If I was looking for information to receive from a beta reader, I would ask for three things: what they thought of the piece, overall parts of the story that are lacking, and any mistakes they find.

What they thought of the piece is important because it gives me an overall sense of what other readers will think. If they thought it was boring, I might want to enhance certain aspects. If they thought it was a thrilling piece, but it wasn’t supposed to be a horror, I might reconsider parts of the piece.

When a beta reader addresses overall parts of the story that are lacking, they are considering all parts of the story and telling me what needs to be enhanced in the revision. By doing this, I can understand whether a character was strong or if a setting made sense. For example, I’ve had beta readers on my previous work tell me that a character is behaving too differently from previous chapters, or that a character isn’t developed enough. I’ve had beta readers point out that I’ve accidentally switched an important setting detail mid chapter. By pointing out the things I’m missing, I get a good comprehension of where the reader is in my story.

Finally, I would want my beta reader to identify any mistakes they find. A mistake could be as simple as an important setting detail (as mentioned before), or it could be like forgetting a quotation mark or word spelled wrong. These are minor details, but as a rough edit, can be super important to the whole story.