This is why world-weary people (me, for instance) ALWAYS ask what sort of beta is wanted. "Do you want a copyedit? Do you want me to check logical flow? Do you want me to let you know my emotional reaction? Or something in between?"

Some people can't ever improve, but if it's inexperience that's making them write badly, you can suggest things like "You tell us Kara is brilliant and difficult to get along with, but all she actually does is get a cup of coffee and look at a map. Maybe you could give her things to do to illuminate those apsects of her personality-- she could see something on the map no one else noticed and be obvious about what idiots they were for not seeing it." For plot you might have them write out, without embellishments, only what actually happens in the story, and then examine the bones of the action to see what can be changed or amped up, doing a lot of "what if".

When I get something back from beta redlined for grammar, I ignore the beta. I have a friend who is an editor, and I send my stuff to her for editing after it is beta read. I'm looking for a critique of the story. Does it resonate with you in some way? Did it make you laugh? Do you "get it?"

My feeling is, if you can't give the type of feedback that's being requested, that's fair -- some people are much better at the big-picture feedback -- content, resonance, etc. -- and some people are such fabulous line-editors that what they do should rightly be called art.

And there's no shame in being strong in one and not the other, as long as you know your strengths when asked for feedback, so that you can say, honestly, "Hey, I'm much better at line-editing; if you'd like me to look at it when it reaches that stage, I'd love to," or vice versa.

How do you actually help someone improve characterization or plotting? I'm pretty good at it, but, well, it's just something I can do. I don't know how I do it. How do you teach someone a new way of thinking?

I expect it depends on whether the person is willing to learn; and how systematic you can ask them to be. Some people do stuff like sit down and chart their characters, assign them keywords and groupings of symbolic imagery, and then go through writing with the chart always in mind -- I can't do that in advance; it makes me feel as if I'm done and don't need to actually write anything. I can, however, get through a draft, read through it and find the keywords and images, and then revise the mis-matching parts to match.

I think that finding is something that can be done in a group, or between a writer and firstreader. Similarly, a firstreader might be able to do something like chart the actions of several characters, to show how it's physically impossible for Characters X and Y to visit Character Z without seeing each other, etc. etc.

This is why world-weary people (me, for instance) ALWAYS ask what sort of beta is wanted. "Do you want a copyedit? Do you want me to check logical flow? Do you want me to let you know my emotional reaction? Or something in between?"

Yes, this. My basic group rules are simple: serious writers (not the same as published writers; those two terms, in my world, are not interchangeable). Tell us what you're looking for.

If I need grammar fixes, I'll say so, and honestly, I don't recall ever saying so. Also, Susan, at our group, we read aloud; that, in and of itself, is not a useful venue for grammar editing. Ours will typically go something like:

Email ahead of time: who's reading tonight? OK, that's Bea, Reen and Stephanie, plus me. Four out of six have new work to read.

Dinner, catchup, dessert, coffee/tea, ok, who wants to go first? Bea, with the angels novel (which kicks serious ass, as it happens)? Cool. Is this new, or is it revised earlier? And Bea will get some commentary on grammar, because English isn't her native language - she's German - and occasionally trips over something. So, she's asked us to note anything that rings badly in that line; depending on whether it's new or revised, she'll tell us what she's looking for.

Stephanie next, a very intense and very well-written novel about a shrink at SF General Hospital, discovering the truth about her mother's suicide years ago. Steph writes superb dialogue and has a vivid eye for setting, but she's told us, up front, that she has trouble structuring scenes, the ebb and flow, what should go where, so we know to mark what she read last time, and go from there with input.

I'll go third, and mine is generally the same: next scene in Weaver or Famous Flower or Matty or Cruel Sister, how does it flow, what I need all mentioned above. I get some interesting takes on word usage: Americans seem to have a stronger meaning to "adore" than the English do, for instance. It's extremely helpful and I get excellent edits.

Reen, hopefully conquering her yes-buts, will read a scene and be nice and upfront about what she's unhappy with, or concerned about. We work from there.

No one in my group ever says "Oh, whatever, I don't care."

Wow. This is educational. It never would've occurred to me before today that anyone didn't want to hear about the grammar/stylistic stuff right away. I think that's largely because it's so hard for me to even see the underlying story if there are major problems in those areas. So I want to grab my red pen and fix the fundamentals, because once it reads smoothly, then I can understand what's going on and work with the rest of it.

How do you actually help someone improve characterization or plotting? I'm pretty good at it, but, well, it's just something I can do. I don't know how I do it. How do you teach someone a new way of thinking?

I suck at that, because for me, it isn't a question of thinking; it's a question of channeling. I only think about it later, or if something mechanical comes up and bites me in the bottom while doing a specific scene.

There's also a big difference between live editing in a group, and editing something on the page, at my leisure. When I edit someone's WIP that's been sent to me as a whole, I look at the entire thing, but one of the biggies is looking for tendencies: word of the day syndrome (and Susan, Bev, I love that phrase and am also guilty of it, and correct it on edit whenever I see it). Tell not show syndrome. Characters navel-gazing, to the detriment of the story flow.

My instinct would be "Ok, here's the stuff I hate, then."Note: to "I don't care," And every beta and writer aren't going to appreciate the same story the same. Fantasy people generally find my stories to be plotless wonders, ime. Even they could not say this about AMC, I suspect.

Jumping in just to say that from a writing teacher's perspective, I'm right in line with what most people have said. We teach that writing is a process, and revision (the big changes like does it make sense, it is in a logical order, etc.) always comes before proofreading.

How do you actually help someone improve characterization or plotting? I'm pretty good at it, but, well, it's just something I can do. I don't know how I do it. How do you teach someone a new way of thinking?

I was about to try to tackle this and decided it's too big. ("Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.") It's National Teacher Day, so I'm just going to feel good about saying that I think teaching these types of skills is wonderful blending of art, science, and experience. Someday, I might feel like I have a handle on it. Eight years in, I'm still learning.

This is educational. It never would've occurred to me before today that anyone didn't want to hear about the grammar/stylistic stuff right away.

(blinking)

Really? Because to me, that's more "welcome to English 1.01, today's class will focus on prepositions" stuff. I'm fifty years old, I know my language, and I've been out of school for a good long time now.

And honestly, ask yourself this: If you send people a tense new scene between Jack and Anna, are you really asking for, or expecting, comments like "please learn the difference between "than" and "then""?