Pam and Kae have covered your questions very well, from the general point of view, Kitty. And I'd certainly agree with their assessment. I always say that a good beta reading relationship is like a good marriage. <g> Author and beta need to be compatible or forget it.
As far as the Archive is concerned, specifically, you'll need a beta who has at least a grasp of the fundamental basics of grammar, punctuation and the English language.
We don't insist that a story be
perfect in these areas (or few of us would get into the Archive
), but we do have a long-standing rule that no GE should have to do more work on a submitted story than the author did.
They're really only there to do a 'final polish' of the story and pick up the odd typo or punctuation error that author and beta have missed, rather than wholesale editing and beta reading of stories. So we try to keep their work to a minimum.
Generally, you'd be looking out for things like your beta knowing when to put a period or a comma at the end of dialogue and what the difference is there. One who knows where to chop a story into paragraphs. When to use commas and semi colons and when not. Just basic stuff. I'm not using examples from one of your stories incidentally - these are just some of the regular errors that we see time and again on the Archive. But that's the kind of thing you'd want a good beta to be able to pick up on.
LabRat
