Beta readers after having a bad experience

[AliceInSwitzerland]

Does anyone here use beta readers for their drafts before sending out to agents or competitions? I recently had a bad experience with a woman I met through an online Curtis Brown course. We stayed in touch after the course and exchanged weekly emails about how we were getting on with our writing. We also shared extracts for feedback.

I trusted her because I’d met her through a well-known course and she was in touch with a few others from the same course too. We even met up to go to a writing event and got on well. She was quite a bit older than me and was spending a lot of money on writing events and agent one to ones, which I don’t have the means to. I noticed that she kept pressuring me to send her longer extracts and eventually the whole manuscript. I didn’t do that because I like to have a very polished draft before I share it.

Eventually she stopped responding and I haven’t heard from her for months now. I don’t follow her on X but I came across a pitch event she had taken part in. For her pitch, she had described some of her story (which I knew from the course) but she’d also added an extra storyline featuring the name of one of my main characters and the basic description of her storyline. This upset me because I then I questioned everything I’d sent her and told her in case she’d lifted that too. I know she was sending work out to agents but I don’t think she’s been signed but now I’m glad I didn’t send her my whole draft.

I just thought I’d share to say be careful, as schools like CB encourage you to share your work and use people you’ve met as beta readers but not all of them have the best intentions. Do any of you use beta readers or do you prefer not to?

@AliceInSwitzerland This sounds very odd! I'm sorry you've had a bad experience, but please don't let it colour your opinion of using beta readers. Like you, I don't have the funds to pay for 121s or 'professional' feedback, and I've found beta readers to be excellent. Although, of course, it depends who they are!

As we all (I assume) have a passion to write a certain story, I don't imagine many people would try and steal ideas.

I met someone on a writing forum and it was clear to me that we liked a lot of the same writers and were writing in the same genre. She has recently read my full ms and marked up the entire thing. She found so much repetition that I had never noticed and she brilliantly (if somewhat painfully) challenged aspects of the plot. It would have cost me over £1000 to get feedback like that from an agency, so I am incredibly grateful to her.

I know that she will have learned something from reading my ms, just as I learned a lot from reading hers. Seeing what works and what doesn't, in someone else's ms is really informative.

I look at it that beta readers are 'readers', and at the end of the day, that is who I am writing for. I'm not writing a book to get an agent. although I know that's what some people do.

Can I ask what genre you are writing in? You might find someone on here that can give you a more positive experience.

Thanks @BecauseOfIndia. It sounds like you’ve had a very positive experience with beta readers which is encouraging. It’s a shame because I do enjoy talking about writing with other writers and getting feedback but this experience has left me a bit anxious. To be so blatant in using a character and storyline and then disappear is strange behaviour and I’m still not sure what happened or why she would do it.

I am writing in the psychological thriller/ mystery genre.

Nasty experience, but honestly extremely rare - please don't let it put you off!

That's terrible, what a breach of trust. And annoying, because it sounds really good to have someone read over your writing for you. I would never do this to someone