Something that I haven't seen emphasized yet in the beta discussion is that at least in my experience, betas are generally giving suggestions rather than saying that something must be changed. If I'm saying "I don't think this line makes sense" I'm not saying it has to be changed, just that it's confusing to me, and maybe to others, but that you are in no way required to change it if it's a stylistic choice, or you just like it like that. If I suggest a different word choice, you're always free to ignore me. There's also a chance that I'm wrong! I'm human, you're human, we can make mistakes. Some of my suggestions are also personal opinion on how to say something, but in english there's usually no singular way to represent something!
I spent some time as copy editor for a newspaper before I moved up to senior board, but I still do a lot of copy work for it as we don't have a copy editor currently (copy is what we call the editing process of our articles, so similar to proofreading as a beta). We work in google docs and as we edit articles, we always use the suggestion mode to make sure we aren't making changes unilaterally that wouldn't be noticed, and that could be wrong. After two rounds of editing (one for grammar and one for fact-checking, although the latter is probably more relevant to newspaper than fic), the author of the article could go through the comments and decide if they agreed that they used one word too much or a paragraph should be moved to make a line flow better or to add a sentence, etc. or just ignore the comment. Their name would be on the article, so authors always have the final say.
There's obviously some differences in these two types of writing (especially as for newspaper work I have to follow a style guide and make comments about capitalization or how we write people's titles that had to be changed), and I can only talk more about shorter pieces as articles are only so long, but the "Suggestion Mode" method of thinking about betaing is something that I retain in fandom and I think is a good way to think about it.
If you want to soften the blow as a beta, try phrasing your comment as a suggestion rather than a fact to avoid coming across as negative or accusatory. If you are the author and you're scared of rejection or harsh words, try to think of your beta's comments as light suggestions from a friend on improvements rather than them criticizing you, harsh, etc. They don't think you're a bad writer just because they said you used the word "glowing" too many times in one paragraph, and their opinion of you does not depend on your skill or your work, but who you are. It may not work for every case as everyone's preferences are different, but this "Suggestion Mode" method of working/thinking can help ease friction between betas and authors and I hope it helps!
Thanks for giving your perspective on things!
As someone who likes to beta, I find it so so helpful when an author can tell me what style of feedback they prefer or don't want! I think sometimes writers who are new to working with a beta don't realize this is allowed, but especially for fanfic where there's no style guide to worry about, we can absolutely tailor the kind of notes we give you.
Sometimes that's suggested changes for SPAG and unclear phrasing, sometimes that's highlighting lines to flag with comments or questions, sometimes it's big-picture developmental notes on the pacing or story progression or character voice, sometimes it's "omg please just fix my accidental tense changes," sometimes it's "please don't suggest wording changes, just let me know anywhere you're confused," sometimes it's even just "hey can you hype me up? I'm nervous about this one."
Beta readers want to help you feel good about sharing your writing!
Second this! When I first started writing for fandom, someone offered to beta for me and as I had never done it before, I just gave them access to my google doc and then was crushed when they rewrote full paragraphs so that they didn't sound like my writing anymore. I think I took some of them out, and then they were pissed at me for that. Not specifically their fault, since I was new to it and didn't yet know what I wanted in a beta and so we didn't set any expectations beforehand, but I very quickly realised that that wasn't it.
Ever since then I have only ever turned suggestion mode on, and communicated clearly with later betas on what I want. For me, that is mostly SPAG (for some fics, it's even just SPAG), because I mostly write short fics where I (think I) can keep plot consistent in my head, and then for (mostly longer) fics where I want more feedback, I tell my betas how I want it given so that we can best work together. In my case, that's usually telling me in which places things are unclear, either from phrasing or what is happening, and if I should rephrase something, I have them tell me which sentence/paragraph and what doesn't work, but it gives me the freedom to use my own words for the rewrite, so the work still feels like my own. Then I run the changed sentence/paragraph by them to see if it's clearer and then put it in. Or if I can't think of ways to rephrase, then I ask for suggestions on how to rephrase it.
This also puts you in a conversation, it's not "the beta says this has to be x", but for me it's usually been like "you can put it like x" and I'll be like "hm that is not quite what I was looking for, it sounds like it has y connotation and I was looking it to sound more like z" and then them "what about this instead?". If you're looking for connection and conversation in fandom, I find this is the way to go, because then a beta-writer relationship, no matter if just for one fic or for longer, doesn't feel transactional and instead feels like working together on a project and talking about something (your fandom, your ship, your au, your fic) that you care about.
As far as I remember, I've only ever had positive experiences with this approach because it means no one is disappointed. The writer isn't disappointed because the text no longer sounds like them or the beta replaced full passages, and the beta isn't disappointed because the writer changed their edits to something else.
As the above poster said, when I first started writing for fandom, I didn't know there was different ways to beta and that I was allowed to say "I don't care about consistency in this specific work, I just want the grammar to be fixed" or "I'd only like you to suggest and then reword things myself". The first few times I had betas after that first experience, I felt like I had to justify why I wanted a specific type of feedback and it took some comments from friendly betas encouraging me to voice how I'd like feedback to be given and them telling me that they like it that I have clear instructions for what I want in beta reading.
But you are allowed. Sure, sometimes a beta will have to be like "I don't think I'm comfortable with this type of beta reading", but that is okay because otherwise you'd have both been unsatisfied with the experience. Better to know it upfront than to find out at the end that one or both of you hated the experience or the end product.
Tell your prospective beta what you expect from beta reading, let them tell you what they expect from you, find out if that is compatible or not, and then have fun writing and beta reading and talking about the work!
