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""?

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

Nope. There are levels of edit; in general, you fix the big structural stuff before you fix the small stuff. After all, if an entire paragraph needs to be deleted because it's extraneous, there isn't any point in fixing the commas and subject-verb first.

I would prefer structure-before-grammar edits, because I don't want to be so focused on a sentence that might get thrown out altogether if the whole scene is garbage. In fact, Lawrence Bloch calls it "washing garbage". If the germ of competence is there, then knocking off the worst crusties of misspellings and twisted sentence structure can help it shine, but if it's "Mary Jane gayzed in open-mothed adorration of studly Dirk", then it's pick up the tongs and move the whole icky thing time.

Or, what Betsy said.

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.

What always sticks in my mind is from Anne Lamott. First, there are Shitty First Drafts, 90% which might never see the light of day; you generally revise those yourself ("revise" might be the wrong term; a Shitty First Draft serves to get all your ideas out of your head, and something truly wonderful is likely to show up on the page, and you can toss the rest).

Then comes the Down Draft -- you're just getting it down on paper (or electrons). It's not concerned with particulars of grammar and punctuation, because whole sections might be excised.

The the Up Draft -- you're fixing it up. That's where grammar editing comes in.

Finally is what Lamott calls the Dental Draft -- where you go through it one last careful time, checking each tooth to make sure there are no weak spots.

I, personally, can't abide someone giving me grammar/punctuation feedback on a first draft, especially when I specifically asked for content/big picture/coherency feedback.