I don't know if I can do good beta, I'm really not very good at taking a scalpel to "finished" work. I really love helping people flesh out plots and character motivations and help with logical flow. Pre-beta? Or is that alpha?
We're taking a moment ... and we're done.
Oz ,'Chosen'
Fan Fiction: Writers, Readers, and Enablers
This thread is for fanfic recs, links, and discussion, but not for actual posting of fanfic.
Connie Neil - Feb 04, 2003 6:41:17 pm PST #3310 of 10000
brillig
Elena - Feb 04, 2003 6:54:32 pm PST #3311 of 10000
Thanks for all the fish.
That would be a good beta, connie.
P.M. Marc - Feb 04, 2003 6:57:37 pm PST #3312 of 10000
So come, my friends, be not afraid/We are so lightly here/It is in love that we are made; In love we disappear
Anything longer than a certain length, I send to beta. Umm. Of course, I've sent out thing of up to about 1500 words with no beta pass, and had them go over well, but I did a read-through first.
A good beta pass can be after the story is finished, or sort of a story doula, helping the story to be birthed.
Grammar/Spelling/Homophone checks, as well as checks for logical flow. All are marks of good betaing.
Rebecca Lizard - Feb 04, 2003 7:47:02 pm PST #3313 of 10000
You sip / say it's your crazy / straw say it's you're crazy / as you bicycle your soul / with beauty in your basket
I'd say yes, for at least spelling & grammar; but I have enough self-knowledge now that I know that I can't beta anything I don't think is good. It becomes a degrading, falsely-cheerful experience; and it's not really *too* possible to say "Oh, I might beta for you. Let me see if first, and then I'll tell you if it's worth my time"-- arrogant, much? So now I'll do it only on personal-volunteer basis.
Elena - Feb 04, 2003 7:48:29 pm PST #3314 of 10000
Thanks for all the fish.
I think I'd have a serious problem betaing for someone who wasn't good... Lots of 'but do you think that Buffy would do that?' or 'is this really how Giles would phrase that?'.
Rebecca Lizard - Feb 04, 2003 7:52:29 pm PST #3315 of 10000
You sip / say it's your crazy / straw say it's you're crazy / as you bicycle your soul / with beauty in your basket
And-- it sounds incredibly... *something* bad... to say it, but I know it's true-- I'm a really hard critic. I'm not nice.
Connie Neil - Feb 04, 2003 7:54:11 pm PST #3316 of 10000
brillig
Oh, yes, the delivering of bad news. "Yes, it was technically good, you used all the right grammar, and the story was even interesting. But the characters were horrible." I suck at that in real life.
P.M. Marc - Feb 04, 2003 7:56:46 pm PST #3317 of 10000
So come, my friends, be not afraid/We are so lightly here/It is in love that we are made; In love we disappear
It's a pain, volunteering for Beta Duty and not knowing what you'll get. Sometimes, it's crap. Sometimes, it's good. Sometimes, your head spins, and you wish you'd checked their other stuff first.
Most of what I've beta'd has been at least okay.
I think it's my civic duty (which I'm behind in).
Connie Neil - Feb 04, 2003 7:58:20 pm PST #3318 of 10000
brillig
I always feel like I'm doing a disservice by just saying "Yeah, it was pretty good." Makes me think I should find something I have a quibble with.
Rebecca Lizard - Feb 04, 2003 7:59:51 pm PST #3319 of 10000
You sip / say it's your crazy / straw say it's you're crazy / as you bicycle your soul / with beauty in your basket
Ahh. Plei is more civic-minded than I. Me, I do enough forced editing of suck writing in real life. I want my fandom-world editing work to be all strawberries and whipped cream and lovely, lovely language-- or at least decent-- so I can work on helping make better a project I find worthwhile.
(Hmm. That sentence was really syntactically odd. And yet, I think, grammatically correct. Ah fuck it.)