Beta reading
Beta reading lets you share a private, work-in-progress story with a handful of invited readers and collect their feedback scene by scene — before you're ready to publish it to the world. Beta readers can read and comment; they cannot change your text. (If you want people to co-write with you instead, see real-time collaboration.)
You manage beta reading from your story's overview screen, under the Sharing tab, in the Beta readers panel.
Sharing a story for beta
In the Beta readers panel, pick which scenes to share (see below), then choose Turn on beta reading. DragonWriter freezes a copy of your current draft — the beta copy — and mints an invite code. Your readers only ever see this frozen copy, not your live draft.
While beta is on, the panel shows the invite link and code, invite settings, your reader roster, a line naming which scenes are shared, and actions to preview, update, or end the beta:
- Update beta copy re-freezes the beta to your current draft, so readers see your latest changes. The button opens a short dialog where you can also change which scenes to share. Comments carry forward to the scenes they were left on.
- Download comments saves every beta comment as a Word, plain-text, or Markdown file, so you can keep them without ending the beta.
- Open reader view opens the beta copy as your readers see it — this is also where you reply to, resolve, and filter their comments.
- Pause beta suspends all reader access in one sweep without ending anything (see Pausing beta reading).
- End beta permanently deletes the beta copy, all reader access, and every beta comment. It first offers to download the comments and reminds you that Update beta copy is the way to refresh readers without losing anything.
Choosing which scenes to share
Every scene carries a status — Plan, Draft, Edit, or Done — and you can share only the scenes at the statuses you choose. By default all four are selected, so the whole story goes into the beta. Untick a status to keep those scenes private: for example, leave Plan and Draft unticked to share only your more finished Edit and Done scenes. At least one status must stay selected.
You set this when you turn beta on, and change it any time from the Update beta copy dialog. When a status is excluded, its scenes are left out of the beta copy, and any chapter or part that ends up with no shared scenes is left out too, so your readers never see empty headings. If you later re-include a status, those scenes come back — along with any comments that were left on them.
Inviting readers
Share either the invite link or the invite code with the people you want as beta readers. Anyone who is signed in to DragonWriter and opens the link (or enters the code) joins as a beta reader for that story.
The invite settings let you control who can join:
- Allow new readers to join with the code — turn joining on or off.
- Max readers — cap how many readers can join (blank means unlimited).
- Generate a new code — mint a fresh code and invalidate the old link.
How a reader joins
A reader opens your invite link, or enters the code on the Shared with me tab of their My stories screen (the Join a story as beta reader box). They join instantly and land on the beta reading page. Joining is refused if you've closed invites or the beta is full.
The beta reader's reading page
A beta reader sees the frozen story marked Beta copy, laid out as front matter, chapters, and scenes. Under each scene is a comment thread where they leave feedback. Any text the author redacted shows as a black bar the reader can click or tap to reveal, and the story appears in whatever fonts the author chose (with an Aa button to switch to a plain reading font).
Comments
Beta readers leave two kinds of comment on a scene: a whole-scene comment (a general note on the scene, like a margin comment in a word processor) and an inline comment tied to a specific passage. To leave an inline comment, select some text in the scene — a small Comment on this passage button appears — then write your note; the passage is highlighted in the text, and clicking a highlight jumps to its comment (and vice-versa). A scene's thread groups inline comments (On highlighted passages) separately from general notes. Each comment supports a single level of replies, and comments can be resolved (and later reopened). You can edit or delete your own comment or reply within 15 minutes of posting. Comment bodies are plain text.
If the passage an inline comment was left on is later edited away, the comment isn't lost — it drops to a Passages since removed section under that scene, showing the original quoted text, and re-attaches automatically if the passage comes back. If a whole scene leaves the beta copy — because you deleted it, or excluded its status — its comments become orphaned and are shown to you separately as "Comments on removed scenes". The quoted passage travels with an inline comment everywhere, including into the downloaded comments file.
Reviewing comments as the author
The reader view gives you a filter bar to work through feedback: filter by status (open / resolved / all), type (inline / whole-scene / orphaned), unanswered (no reply from you yet), or by reader (including guests). Resolve all shown resolves everything currently visible in one action. You can also review a single scene's comments without leaving the editor: the Beta button in the scene editor's toolbar opens the current scene's comments in a pop-up where you can reply, resolve, and filter — handy while you're actually revising that scene.
You get notified when a reader comments or replies, and your readers are notified when you update the beta copy.
Tracking reader progress
The Readers list shows, for each reader, when they were last active and how many of the beta's scenes they've opened, so you can see who has actually started reading. When you update the beta copy, readers see an Updated badge on the scenes whose text changed since they last read them, so returning readers can find what's new. (Progress tracking applies to signed-in readers; guests on public links aren't tracked this way.)
Pausing beta reading
Pause beta suspends everyone's access at once without ending the beta. While paused, your readers see a "Beta reading has been paused" message instead of the story, and public links stop working — but the snapshot and every comment are kept, and you keep full access to the reader view and all comments (with a banner reminding you it's paused). In a reader's Shared with me library the story shows greyed-out with a PAUSED stamp. It's the safe way to take a beta offline while you make changes, or step back, without losing feedback. Resume beta turns it back on.
Public links — readers without an account
Beyond inviting signed-in members, you can share a beta with people who don't have a DragonWriter account, through a public link. In the Public links section of the panel, give a link a name (to remember who it's for — a writing group, a specific friend) and choose Generate link. You can create several named links and revoke any of them independently; revoking a link stops it working immediately and permanently, while keeping any comments left through it.
Someone opening a public link is asked for a display name (and, optionally, an email address so you can reach them) and to pass a quick "I'm not a robot" check before they can read. From then on they read and comment much like any beta reader — leaving whole-scene and inline comments and replies — except their comments are attributed to their display name and marked as a guest. Guests can edit or delete their own comments within the 15-minute window; you can delete or resolve any guest comment, the same as your members'. A guest who ticks Remember me won't have to re-enter their details next time on that device. Public links don't count towards your Max readers cap, which governs only invite-code readers.
Public links require the site to have Cloudflare Turnstile configured; if it isn't, the Generate link button is disabled and the rest of beta reading is unaffected.
Removing a reader
In the Readers list, remove any reader to revoke their access. Their comments are kept. A removed reader can rejoin later if you give them a fresh code.
Stories shared with you
Stories others have shared with you for beta appear on the Shared with me tab of your My stories screen, badged Beta reader, alongside any stories you collaborate on. From there you can open a beta to keep reading and commenting, or leave it (you can rejoin later with a code).