Ryan M. Patrick

I have a little more free time this week and I need a bit of a break from my current WIPs…so I decided to write a post about alpha, beta, and ARC reading and why they’re different.

Alpha Reading

Alpha reading for a less-polished work. It can be a first draft, but is generally a second or third, yet doesn’t have the cleanness of a line-edited one. It can be messy, and have everything from typos to continuity issues, but an editor or fellow author reading it can be incredibly useful for the writer in order to spot big holes in the story or jarring flaws in the plot or character arcs. The critiquer knows that it’s going to be messy, yet is able to read through to the end and provide feedback on the piece as a whole or in parts. Feedback could come in any number of different ways, from in-line comments to summary notes to a Google Form (my friend Aditya is very fond of these!) to help the author improve the draft.

This is what an in-line comment looks like from the current book I’m alpha reading:

I see something – a line of dialog in this case – that I don’t feel like fits, and I call it out using Microsoft Word’s comment feature. I’m not telling the author how to fix it, or making any kind of personal attack on the writer or his/her work. Just that a sentence doesn’t work for me.

Beta Reading

Beta reading is the same concept, but with a more polished draft. It should have the big developmental pieces in place and be a less janky reading experience. The author is looking for big-picture things – pacing, feelings, emotions, character consistency and likability – that still need to be worked out or improved. Feedback is generally provided at the end and not by line – the copy-editor or proofreader should be doing the line-edits at that stage. Here’s an example of the final notes I provided to a writing friend on the 5th and final act of his novel:

I’m focusing on big-picture stuff, and how I feel about characters and plot pieces as a whole – not just on little parts of the book. It’s similar to feedback I’d give on a published novel if I was asked, just in this case, the book hasn’t been released yet.

ARC Reading

ARC (Advanced Review Copy) Reading is of a complete product that is going out for review, hopefully before publication. There should be no typos, plot holes, or anything that a paying customer would expect to see. The end result is a review that is posted to Amazon, Goodreads, or social media to help the author generate buzz prior to a release. Here’s an example of a book that I received an ARC of and reviewed on both Amazon and Goodreads (D. Andrew’s Afterburn, a fantastic sci-fi book):

This was a great book, so I wrote a review that I hope would entice other people to buy it. I notice that there’s some flaws, in case that’s a dealbreaker for a potential reader, but I also play up the best parts of it and hopefully sell it to the right audience.

Wrap-Up

As you can see, there’s some similarities – I’m providing feedback to another author – but there’s differences as well, in both how I present it and what I focus on in my comments. As you can see, I always come from a place where I’m trying to help the other writer, even when my feedback is negative, and if all of my comments are thrown out and ignored I wouldn’t care at all – alpha/beta/ARC reading helps me as much as it helps them!