it's been bad luck on the bench
One of the cool things about working with the same beta(s) regularly is that after a while, you start to hear them in your head (or, you know, imagine what their emails will read like) (where values of "you" = "me") while you write, so instead of sending the story off and getting it back with comments about how this sentence is way too long and convoluted, and there is a sad lack of physical description, and also, there is a marked uptick in telling instead of showing in this section, and also? the pacing is weird towards the end, you are occasionally struck by these things as you write (eta: or edit, pre-beta), and so you can address some of the issues before the story ever leaves your hot little hands.
Which isn't to say I don't still get back emails full of "fix this" and "fix that" and "this should be two or possibly three sentences" and "what were you thinking?" 'Cause you know I do. But I've long since internalized some of the criticisms, and no longer make those mistakes (very often) (and oh, man, I used to be horrible with POV slippage), and I'm very aware of others (I still have a godawful tendency to want to rush the endings of things), so my drafts are cleaner, and my stories are generally better, even before they go to the beta, who then fixes what's wrong with the stuff I am still hopeless at. (and honestly, I suck at pacing and plotting. I am not sure why. Possibly because my interest is mostly in writing the good stuff, the payoff, and I just want to get there. But these are problems of long standing that aren't going to be solved tonight, and aren't really the point of this post. Hmmm...)
I guess my point is that having a long-term working relationship with a beta is a good thing, and I've been exceptionally lucky in my eight years of writing fanfic to find a number of wonderful betas I've worked with regularly. I think it's also important to work with new people from time to time, because you can get complacent, and so can your beta, used to your idiosyncracies, and their own, but I am always generally more comfortable if I've run a story past someone I know well, and who knows me (and my writing) well, even if they aren't familiar with the canon. I can always have someone else look it over for that stuff.
Which is also a really long way of saying this story keeps getting longer because I keep imagining luzdeestrellas pointing things out and going, "I think this needs fleshing out" and "But you didn't mention this at all, and it comes up later and is important," and stuff like that.
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ooh, things are getting all heated during the Mets game. Also, I love how indignant Keith Hernandez is about the umpire confab and the possibility of the other umpires overruling the home plate umpire over something that happened at home plate.
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Which isn't to say I don't still get back emails full of "fix this" and "fix that" and "this should be two or possibly three sentences" and "what were you thinking?" 'Cause you know I do. But I've long since internalized some of the criticisms, and no longer make those mistakes (very often) (and oh, man, I used to be horrible with POV slippage), and I'm very aware of others (I still have a godawful tendency to want to rush the endings of things), so my drafts are cleaner, and my stories are generally better, even before they go to the beta, who then fixes what's wrong with the stuff I am still hopeless at. (and honestly, I suck at pacing and plotting. I am not sure why. Possibly because my interest is mostly in writing the good stuff, the payoff, and I just want to get there. But these are problems of long standing that aren't going to be solved tonight, and aren't really the point of this post. Hmmm...)
I guess my point is that having a long-term working relationship with a beta is a good thing, and I've been exceptionally lucky in my eight years of writing fanfic to find a number of wonderful betas I've worked with regularly. I think it's also important to work with new people from time to time, because you can get complacent, and so can your beta, used to your idiosyncracies, and their own, but I am always generally more comfortable if I've run a story past someone I know well, and who knows me (and my writing) well, even if they aren't familiar with the canon. I can always have someone else look it over for that stuff.
Which is also a really long way of saying this story keeps getting longer because I keep imagining luzdeestrellas pointing things out and going, "I think this needs fleshing out" and "But you didn't mention this at all, and it comes up later and is important," and stuff like that.
***
ooh, things are getting all heated during the Mets game. Also, I love how indignant Keith Hernandez is about the umpire confab and the possibility of the other umpires overruling the home plate umpire over something that happened at home plate.
***