Some days, it just takes one comment for everything to dovetail right into each other, and make a lot of things snap into place mentally for you
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Your concrit for my Killing Floor piece was sensitive, and at least let me consider what you were saying rather than "Augh! Everyone hates this piece!" Which is my knee-jerk reaction to criticism.
I wish it weren't, but my mother found flaws in everything I did-- everything-- to the point where that feeling is kind of ingrained now.
Which is to say, tone very much matters!
And also the consideration that you're trying to work with the author's tastes and objective, rather than your own.
My beta feedback tends to be like that (and takes so much out of me, because I have to put myself in the writer's context first): how can I help the writer better do what he/she was trying to do? And keep it in his/her style?
Feedback of "I totally wish you'd written a completely different story" generally is not very helpful. Or, "Use this phrasing: (*stilted/loose/jargony/precious style that in no way matches the rest of the piece*)"-- that might be what you would write, but the author is not you.
How can you make the author's piece more "them"?
ETA: Holy shit, why did LJ randomly select the "Yay-kitty" icon instead of my default? Wait-- I'll bet it's a side-effect of whatever took the site down yesterday. :O
ETA2: LJ, why must you always interpret my side-carets? Sometimes a caret is just a caret, not HTML code. :(
I wish it weren't, but my mother found flaws in everything I did-- everything-- to the point where that feeling is kind of ingrained now.
Which is to say, tone very much matters!
And also the consideration that you're trying to work with the author's tastes and objective, rather than your own.
My beta feedback tends to be like that (and takes so much out of me, because I have to put myself in the writer's context first): how can I help the writer better do what he/she was trying to do? And keep it in his/her style?
Feedback of "I totally wish you'd written a completely different story" generally is not very helpful. Or, "Use this phrasing: (*stilted/loose/jargony/precious style that in no way matches the rest of the piece*)"-- that might be what you would write, but the author is not you.
How can you make the author's piece more "them"?
ETA: Holy shit, why did LJ randomly select the "Yay-kitty" icon instead of my default? Wait-- I'll bet it's a side-effect of whatever took the site down yesterday. :O
ETA2: LJ, why must you always interpret my side-carets? Sometimes a caret is just a caret, not HTML code. :(
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