The 'beta-reading is made of awesome' post
'Does this look like an 'e' to you?' Cuddy said abruptly, thrusting a piece of paper under his nose.
'I - '
Wilson opened his mouth, and then closed it again. He had stopped by her office to discuss clinical trials, but clearly she had other things on her mind, and Wilson had absolutely no intention of adding to her aggravation. Not when she was looking like that. Incensed. Furious. Hopping mad. D, all of the above. He wasn't a masochist and he wasn't House, and the two were probably not mutually exclusive -
'It could be an 'e',' he observed mildly, taking the paper from her hand for further inspection. 'Or a 'c'. I'm not sure.'
It was report of some kind. From Pediatrics. Which explained a lot, actually, because it couldn't possibly have been written by an adult. It just couldn't.
'How do you spell 'assistance'?' Cuddy said.
'A-s-s-i- ' Wilson looked down at the paper again and winced. 'Oh.'
'This is a report,' Cuddy said. 'From one of my employees.'
'It's… very badly written,' Wilson offered lamely.
'You think?' she said, narrowing her eyes. She was beginning to look… downright menacing.
'Why don't you get your assistant to decipher it for you?' he said with a small smile, hoping to lighten the atmosphere.
It did not have the desired effect.
'You know what I'm going to do?' Cuddy said. 'I'm going to have a talk with this man.' Maybe it was in the way she said it, or maybe Wilson had an over-active imagination, but 'talk' sounded a lot like 'murder'.
She rose to her feet. Wilson followed suit, handing her the report.
She walked out of the office without another word.
Wilson sighed and made a mental note to have a chat with Brown on the writing on some of his reports.
--
Beta-reading is that wonderful, wonderful thing where you ask someone else to look through your fic, and point out those things in it that do not work: spelling; characterization; grammar; flow; whatever. The beta-reader offers corrections and suggestions, points out places that make no sense and lines that sound funny. The author incorporates her suggestions (and maybe sometimes she doesn't, arguing for her choice, and they have many healthy fic-related discussions), and turns her shiny story into something nicer and shinier!
Writers aren't superwomen. They often make mistakes, overlook tiny things (or even BIG things). And then their hard work over the shiny new story comes to naught because of little things, like a misspelled 'assistance', or an 'e' that might actually be a 'c'.
Please spell-check your stories. Please check your formatting. And please, do try to get someone to beta-read your stories. Ask a friend, or a kindly soul at a place like housefic_pens or housefic_beta.
Cuddy approves of well-edited stories. They keep her blood pressure at normal and save her the torture of having to go through things where the 'c' looks like an 'e'.
Thank you.