What a Beta Reader Can Do for Your Memoir

Writing a memoir doesn’t have to be lonely work. We all need cheerleaders and blunt critics, friends who keep you on deadline, the fellow writer who fills your margins with all-caps excitement. A beta reader for memoir can be an important part of this community: someone who approaches your work with the investment of a fan and the experience of a professional. 

Beta readers can understand your intention and speak to the expectations of your audience. They can see what the manuscript is missing but also what it has the potential to be. They understand your vision and are ready to help you realize it.

Memoir is a special craft. It plays with all the tricks and toys of fiction, but at its heart, it can be quite different. It is as much about sharing and shaping a perspective as it is about telling a story. And it can be, of course, uniquely private and close to the heart of its writer.

The right beta reader respects the vulnerability of sharing your memoir manuscript and helps you achieve its full potential.

When Is Your Memoir Ready for a Beta Reader?

A beta reader is a test reader who reviews your polished draft. However, some people like to work with alpha readers in the early stages of their work. You are the ultimate judge of what your memoir needs. Having a trusted group of readers and writers whose opinions you respect is incredibly valuable, and it’s your call when you are ready for that feedback. 

I am a strong proponent of submitting a completed manuscript to a reader. The feedback can only be as comprehensive as the material. What is imperative is that you know what you are looking for from a beta read. Having a clear idea of what you want will help you filter through credentials and services, ensuring you and your beta reader are on the same page about expectations and goals for the project ahead.

Make up a list of questions and concerns. A good beta reader will not only welcome but expect a writer who has specific expectations for them.

All that being said, you’ll get the most out of a beta read when:

You have completed the first draft of your memoir.

The more content you give a beta reader, the more well-rounded their feedback will be. Holistic notes will help you create a clearer picture of your revision goals.

It’s also important that you get the chance to put your memoir on paper before you invite a second opinion. Editors and readers are essential to the revision process, but you should get a chance to own that manuscript absolutely — to see your vision through from beginning to end — before you start thinking about changing it or giving others the chance to reshape it.

You know where you want to go, but you’re not sure how to get there.

You may have a vivid picture of your memoir and what it needs to include. But bringing that vision to life can be challenging. If you need help bridging the gap between that ideal resolution and where you feel stuck, a reader can help.

An experienced reader can give opinions on the journey so far, where they expect the story to go, the things they’d love to see, and the questions they want answered. A new perspective might be the key to navigating narrative obstacles.

You want an opinion on your polished draft before you query or publish.

Beyond a final proofread to catch uncapitalized place names and stray em-dashes, a final beta read on a polished manuscript is a boon to writers.

The better you understand a reader’s reaction to your memoir, the more empowered you will be in the next stages of your publishing journey. In self-publishing, you can come to the market informed on your reader’s expectations and reactions. In traditional publishing, you can narrow in on your key demographic before you start querying.

How a Good Beta Reader Will Evaluate Your Memoir

Once you’ve decided you’re ready for a beta reader, the question becomes how to select the right one. It’s worth remembering that throughout your revision process, there is room for multiple beta readers with varied experience in memoir and creative nonfiction.

Regardless of their experience, there are some practices good, professional beta readers follow.

They respect your vision.

They will understand the vision for your project and communicate how that vision is being realized and which elements, if any, are missing for you to achieve it.

A few times I’ve come across a memoir manuscript that is doing something I wish it wouldn’t, shying away from a compelling subject or spending too much time on certain characters, but I put that aside. The purpose of my feedback is not to shape this book into my ideal memoir, but the writer’s.

While preferences can be a useful part of feedback, the priority of a good beta reader will always be understanding what the author’s goal is and how best to realize it.

They find confusing elements and unanswered questions.

The closer you are to the subject of your manuscript, the more blind spots you have.

It is difficult to craft a relative into a character that evokes the desired emotions in a reader. Compiling years’ worth of experience into a few pages succinctly is near impossible. Invariably, some information will be missing because it would never occur to you that it needs spelling out.

Good beta readers will read specifically for those moments, which are a lot harder to pick out in self-revisions.

They see the holes in the structure.

Some of my favorite memoirs are the ones that do unexpected things with time and form. It’s such an underhyped technique to shape a story, highlight certain themes or relationships, and surprise the reader.

It can also complicate pacing and clarity and break reader immersion if managed poorly.

A good beta reader will examine whether the chronology (or lack thereof) can be followed by the reader. They will look out for lagging or accelerated pacing, gaps or confusing time jumps, and ensure that all the pieces necessary to understand the story are on the page.

They provide suggestions.

This is a big one for me. A good, professional beta reader should be committed to helping you realize your goals for your manuscript. They will not only point out issues or questions but will also provide suggestions and ideas on how to fix them.

A good way to pinpoint why a particular element isn’t working is to brainstorm how to fix it. Even if the reader’s suggestion isn’t used, it provides a deeper understanding of reader preferences.

As a beta reader, I am committed to helping make your memoir the best it can be. I am not going to point out an element I found wanting and not share my thoughts on how to improve it.

How Beta Reader Feedback Can Help Your Memoir

Receiving commentary on your work is a hard-earned skill. It takes practice to know what can be used and what should be set aside. Reading between the lines of “bad” critique takes time, patience, and practice.

Once you’ve learned how to heed an insightful reader or tune out a misguided one, reader feedback will become invaluable to your project and to your growth as a writer.

Good beta reading feedback will help you:

Know your audience.

Your audience will always surprise you. An ideal beta reader is someone interested in your genre and your book, someone who might have picked it up from a shelf on their own. This beta reader represents your target audience, and their feedback can be invaluable to revisions.

A richer understanding of how the work is coming across will shape your next draft. Are you reaching the audience you intended, or should you be aiming for a different reader altogether?

Call out disbelief.

What is mundane and ordinary to you may be striking or even unbelievable for your reader. Far-fetched can read as made up.

Because they are familiar with the genre, beta readers can speak to what is making a moment or character unbelievable. They can note where you may have to balance truth-telling and narrative craft. Memoir depends on gaining your reader’s trust and keeping it. Who better than a reader to attest to how much that trust can stretch?

Find the moments that matter.

Knowing what you’re doing right is the best place to start when thinking of revisions. Beta reading feedback will highlight that.

Writing about lived experience doesn’t always mean we see it clearly. You can never predict what theme a reader will connect with or which character will turn them off. Having an experienced memoir reader’s feedback on what stands out in your manuscript will enrich your understanding and inform your revision process.

Tackle the narrator problem.

One of the trickiest aspects of a memoir is creating a consistent narrative voice. The narrator is the lens through which the reader will experience the story, but being objective about ourselves takes practice.

Beta reading feedback can track the reader’s experience of that narrative voice. Is it interrupting too much, or not enough? Is it the right amount of unlikeable? Nailing the narrator is essential. Objective and experienced commentary on their place in the story will prove crucial in revisions.

Surface what you can’t see yourself.

You should have some expectation of what a beta reader will have to say about your work. But thorough feedback will raise new inquiries, questions you hadn’t thought to ask, and patterns you were too close to notice.

Pay attention to what’s keeping a reader turning the page. What’s too much detail or not enough? Sensory detail and imagery can be effective tools to weigh certain moments and lighten others, but ineffective use can disrupt pacing and immersion. A beta reader’s feedback will flag the moments when detail is working against you rather than for you.

Even without in-line comments, a good beta reader will point to specific moments in the text, so you know exactly what’s working and where.

Finding the Right Beta Reader for Your Memoir

The best beta reader for your memoir is someone who knows what a good memoir should do because they’ve read so many of them. They can help yours find its footing in a multifaceted, ever-changing genre.

Know what you want out of a beta read before you start looking for a specific reader. When you find the right one, make sure you and your reader are on the same page about what the beta read needs to accomplish.

If you have a polished draft, consider a reader less experienced with memoir. A fresh, unbiased pair of eyes that will assess your manuscript based on nothing more than the work itself can provide surprising insight.

What starts out as a one-time contract can turn into a long-term commitment. A thoughtful and observant reader who understands your process and your vision will only be an asset to honing your craft and may end up a permanent fixture in your writing community.

Frequently Asked Questions

When should I start looking for beta readers?

Start looking for beta readers for your memoir when you have a completed manuscript. You can also use a beta reader to help you work through a manuscript in progress. Keep in mind a reader can only provide feedback on the material they have, so the completeness of the draft will determine the scope of the feedback.

How do I get the most out of beta readers?

To get the most out of a beta reader, have clear expectations and goals communicated before you hand over your draft. Create a set of questions or a list of subjects that the reader should address in their feedback. Make sure they are open to incorporating that into their deliverables.

How many beta readers should I have?

You should have multiple beta readers throughout your revision process, staggered at different stages of your draft. Seek feedback when you have completed a draft you are satisfied with, if you feel uncertain about the current path of your manuscript, or once you have a polished product ready to publish.