What to doE-mail your piece to the moderator in MS Word format. The covering e-mail should contain a couple of paragraphs describing what the piece is about. In essence, this is the same cover letter you would send to an agent or publisher.
The moderator will first perform a red and green squiggly line check - if you haven't spell-checked your piece or if it’s riddled with grammatical errors, it will be rejected. The next stage is discretionary - while it is not the moderator's job to assess on the basis of style, subject matter, etc., sometimes a piece simply hasn't been finished. Once a piece has been accepted, the moderator will attempt to find readers and will set a deadline for submitting reviews. The moderator will pass the collected reviews to the writer, and arrange a follow-up session if one is requested. The Points SystemThe BRG operates on a credit basis. Having a piece of your work read depends on its length:
Short piece: 2 credits Long piece: 5 credits You earn credits by: Being a member of the HKWC (1 credit / year) Being a member of an active critique group (5 credits / year) Reading a short piece by someone else (1 credit per short piece; 2 credits / piece) The moderator is the sole judge of whether a piece is long or short. |
What to expectThe normal report will answer four short questions:
Why be a Beta Reader?Being a Beta Reader is fun; it's a way of improving your own writing by finding what you like and dislike in others’ and expressing that in a concise and polite way. Saying you liked something is not enough – you’ll need to express why you liked it. The same goes for what you dislike. And, if you really cannot finish a piece, it's very useful for a writer to know where you gave up and why.
To join the BRG as a writer or a reader, please email critique@hkwriterscircle.com |
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What we do |