I just thought you didn't like my stuff and did what you could to help.

Not at all! I loved your stuff, which is why all I did to the piece you sent me was suggest rewordings, because I thought it was already wonderful and all I could do was offer ways to polish and tighten it a bit to make it sing even more.

It's one of my bigger weaknesses as a writer. Many commas, and not a period to be found for inches.

If so, you're in very good company. I get just as twitchy with hyper-short sentences as I do with the convoluted ones.

Also, personal peeve: the "cut every possible thing out, it's all fat anyway" school. Dudes, get over it, you are not Sir Thomas Malory and you aren't writing "Le Morte d'Arthur", and three-word sentences that dangle like limp genitalia make me want to forcefeed your frontal lobes with words. Half the time, the writer is cutting muscle and bone.

Yeah. I have a few of those...hopefully I fixed them.ETA: What does this mean? type sentences. As I write crime, maybe I want my sentences to be too short, too.

Heh. I just don't get how and when and where and why the idea that taking a complete thought of fifteen words, and deciding that it reads better as four tiny incomplete sentences, became so desirable.

Truth to tell, I go red-pen manic over those, unless they're rare, and in dialogue.

This is why every writer has, at one time or another, been tempted to buy a rubber stamp that reads "Stet".

They think they're being staccato, Tarentino, and edgy, Deb.

(I think I'm a natural-born copy editor and NSM a natural-born critic, but didn't realize it until recently, when I started judging writing contests. Those scoresheets, for all their flaws, force me to figure out and explain why some stories wow me and others leave me yawning and saying, "Bored now." Which is making me a better critique partner, but it's a learned process for me.)

Furthermore, "I have no idea what this sentence means" (which I have been known to write on close friends' betas) is absolutely a craft issue.

Lordy, yes. A thousand times, yes.

They think they're being staccato, Tarentino, and edgy, Deb.

Ah. Then I'm reaching for the wrong weapon when I reach for the red pen. Now, where's my Glock...?

the "cut every possible thing out, it's all fat anyway" school

Ah, the Hemingway-esque school. Has he been dethroned yet as the Holy Grail of stylists? I'm voting for Carson from Queer Eye.

It's one of my bigger weaknesses as a writer. Many commas, and not a period to be found for inches.

It could be worse. You could be Henry James.

You know, while I can see how that might be useful, I think my first reaction would be to grit my teeth.

Mine too. This is why I am grateful that beta is not often done in person, because after some thinking, I did come around to her point of view.