all the time, but I'll be as surprised as the rest of you if I manage to keep this up past a couple of days. And of course, it's only 5 PM and I'm all sleepy. But that's okay because all my work is done and I can feel free to fart around doing whatever until bedtime. What a nice feeling to have.

***

So the other day zapthepram asked:

How do you find good "Beta readers?" Online, or real life, I struggle with this. Help?!

I don't really have a helpful answer. I lucked out and acquired most of my beta readers through my work on Dancing Lessons, which, back in the day, functioned pretty well as a writing workshop. So I guess you could do what I did and start up a group fic and make all of the writers participate in the beta-reading/editing process, and then keep the good ones around to beta everything else you write. Or you could just try to find yourself a good writing workshop or online group in which you can post your work for critiques.

The trick is to define what you want in a beta reader. I actually have several, and they all serve different functions. One of them is an extremely good editor and is good at helping me tighten my prose, another is excellent at checking my grammar and punctuation and making sure I vary my sentence structure as well as being able to tell me when something in my story just doesn't work (or if it works perfectly). I have betas who do less in the way of proofreading and more just telling me what parts of the story work for them and what parts they have trouble understanding or which parts raised questions (and sometimes the questions they ask are the right questions, in which case I know I've done my job). And I have betas who just check my spelling and punctuation and make sure I don't get stuck on repeating a word over and over like a broken record.

With the small stuff, they point it out and I fix it. With the bigger, more thematic stuff, or the stuff that's more subject to personal taste, I look for agreement among my betas. If one or two point something out and ask me to change it, chances are it's a personal preference thing and I can feel safe ignoring the suggestion. But if almost everybody points out the same thing, that's a pretty good cue that I've miscommunicated something and need to revise. But the most important thing that all of my beta readers have in common is that they're not afraid to be perfectly honest with me, and they never tell me that something is good when it is, in fact, sub-par.

The point is, figure out what kind of beta reader is right for you. Once you know that, then you can start casting your net by simply asking people to read your work and tell you what they think. The ones who fit your needs, you keep asking. The ones who don't, it's okay not to ask them again. Just keep in mind that if they also write they're going to expect some quid pro quo when it comes time for them to find a beta reader.

And just an FYI, Neil Gaiman periodically lists writing groups and workshops in his blog. If you're looking to workshop fanfic or have it critiqued, then Yahoo!Groups would probably be a good place to start. Also, most fandom message boards I've lurked at have had threads in which fic writers can ask for beta readers.