Do you have any recommendations on becoming a beta? I've done a quick google search and it sounds like there is more to it than just spelling/grammar checks. I'd like to learn more before I make a hash of it by offering without knowing what I'm doing.
Magpie: I guess it depends on the person too. I want more than just SPaG because I want my beta to point out continuity errors, plot holes, OoC:ness, off-sounding sentences, etc, preferably without trying to drown out my voice. Others might just want their spelling and grammar checked. I think you learn by doing, mostly? Or that's how I've learned.
Kryptaria: I know the feeling... echo is a sucky thing and sometimes I embarrass myself when I realize how goddamn many times one can write one action in one paragraph.
Yeah, it really does depend on a whole lot of factors.
What level of feedback is the author looking for? It can be anything from cheerleading, encouragement, and gentle corrections to a professional-level critique.
Is the story in the early stages? A first draft edit/beta pass *usually* needs to focus on major issues, like "This whole story arc makes no sense" and "You let your cat write this chapter, didn't you?" There's no sense in picking away at misplaced commas in a section that needs to be rewritten from scratch. This is a developmental edit.
(This, by the way, is a huge problem with betas -- including me, which is why I don't beta anymore. I get stuck in the weeds of commas and word choice and miss the bigger picture.)
Has the story already been edited, and you're still finding major flaws? That could be one of two problems: First, the early edit passes missed them, which is very possible especially in fanfic, which is betaed for fun, not for profit. Second, you might be failing to separate your voice/concept from the author's.
(And this is the other reason I don't beta: I can't separate my "But I would write it THIS way" writer-brain enough to edit with an open mind. I even have that problem with some finished fics or books.)
My last book went through -- I'm not kidding here -- over twenty rounds of edits, from first draft through dev edit, line edits, and then proofreading... and it still went to print with two errors that I've caught (and probably several more that I didn't). Of course, that's a book that went through a publisher and multiple sets of eyes over the course of several months, not a fanfic, though I tend to treat fanfics with the same level of care.
In the case of this snippet, it's technically not a big deal that all these instances of "turn" made it through one beta pass and two of my own rereads. My initial rereads (done on kindle while I'm away from my computer) are generally for flow and story arc, and my third reread really still counts as the beginning of my process.
Contrast those three rereads with the giant epic Merthur/00Q fic that's been in progress for over eight months now, which is on reread number ten (revision Juliet, since I use the NATO alphabet for tracking revisions) and has had four or five betas -- and it's still not even out of what I'd consider the first draft stage.
My best betas are the ones who are willing to highlight sections and say "This makes no sense" or "Back in chapter 3, you said X, and now you're saying Y."
-----
That being said, the other half of the equation is the AUTHOR.
It's very, very hard for an author to hear someone say, "Wait, what? This makes no sense!" when it obviously makes perfect sense to the author. Otherwise, they wouldn't have written it, y'know?
The author's job is to take "Wait, what? This makes no sense!" and read it as "This section/paragraph/line/word broke suspension of disbelief for at least one reader out there, so I need to take a deeper look" even though virtually every author's knee-jerk reaction is going to be, "Well, that's because you don't understand the most basic level of reading comprehension."
I've had that reaction. I've fought with betas. I've even fought with commenters on AO3/FFN/LJ. And in *almost* every single case, I eventually realized... wait. If ONE person didn't catch my meaning, how many other people aren't catching it? How many readers are quietly closing the tab and reading something else, rather than continuing on to the end?
So in general, I *want* those "Wait, what? This makes no sense!" comments, because it tells me that while some readers might not see a problem, others will. At that point, I have to decide if I want to leave it, knowing I'll lose some readers, or change it.
-----
And back to the beta side of the equation, the first question you should ask yourself is, "Am I willing to be told my feedback is wrong?"
I can't count how many times I've had to tell a beta, "No, this actually IS correct." I've gotten into comment wars with them where I ended up citing the Chicago Manual of Style and other resources to defend my choice of a word or punctuation, and sometimes I've just had to delete their comments, revoke their document access, and get on without them.
And I've had beta-wars where one beta says, "This is wrong! It should be ABC!" and another says, "No, YOU'RE wrong. It should be XYZ!" This is especially common if the betas are from different generations, backgrounds, or geographical locations.
In the end, the story is the author's... which means sometimes the author is going to ignore your feedback or tell you you're wrong. Are you okay with that?
-----
Lastly, there's the flaky nature of fanfic. I *try* to spend weeks or months writing, editing, and polishing a fic. Other times, I get itchy and write something, email my betas asking them to review the story at ten o'clock at night, and then suddenly I decide to post it at one in the morning, unbetaed. Or I write 60,000 words that go through multiple beta rounds, only to throw it all away because I realized a major problem or had a better idea, so I start over from scratch.
I love the betas who've stuck with me. Hell, I married one of my betas. But in general, beta-ing isn't for the faint of heart and requires phenomenal communication skills to avoid getting blown up by a rogue missile.
BTW, I usually don't ask for beta-readers anymore. I have a couple of friends who will check my SPaG (especially if I need Brit-picking) or just see if the story makes sense, but usually I trust myself more than most people. My worst beta-experiences include (but are not limited to) the person trying to override my voice, correcting canon-correct terms, and straight out saying they didn't read the previous paragraph (when I snapped they'd corrected a thing wrong). So, yeah. Also, unfortunately, I've had a couple of experiences where I've asked for help and the person stood me up. After a couple of those, I'd just... you know, edit my thing all by myself.
I have a couple of tips for self-editing! (If you have a process that works, ignore me!)
1. Don't even think about the story for at least a week or two after writing it -- the longer you wait, the fresher your viewpoint. It's tough with fanfic, because the root of fanfic is "SHARE ALL THE FUN THINGS!"
2. Change the medium from how you wrote it. Change the page color, font, and font size. Even better, assemble the story into one file and use Calibre E-book (free software) to load it onto a Kindle or other device. Or you can print it out and edit by hand, which is surprisingly helpful, especially if you're reorganizing a story. All you need are scissors, scotch tape, a red pen, and a really lazy co-author.
Holy shit, your self-editing is so much more structured than mine! :D
I agree with you on the let it be -mentality. I usually let my stories simmer for months if I can (depending on the story, of course), and then I start rereading and rewriting. I use Scrivener but I haven't tried revision tools. I just revise and rewrite the actual text, add highlights and comments (my own favorites so far being FURY WHAT THE FUCK? and ADD WET DREAMS). I do think printing stuff out and editing by hand would probably help but I don't have a printer and I'm...rather paranoid about printing stuff out at work...well...
I'm my own worst critique. I read a paragraph, turn it this way and that way, read it sentence by sentence, and ask what it means and what it lacks. I'm usually pretty good at figuring out what my fic is missing but if I get stuck, I'll ask a friend.
Thanks for the detailed reply. It sounds like something I can handle so I guess I'll just offer next time someone asks and let them know that I lack experience. That said were you asking?
Right now, A Midwinter Prince is around 35000 words, and I'm... I dunno, maybe halfwayish through? It's based on Netflix's A Christmas Prince, so if you like rom-coms, watch it! It was surprisingly not annoying. (The sequel, however, is UGH.)
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I think you learn by doing, mostly? Or that's how I've learned.
Kryptaria: I know the feeling... echo is a sucky thing and sometimes I embarrass myself when I realize how goddamn many times one can write one action in one paragraph.
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What level of feedback is the author looking for? It can be anything from cheerleading, encouragement, and gentle corrections to a professional-level critique.
Is the story in the early stages? A first draft edit/beta pass *usually* needs to focus on major issues, like "This whole story arc makes no sense" and "You let your cat write this chapter, didn't you?" There's no sense in picking away at misplaced commas in a section that needs to be rewritten from scratch. This is a developmental edit.
(This, by the way, is a huge problem with betas -- including me, which is why I don't beta anymore. I get stuck in the weeds of commas and word choice and miss the bigger picture.)
Has the story already been edited, and you're still finding major flaws? That could be one of two problems: First, the early edit passes missed them, which is very possible especially in fanfic, which is betaed for fun, not for profit. Second, you might be failing to separate your voice/concept from the author's.
(And this is the other reason I don't beta: I can't separate my "But I would write it THIS way" writer-brain enough to edit with an open mind. I even have that problem with some finished fics or books.)
My last book went through -- I'm not kidding here -- over twenty rounds of edits, from first draft through dev edit, line edits, and then proofreading... and it still went to print with two errors that I've caught (and probably several more that I didn't). Of course, that's a book that went through a publisher and multiple sets of eyes over the course of several months, not a fanfic, though I tend to treat fanfics with the same level of care.
In the case of this snippet, it's technically not a big deal that all these instances of "turn" made it through one beta pass and two of my own rereads. My initial rereads (done on kindle while I'm away from my computer) are generally for flow and story arc, and my third reread really still counts as the beginning of my process.
Contrast those three rereads with the giant epic Merthur/00Q fic that's been in progress for over eight months now, which is on reread number ten (revision Juliet, since I use the NATO alphabet for tracking revisions) and has had four or five betas -- and it's still not even out of what I'd consider the first draft stage.
My best betas are the ones who are willing to highlight sections and say "This makes no sense" or "Back in chapter 3, you said X, and now you're saying Y."
-----
That being said, the other half of the equation is the AUTHOR.
It's very, very hard for an author to hear someone say, "Wait, what? This makes no sense!" when it obviously makes perfect sense to the author. Otherwise, they wouldn't have written it, y'know?
The author's job is to take "Wait, what? This makes no sense!" and read it as "This section/paragraph/line/word broke suspension of disbelief for at least one reader out there, so I need to take a deeper look" even though virtually every author's knee-jerk reaction is going to be, "Well, that's because you don't understand the most basic level of reading comprehension."
I've had that reaction. I've fought with betas. I've even fought with commenters on AO3/FFN/LJ. And in *almost* every single case, I eventually realized... wait. If ONE person didn't catch my meaning, how many other people aren't catching it? How many readers are quietly closing the tab and reading something else, rather than continuing on to the end?
So in general, I *want* those "Wait, what? This makes no sense!" comments, because it tells me that while some readers might not see a problem, others will. At that point, I have to decide if I want to leave it, knowing I'll lose some readers, or change it.
-----
And back to the beta side of the equation, the first question you should ask yourself is, "Am I willing to be told my feedback is wrong?"
I can't count how many times I've had to tell a beta, "No, this actually IS correct." I've gotten into comment wars with them where I ended up citing the Chicago Manual of Style and other resources to defend my choice of a word or punctuation, and sometimes I've just had to delete their comments, revoke their document access, and get on without them.
And I've had beta-wars where one beta says, "This is wrong! It should be ABC!" and another says, "No, YOU'RE wrong. It should be XYZ!" This is especially common if the betas are from different generations, backgrounds, or geographical locations.
In the end, the story is the author's... which means sometimes the author is going to ignore your feedback or tell you you're wrong. Are you okay with that?
-----
Lastly, there's the flaky nature of fanfic. I *try* to spend weeks or months writing, editing, and polishing a fic. Other times, I get itchy and write something, email my betas asking them to review the story at ten o'clock at night, and then suddenly I decide to post it at one in the morning, unbetaed. Or I write 60,000 words that go through multiple beta rounds, only to throw it all away because I realized a major problem or had a better idea, so I start over from scratch.
I love the betas who've stuck with me. Hell, I married one of my betas. But in general, beta-ing isn't for the faint of heart and requires phenomenal communication skills to avoid getting blown up by a rogue missile.
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BTW, I usually don't ask for beta-readers anymore. I have a couple of friends who will check my SPaG (especially if I need Brit-picking) or just see if the story makes sense, but usually I trust myself more than most people. My worst beta-experiences include (but are not limited to) the person trying to override my voice, correcting canon-correct terms, and straight out saying they didn't read the previous paragraph (when I snapped they'd corrected a thing wrong). So, yeah. Also, unfortunately, I've had a couple of experiences where I've asked for help and the person stood me up. After a couple of those, I'd just... you know, edit my thing all by myself.
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1. Don't even think about the story for at least a week or two after writing it -- the longer you wait, the fresher your viewpoint. It's tough with fanfic, because the root of fanfic is "SHARE ALL THE FUN THINGS!"
2. Change the medium from how you wrote it. Change the page color, font, and font size. Even better, assemble the story into one file and use Calibre E-book (free software) to load it onto a Kindle or other device. Or you can print it out and edit by hand, which is surprisingly helpful, especially if you're reorganizing a story. All you need are scissors, scotch tape, a red pen, and a really lazy co-author.
Like this one: https://twitter.com/JordanSBrock/status/1088458987341795328
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I agree with you on the let it be -mentality. I usually let my stories simmer for months if I can (depending on the story, of course), and then I start rereading and rewriting. I use Scrivener but I haven't tried revision tools. I just revise and rewrite the actual text, add highlights and comments (my own favorites so far being FURY WHAT THE FUCK? and ADD WET DREAMS). I do think printing stuff out and editing by hand would probably help but I don't have a printer and I'm...rather paranoid about printing stuff out at work...well...
I'm my own worst critique. I read a paragraph, turn it this way and that way, read it sentence by sentence, and ask what it means and what it lacks. I'm usually pretty good at figuring out what my fic is missing but if I get stuck, I'll ask a friend.
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Right now, A Midwinter Prince is around 35000 words, and I'm... I dunno, maybe halfwayish through? It's based on Netflix's A Christmas Prince, so if you like rom-coms, watch it! It was surprisingly not annoying. (The sequel, however, is UGH.)
Are you interested? :)
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I don't have Netflix but I am happy to offer as much help as I can without knowing the movie
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