Getting the Best Out of Beta Readers (When They’re Friends or Family)

Do you have a short story you’re excited to submit to us at Weird Lit? We’ve got a few suggestions for how to harness your weird friends or family as beta readers to help you kick off your revision process.

Every piece of writing can benefit from getting a second, third, or tenth pair of eyes on it—even if those eyes don’t belong to someone professionally trained to edit. You want all your readers to feel invested in your work, and since most of your readers aren’t going to be editors, feedback from non-editors is incredibly helpful. It’s also the first step in an effective revision process before you hire a professional editor. The more polished your piece before it’s in front of an editor, the more detailed and higher quality feedback you’ll get.

But it can be challenging to receive constructive feedback from friends and family. They might not want to hurt your feelings, so they may just give you a general “it’s great!” or they may not know how your work can be improved.

You can set them—and yourself—up for success by providing a list of questions to answer after they’ve read your story. Their answers will shed some light on what’s working in your piece and what you might want to develop or revise. 

Here are some questions you can ask your readers to help you understand how well your piece is working:

1. Which character were you most interested in? What do you think they want, and what’s in their way of getting it? 

2. Did you find anything confusing? What questions do you still have after finishing the story?

3. Did the ending feel complete? If not, what were you expecting out of the ending, based on the rest of the story?

4. Were you excited to keep reading the whole time or did it slow down for you at some point?

5. Is it weird?

The best writing often happens in the revision process. Consider feedback, implement changes that benefit your readers, and watch your writing improve.

The submission window for our Fall 2025 issue is open now through September 1! It’s time to get your stories written, revised, and submitted. Let’s make something weird together.