More recs

[blamebrampton]

Busiest week in months, up to my eyeballs in work, visitors arriving Saturday morning just as the city goes into lockdown (Why oh Why did I not organise to be in Wellington this weekend?), so what am I doing? I'm reccing fics.

(And writing 3000 words for the fic that no-one but GB reads, not that I'm bitter, and writing tips for writing ... what the

Comments

[silentauror]

No worries whatsover! ♥ I got your other comment via email, too, so it's all good. I feel the same way, too. It's so often so close, but not quite. There were just too many missing commas. Or too many badly contructed sentences. Bad characterization (i.e., characterization that I don't personally like or can't relate to the canon character) is the first thing to get me, though.

No, I rather doubt there is. Emma Grant runs a comm called writing_sex, I believe, which is meant to be a tutorial in that area, but otherwise I think it's basically too sensitive a subject. No one in the fandom wants to believe that some writers are better at it than others or want to take advice in the first place ("it's just a hobby!" is the rallying cry), and those that really are better writers are usually too busy/too modest to suggest it.

You're an editor? :) I used to edit, too. I was an assistant copy editor for my last university's now-defunct faculty publication. It was fun, if hair-pullingly frustrating at times! My father is a journalist (sports, alas! :P) and I've done some freelance writing with articles and restaurant/book reviews, etc. I like your analogy - imaginative passion poured out into the equivalent of takeaway coffee cups - nice! Very appropriate, and I quite agree.

[blamebrampton]

Hmmm, so if I pulled a few papers together over time, they may or may not be taken well is the sense I'm gathering here.

It's frustrating because, yes, a lot of the time the issues are as simple as the ones you outline above. Or the stompy boots of the exposition fairy, or the neck-cracking reversals of the Character Inconsistency Fairy (erm, I could explain, but it's easier to take it as read that I've gone a bit mad through years of sleep deprivation and time-zone changes). All these things are issues that people can be trained out of.

Bad characterisation is a lot harder, though. I agree with you that it's probably the first thing to break trust between a writer and a reader.

And yes, editing is my lot in life, or at least has been on and off, and solidly for the last 10 years or so. From homewares mags to news rooms, fantasy novels to gardening journals ... and people wonder why I simultaneously am the Goddess of Trivial Pursuit and have no idea where I left my other shoe. Brain full. Keep up the greelancing, it's a great source of leads for other jobs when you need a change, and a bit of money never hurts. And some of my best friends are sports journos!

[silentauror]

If you put together a resouce and just offer it out there, no one will take offence. Don't worry. :) It's only when people offer unsolicited concrit that people generally get their hackles up. It totally depends on the author, though. Some authors beg for it at the outset - which is not to be confused with the manner of author who posts something which s/he boldly declares has been posted sans-beta and wants readers to point out errors as they come across them - while others get offended for life if you so much as breathe anything slightly less than pure squee.

Bad characterisation cannot be cured. There's just a fundamental lack of ability to see accurately what has been created in the first place, and that's nigh impossible to fix! I was once approached by an author who shall remain nameless (and I do use that term rather dryly), who had just finished writing a story and was dissatisfied with what she perceived as its less-than-stellar quality. She wanted me to help her re-write it, but better. Insert headdesking here. You're thinking, OMG, you didn't DO it, did you??? I did. I asked for a first chapter to see what I was getting myself into before committing, and it was... terrible, in a word. The characters were scarcely recognisable, the plot was cliched (and, as I later discovered, wholly stolen from someone else) and Not Good, and there were strange gaps in the writing. Here is a sample of a bit of similar-but-made-up dialogue:

"Why not?" Ron said. He was confused.

"SHUT UP!" Harry screamed. A wall sconce wobbled dangerously.

"HARRY GET DOWN FROM THERE!" Hermione screamed repeatedly, wishing he wasn't up there.

(cont'd)

[silentauror]

Et cetera. First off, plainer-than-plain dialogue with little to no narrative linking. Second, POV switch at Hermione's inexplicable line. Third, the same word is used twice in a row. Fourth, and worst, none of these comments have anything to do with each other. They could, but there's no mortar to cement them together and explain them. The entire story was written like this, with very little linking. Or else you'd get an entire chapter of pointless, stupid, useless-to-the-plot dialogue. I began to explain some of the (major) issues to the author, and she begged me to help her. What can I say. I'm a sucker. I tried to explain all of this and what was wrong with it, giving concrete examples, suggestions for alternate wording, suggestions for where the narrative could expand, which dialogue could be cut altogether (lots of it), and that was mostly fine. She argued every single point, but usually did as directed. I'm not the sort of person who will tell the author exactly what to say, but I pointed out many areas that needed work. When we got to the issue of the OOC-ness, we hit a major hitch. She couldn't see that the characters were, in fact, not themselves even remotely. Draco was cooing and Snape was misting over every three seconds and Harry was a wimpy adolescent girl. Whose nickname for Draco was, and I kid you not, "Angel". I said at one point that I could under no circumstances come to view that as IC, unless she sold it reallly damned well! Which is really the entire point of characterisation in fanfic - you have to sell the particular characterisation you've chosen and seduce the reader into believing it somehow. The further you stray from canon, clearly the harder it's going to be. Granted, the fact that the series is written from strictly Harry's POV, it's going to be hard to characterise other characters through a more neutral lens, which might very well be a more forgiving one. There are limits, though! And my point to the author was that she had not sold me. She wanted to slap an OOC label on it and call it good. I explained as gently as possible that I thought that it is a) unforgiveable to write fanfic based on other people's characters and then write them OOC on purpose, and that b) no one would deliberately read a story with an OOC label on it. Our relationship, as beta-to-reader, ended badly. And in certain circles, that terrible, terrible story is extremely popular. *sigh* What can I say?

I stopped beta-reading after that one, though. :P What can I say, it was a rather souring experience!!

I do like the freelancing. I just moved to a new city not three days ago, so I'll be looking for connections here! And btw, the "Character Inconsistency Fairy" makes perfect, absolute sense to me. No need to explain!!

[blamebrampton]

Grrrr ... this login thing will kill me. Let's try this again.

I really, really wish right now that we were in the same city so that I could have seen the hand gestures that go with that story. I'd have broken out the good china and made at least two pots of tea ...

I think the whole beta thing is so couragous most times, especially when it's often between strangers. I've offered exactly twice, both to writers who I know to be sane, talented and just needing a good copy edit and perhaps the tiniest of tweaks. Even in RL, there can be enormous blow-ups, I have been known to hide under my desk when I hear one writer is in the building, he's never forgiven me for not letting him put a city in the wrong state, and arguing my point.

I'm thinking about just writing up essays on technique, I've started on one series here, but have a few in mind, then posting the completed versions somewhere useful. It's stuff that I do all day in RL, and have done in my previous career incarnations, too (academic, trainer, etc), so I feel happy putting it out there.

As to critting a bad story, I just don't. A couple of times I have made critical comments on stories that I thought were either great but could have done with a little shift of paragraphs or perhaps a tiny word-choice change, or else had a few copy errors (usually factual ones), but only to writers where I can see enough talent that I know they won't be fazed.

How to deal with people like your muppet ... I wouldn't be able to. You deserve a prize from the internet for not doing something very bad such as encouraging her to write more and publish under her own name.

And "Angel"?! Well, if we're going with a Sidney-esque Lucifer, maybe, but even then, I'd still see Snape as a flaming sword-wielding archangel sneering as he rained vengeance from on high, no misting!

Your writing style is great, so I'm sure that you won't need it, but good luck with the connections in your new town.

[silentauror]

Actually, the hardest thing now is holding my tongue when people rec it on comms like harrydraco. It's just so hard to not say anything!! Best of all was when we were about 2/3 of the way through and she emailed me tearfully, saying that people had been sending her mean emails accusing her of having stolen the plot from another author. After reading the first few chapters of the other story, I asked her about it, and she didn't deny it - claiming that it had "inspired" her. I genuinely think that she didn't realise that it just wasn't kosher to do that, but still! And now, when people argue about it, her ardent admirers will claim that hers is the better story. *facepalm* To be clear, both stories were crap, but honestly!!

he's never forgiven me for not letting him put a city in the wrong state, and arguing my point.

Ahahahaha, OMG, I know this pain! There was a biochem prof who kept attempting to publish words spelt quite incorrectly. I would fix them and the day the paper came out, he would inevitably call if one of his articles had appeared. We would have conversations like this:

Me: Hello?

Him: Ms. MyName?

Me: *sigh* Yes. Dr. HisName?

Him: *accusingly* You did it again!

Me: Which word did you have an issue with this time, sir?

Him: You changed my spelling of the word "molecule". It's incorrect now.

Me: ... Actually, sir, that's the correct spelling.

Him: Not according to MS Word.

Me: *gritting teeth* It's the correct spelling.

Him: How does the OED (Oxford English Dictionary) spell it?

Me: "M-O-L-E-C-U-L-E".

Him: ... How did I spell it?

Me: Not like that.

Him: ... Are you sure that's right?

Me: Quite sure.

Good times had by all!!

[silentauror]

Here's another fun story: once upon, there was an archive full of badfic. I was the beta reader for someone who was friends with one of the owners. Said owner asked my writer to ask me to join. After repeated requests, I finally gave in and registered myself for an account, posted, etc. I heard later from people on my flist that they were having trouble getting their stuff posted, because the archive has a "validation" process, meaning they beta stuff from authors who haven't been "pre-validated", which I apparently was. I was annoyed that they made the distinction in the first place, but that's just me. And yet, despite holding a "pre-validated" account, one of the mods would repeatedly email me to point out things he considered errors in my stories, which were in fact grammatical constructions which he didn't understand. And therefore assumed were errors. Things like subjunctive clauses, etc., threw him completely. He preferred sentences to end with hanging prepositions, which is always a big no-no in professional writing, but very common in terms of actual language useage. I'll have characters do it and occasionally do it myself in the narrative when it sounds to awkward to word it in what would be the officially correct way, but at least I know the difference! Eventually I stopped archiving my stuff there. :P

Here's a confession: I usually don't use a beta, and rarely have. At most, I'll have someone look my story over for obvious typos or missing words. I type really quickly, but I do occasionally skip a word here or there nonetheless. I prefer not to have people critique actual content, as I don't feel that's their job. The archive mod was basically trying to pressure me into using him as my beta reader, since I had openly told him that I didn't use one at the time. But I wasn't about to have a person whose grasp of the language was so clearly inferior to mine telling me what to do with my fic, you know? I haven't taken a lot of English grammar (some, though) and I've certainly never taken creative writing (lots of literature critique, but not writing itself), but I've taken a lot of other languages, and after awhile, grammar itself becomes a language that you can speak, as it were. I've taken six years of German, three years of French, three years of Latin, basic Italian and basic Arabic. I'm a singer, so I also get to experience Russian and Czech on a regular basis. So I guess it is a bit of a double standard for me to say that I think that everyone should use a beta reader, but the fact is that not everyone should write, period. I may have characterisations that don't jive with some people, but other people's characterisations rarely work just perfectly for me, too. It is a rather subjective thing, in the end. In terms of style, same deal. Some people like more commas than others, for instance. According to the general rules of grammar, there are certain places where commas are required, and that's less subjective, in my opinion. In my opinion, JKR uses far too many ellipses, but can I say that it's incorrect? Or just a somewhat juvenile writing style? :P An extremely well-known author was kicked off the same archive mentioned above for refusing to capitalise the word "Galleon", as it's not capitalised in the US publication of the books (which she owned). Furthermore, she claimed that JKR capitalised too many things, and that that wasn't her style. Was she right? Were the archive people right? I don't know, but I tend to lean toward the author having some right to style, even in the murky world of fanfic. I'm totally rambling. It's my rambly time of night, sorry! :D I'm glad you like my writing style. That means a lot to me, especially coming from an editor. :)

[blamebrampton]

And a grumpy foul-tempered editor, too! Not one of nature's likers on the whole, so when I compliment, I mean it.

As to the whole beta thing, you've identified so many of the traps for young players. Between grammar being a dying art and language being shrunk down to a small set of cliches* it's so difficult for young writers these days. Some are still lucky in that their passion for language hasn't been kicked out of them, but others have no language to define what is good, so instead they focus on little rules and half-understood maxims. Your sort of education is what everyone deserves, but it's increasingly rare, more's the pity.

I too, prefer to self-edit, but by crikey am I rubbish at picking up my own typos ... (JKR memorial ellipsis)

Anyway ... Stop hitting the desk with your head, get some sleep, or at least tea.

* It's the anti-Shakespeare effect; I had a horrible moment during the World Trade Center attacks where I wanted to hit the commentators who kept repeating rubbish. Half of my brain was telling me to shut up, this was too serious to complain about journalists who could say nothing more than 'oh my god', but the other half of my brain was saying "But this is what will define how people go on, what's said now will be important. The Blitz was responded to with fortitude and courage because the language of the Blitz called for that; the Hindenberg touches us still because we connect with 'humanity'. They need words!"

A month later I was in San Francisco being introduced to an American friend's friend. "You're British!" he exclaimed. "I want to thank you so much for your Prime Minister, he had the words that our President didn't have that day. What he said was what needed to be said, and he made all of us feel as though we could take some comfort."

I had underestimated Americans, of course. Needing words, they looked for the ones that would give them solace. He couldn't quite understand why I needed a little personal moment at that point, but let me just say: legitimate misting!

[blamebrampton]

Much laughing! It'd be OK if they just got these things wrong, we all screw up, but to argue the point insistently -- foolish!

[silentauror]

And he would do this every single time!!!!! Sometimes it was really obviously simple words, too - like "cell", which he kept trying to spell as "sell", and claimed that Word's spell checker didn't find a problem with it, so why did I???

*headdesk*