The Ultimate Beta Reader Checklist

If you’re a professional or semi-pro writer, or if you have one as a friend, odds are you’re going to get tapped as a “beta reader” — someone who reads their finished-but-not draft and gives them feedback.

That’s hard work — or rather, it was hard work, before I created this handy checklist! Now, just use this to tell your writer friend how to improve his/her/its/their manuscript.

□ needs more angst
□ needs more introspection
□ needs less introspection
□ needs more characters of a particular gender/race/political affiliation/sexual orientation/shoe size
□ needs more ninjas
□ needs more monkeys
□ needs more ninja monkeys
□ needs fewer ninja monkeys (not possible)
□ needs more political heavyhandedness designed to infuriate the Religious Right
□ needs more political heavyhandedness designed to infuriate Social Justice Warriors
□ needs more explosions
□ needs more Star Trek references
□ needs more Murder She Wrote references
□ needs more Airwolf references
□ needs fewer plot points stolen directly from Buffy/Angel/Firefly/anything Joss Whedon
□ needs fewer signs that this was originally Harry Potter/Twilight fanfic
□ needs even more explosions
□ needs more guns
□ needs fewer inaccurate details about guns (the “No Cordite Rule”)
□ needs more Shakespearean references
□ needs more Biblical references
□ needs fewer Catholic/Mormon/Jewish/Muslim characters who highlight how little you know about their religious culture
□ needs working knowledge of police procedure
□ needs working knowledge of courtroom procedure
□ needs working knowledge of physics
□ needs working knowledge of human behavior
□ needs more romance
□ needs more passionate romance
□ needs more romance that doesn’t read like you learned everything you know about romance from books containing too much romance
□ needs more fistfights
□ needs more dopeslaps
□ needs a pseudonym