So You Say You Want Gabe To Beta Your Story, eh?
Everyone is doing these wonderful "how I write" entries lately, and really, when you're in such wonderful hands as furiosity, pushdragon, pir8fancier, minisinoo, calanthe and others, you can rest assured that you're in good hands. There's is little to nothing li'l ole Gabe can add to the mix that wouldn't simply be recapitulation of their ideas, only stated much less eloquently
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oh, i love it when an author does that. it shows me that they actually want to improve their writing, even if they're not wanting to be a writer professionally or even a BNF. ;-)
hell, my 'corrections' usually come with 'rules' and 'mini-grammar lessons' anyway. so asking questions to me means you're paying attention.
And none of my past betas did anything other than basic spelling and grammar corrections.
i know a lot of people that are like that. i actually had a section called 'editor vs beta-reader' to specifically deal with that issue and why i don't really like the term 'beta' for what i do.
tbh, i've actually had people not want to use me because all they wanted was minimal SPAG (and usually just SP) and didn't want much else. I can't seem to turn 'full-mode' off, so it usually means they go elsewhere.
Just tell me one thing: where do you get the time for all this?
well, that's also where the 'selection' part comes in. i try not to have more than 5 or 6 outstanding fics at a time. and, as sassy_cissa or pir8fancier (or anyone on TQP) can attest, i'm not the fastest bee in the hive. i generally take 2-3 weeks.
fortunately, i work on campus where i go to school and i basically do nothing but writing, homework, and internet-shenanigans when I'm here. Especially on Fridays and Saturdays, that's all I'll do for the 6-8 hours I'm here.
when i find that i'm running out of time, i do pull back a bit. there was a time during finals last semester that I didn't do any beta'ing for about 3 weeks.
but like now, i've the extra time and only 2 stories out, tho' I'm sure Sassy will drop some fic-fests on me soon enough.
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*o* I don't think my newest beta will do that, but I can always hope, right? :P Well, I haven't got any story back from her yet, so I cannot tell.
2-3 weeks is pretty much the average. Well, depends on the story length. I had people who sent me back my 20K fic within the day. But I think quality work requires time and if I don't know the person and don't see *enough* red in the doc then I'll start suspecting that they either just skimmed it or that their grammar isn't much better than mine either. Yes, I know it's not a nice thing to think like that but I can't help it. :P
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