Beta Reader

Beta Reader

Three simulated readers with different tastes, habits, and tolerances read the draft in order and report honestly. The goal is diagnosis, not praise: where each reader would stop, what confuses them, what delights them, and what is missing.

Why three and not ten: one model playing many readers produces many versions of the same bias. Three readers with deep, conflicting instructions give more signal and less noise. When all three flag the same problem from their own angles, it is real. When only one does, it may be taste.

The readers

Each brief is long on purpose. Load a reader's brief only for that reader's pass.

What the readers may see

Readers know only what a real reader knows before opening the book: the title, the genre, and the back-cover copy if the author has one. They never see the outline, synopsis, author notes, research, or earlier feedback.

If the author has an outline, a synopsis, or goals for the book, read them yourself, but keep them away from the readers. They feed only the final "What you meant vs what readers felt" section.

If you are given a middle chapter on its own, the readers may read a short summary of what came before (and nothing after), the way a returning reader remembers the story. Say so in the report.

Process

1. Collect the text. A chapter, a part, or the whole manuscript: pasted, one file, or a folder of chapter files read in order. Note what was read, for example "chapters 1-8 of 24" or "full manuscript".
2. Infer what you can. Genre, audience, and language come from the text when the author did not say. State your guess at the top of the report instead of asking.
3. Check scope. The readers are built for prose books: novels, novellas, story collections, memoir, and narrative or practical nonfiction. For poetry, picture books, or scripts, say so and offer a lighter read.
4. Set the language. Write the whole report in the manuscript's language unless the author asks for another one. A Portuguese draft gets a Portuguese report, read by readers of that market with that market's references. Translate the reader names naturally. Quote passages exactly as written, never translated.
5. Run the readers apart. If your host can run subagents, give each reader its own subagent with only: the text (plus title, genre, and back-cover copy if any), that reader's brief, the reading rules, and the report format below. If it cannot, run the readers one at a time in this conversation, finish each report before starting the next, and never revise an earlier report after writing a later one. Record which way you ran them.
6. Write the synthesis (below), then the honesty lines.

Reading rules for all three readers

• Read in order. No skipping ahead, no reading the ending first.
• For a long manuscript, read in consecutive parts and keep a running log for each reader, so the stop points are real.
• Quote exactly. Locate every point by chapter and page, or by a short quote the author can search for.
• When a reader quits, record the quit point, then keep reading as a favor to the author. Mark everything after it "read past my quit point", and say whether anything later would have won them back.
• Stay in character. Each reader reports only from their own seat. Fairness happens in the synthesis, not in the reader reports.

Report order

1. Header: what was read, the genre and audience (stated by the author or guessed by you), and the language.
2. The three reader reports, in this order: the Page-Turner, the Critic, the Skeptic.
3. The synthesis.
4. The honesty lines.

Report format for each reader

### [Reader name]
**Verdict:** Finished it / Quit at [location] / Finished out of duty
**Where I'd stop reading:** [location] "[quote]" [what went through my head]. If nowhere: "No reason to stop."
**Close calls:** [where I nearly quit, and what pulled me back]
**What confused me:** [location, what, why] or "Nothing."
**What delighted me:** [location] "[quote]" [why]
**Top 3 problems:** [each with a quote and a location]
**What's missing:** [what I wanted and never got]
**The morning after:** [the one image or line still in my head tomorrow] or "Nothing stuck."
**Engagement:** [X]/10, [one-line reason]
**Would I recommend it?** [yes or no, to whom, and in what words]
[The reader's own section, from their brief]

Verdicts, the same for all readers:

• Finished it: kept reading because they wanted to.
• Quit at [location]: would have stopped there for good; everything after it was read only as a favor to the author.
• Finished out of duty: never hit a stopping point, but kept going without wanting to.

Engagement anchors, the same for all readers:

• 3: quit early and would not come back
• 5: would finish it only if stuck on a long flight
• 7: finished it and was glad to
• 9: would press it on friends
• 10: among the best books I have read in this genre (rare)

Score like a stranger who paid for the book, not like the author's friend. Any score of 8 or more needs a quoted reason.

Synthesis: where the readers agree