What are some beginner opening variations after an opening has been chosen? I have seen a ton of questions on how to choose an opening repertoire, but I haven't really seen anything on once you choose an opening, are there specific variations that one should start off with that are easier than others.  I will use the French Defense as an example.  Every time I played the French Defense, I instinctively played 3.e5 (The Advanced Variation), but it was pointed out to me by stronger players that as a beginner, I should try to stay away from the Advanced Variation for now and stick to theMain line3.Nc3or The Exchange Variation3.exd5 exd5`.  Is the above true regarding the French Defense?  What variations of other openings are usually good for beginners to learn?
I would say that it almost does not matter. I think that anyone under 1700 USCF will get far more out of the study of the basics of the opening phase of the game and the general strategic ideas of the specific opening she or he has chosen. From a practical perspective it is too difficult to say what you are going to get 13 moves into an under 1600 USCF game to really dedicate too much time to an opening.

So the exact variation simply does not matter at the beginner level (assuming that is players under 1400 USCF). Notice in my terminology I consider a novice to be someone completely new to chess who has never played in a tournament and really only knows how the pieces move and the basic rules. I distinguish this from a beginner who knows a bit more about chess, may have played in a tournament, has a rating under 1400 USCF as mentioned before. I know these terms are generally synonymous but I think that it's important to distinguish between these two types of "beginners".

So my suggestion would be that at the beginner level one just shouldn't be too concerned about picking the exact variation but instead dedicate more time to learning about the general ideas of more openings by studying GM games from a variety of openings in addition to the openings you have chosen to play and keep your memorized book to a minimum.

Here are some suggestions on how to study the opening from Dan Heisman:
http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman37.pdf


  When a player first starts out to learn the openings, he gets the most
  efficient use of his time by learning:
  
  
  General opening goals and guidelines,
  A few main opening sequences (tabiyas), and
  How to avoid making the same mistakes over and over.