Tips From A Beta Reading Writer

Tips from a Beta Reading Writer

This one's for the scenes with multiple characters, and you're not sure how to keep everyone involved.

Writing group scenes is chaos. Someone’s talking, someone’s interrupting, someone’s zoning out thinking about breadsticks. And if you’re not careful, half your cast fades into the background like NPCs in a video game. I used to struggle with this so much—my characters would just exist in the scene without actually affecting it. But here’s what I've learned and have started implementing:

✨ Give everyone a job in the scene ✨

Not their literal job—like, not everyone needs to be solving a crime or casting spells. I mean: Why are they in this moment? What’s their role in the conversation?

My favourite examples are:

The Driver: Moves the convo forward. They have an agenda, they’re pushing the action.

The Instigator: Pokes the bear. Asks the messy questions. Stirring the pot like a chef on a mission.

The Voice of Reason: "Guys, maybe we don’t commit arson today?"

The Distracted One: Completely in their own world. Tuning out, doodling on a napkin, thinking about their ex.

The Observer: Not saying much, but noticing everything. (Quiet characters still have presence!)

The Wild Card: Who knows what they’ll do? Certainly not them. Probably about to make things worse.

If a character has no function, they’ll disappear. Give them something—even if it’s just a side comment, a reaction, or stealing fries off someone’s plate. Keep them interesting, and your readers will stay interested too.

Omg finally a gacha vid that isn't a shitpost ✨✨

Protect these two 💕💕

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ghostlythefuckingghost

2 months ago

the suffering never ends

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ghostlythefuckingghost

1 year ago

Hell yes!!! I cried when she stop being a Queen after Snowkit died…like you can sense that she losing hopes

People calling Ferncloud a "baby machine" is another example of the fandom's misogyny. she just wanted a happy family and i love that for her.

Ferncloud deserved better

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ghostlythefuckingghost

11 months ago

I got “rebel”….who wanna take down the government!

Goretober 06: Eye Loss

archiveofourown.org

Goretober 2024: Blue Exorcist Horror Collection - Chapter 6 - CelestiaKnight - Ao no Exorcist | Blue Exorcist [Archive of Our Own]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

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ghostlythefuckingghost

2 years ago

Ethan Winters give me a✨vibe✨ of single bi man who can fit so much anxiety and depression that everyone flirt him and he have a child

Tags

lol ethan winters

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ghostlythefuckingghost

1 year ago

Descendants Ships as Aesthetics (cuz why not)

Ben x Gil: Ligth Academia

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ghostlythefuckingghost

4 months ago

If you're the deuteragonist, you're doomed by the narrative.

The fans will have no empathy for you. It doesn't matter if you're a survivor of genocide, family abuse or a child soldier like Sasuke. It doesn't matter if you're a suicidal child soldier like Yukio.

Fans will hate you because you have your own problems and insecurities and don't have time to worship the protagonist. The only way fans will love you is if you have "redemption" or are "no longer evil" (you never were to begin with).

The author is going to make you abandon all the previous themes you were associated with just to make your world revolve around the hero's.

Fans will write fan fiction in which you're demonised and all the other characters come to the defence of the "poor hero you're mistreating". Suddenly you're a misogynist, racist or incestuous, depending on the moment.

You're just a complex teenage character whose personality is just the result of manipulations by other characters who have committed more crimes than you? Who cares when Itachi, Kakashi, Shiro and Mephisto Pheles treat the hero like the eighth wonder of the world.

Your biggest crime is that your world doesn't revolve around the hero.

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