Speak to me of betas

[secretsolitaire]

I have blathered about the writing process in this journal on a few occasions, but today I was thinking about editing (or in fandom terms, beta-ing). Although I've only beta'd a few works of fanfic, I do edit a lot at work and am always looking to improve and to better understand the process

Comments

[beauty_forashes]

I think it depends on individual preference. I've beta'd for people who've wanted ONLY the spelling/grammar/etc. fixed, and I've beta'd for people who wanted input on plot, characterization and so forth - everyone's different. I prefer to beta for authors who want the latter, it's just more fun that way. Usually I read the document to see if the "flow" is good and the plot makes sense, then I go over it again and correct spelling, grammar and so on, and read it a third time to see if I got everything, of course I only make suggestions, I'd never feel comfortable with actually changing anything someone else wrote (some authors ask you to, I don't like to take that much liberty).

Right now I have one beta, and I beta for her on occasion too - we both seem to have the same idea about what makes a good beta. For me the most important thing is that she gives me input on my plot ideas and outlines (since most of my readers are female, I often bounce ideas off her and ask her opinion as a woman and how female readers would view it - often I have no clue, esp. about controversial topics). It's important to me that she's a constant source of encouragement (I generally think everything I write sucks, lol), but she's also not afraid to say "You really have to fix this and that". She helps me with research if I need to do that and is very knowledgeable about the subject matter I write about (BDSM in my case). And if I have trouble with, say, dialogue, she'll actually role-play the parts with me on IM and things like that. I do all of that for her too if I beta for her. Those are the main things for me personally - aside from run-on sentences (which she catches) my grammar is usually OK, and everything I send her has always been edited to death, formatted and spell-checked before she sees it, so that's not SO important (I'd refuse to beta for someone who sends me stuff that has no punctuation, tons of misspellings and hasn't been edited even once, BTW. Some writers do that, like, "I wrote now the beta can clean up the mess" - that sucks!! A good beta is a thing of beauty and a joy forever and should be treated that way, LOL. I second the beta-appreciation day idea too). What makes a bad beta? Not sure - if I were looking for a beta I'd check out the posts in her LJ; if the grammar is bad and she butchers written speech, I know she's not the beta I'm looking for, you know?

Wow, what a ramble! Sorry about that! :D

[secretsolitaire]

No apologies for rambling! I appreciate your thoughts. :-)

As I said to someone above, I always have to do spelling/grammar stuff on the first read through because I find those kinds of errors too distracting otherwise. (I think at heart I am a copy editor.) Once I get those little errors out of the way, then I can go back and read for content and figure out whether the piece flows, whether I have questions that go unanswered, that sort of stuff.

I totally agree with you that a writer should spellcheck and proofread his/her work before an editor ever lays eyes on it. I mean, it's just lazy not to, IMHO. I work with professional writers at work and sometimes stories come in with errors that spellcheck definitely would've caught -- and these people are getting paid!

[beauty_forashes]

I totally agree with you that a writer should spellcheck and proofread his/her work before an editor ever lays eyes on it. I mean, it's just lazy not to, IMHO

Yeah, it is...I mean, I'm not that nuts, if there are a few misspellings and such, no big deal. But recently someone asked me to beta a short fic that had NO punctuation aside from periods, tons of misspellings, NO paragraphs, NO quotation marks in the dialogue, etc., just one solid block of gibberish text - and I just flat-out refused to do it. I do like to help someone out, but I don't have "pushover" tattooed on my forehead, right? I mean, gimme a freaking break - lol!

[secretsolitaire]

Ugggh, that's awful -- definitely above and beyond the call of duty!