On betas. (In which Quinn indulges in a bit of tl;dr.)
So I have spent much of my day downloading and watching vids, to avoid writing. I've read meta and thought about my own vids, and I've read comment streams on all sorts of posts, and it has me thinking about betas.
I used to think, as hesitant about my own writing ability as I can be, that I would want a kind, gentle beta. I used to think that if someone said BOO! at my writing, it would traumatize me and make me shrink back into my little mousehole, abandoning what I'd been working on. That it would somehow dry up my creativity. And then I started to write, sometimes, snippets of things, and I discovered that my betas were too wimpy on my work - that they let me get away with all sorts of things, that they allowed me to be wimpy and unclear and lazy and self-indulgent, and that they let me cheat my work. And I learned that what I want is not a kind beta, not a gentle beta, but someone willing to tell me when my work is a fucking mess and I need to step that shit up. I don't need someone to coddle me, I need someone to be like "Yeah, that's nice, now fix it. Now." and to crack a whip over me. For Yuletide I am BLESSED with having found someone to do that who knows my canon, and who is generally brilliant at it anyway, but it's funny to me how totally not what I originally thought I'd want, years ago, that is. *
I used to be afraid to give harsh crit. I used to be a pushover beta, someone who let my authors get away with murder, someone who was afraid to call them out when something was off. (I am to this day haunted by a scene in a fic which I should have pulled and didn't. I feel like I failed that fic, and also that author. I live with this.) I still am always more likely to pull my punches than not - frankly, once you've made one author cry, you're forever terrified of doing it again - but I do my level best to ween myself of that habit. The other night I was sitting in my living room, betaing the_dala's latest fic aloud to her so she could make edits as I go (god I love this system), and suddenly in the middle I was seized by a sudden worry that I was, like, crushing Dala's tiny fragile writing ego. I suddenly needed to check that she was ok, that I wasn't scarring her for life by telling her that she had to use a proper noun or change a sentence. It was absurd - I could SEE HER RIGHT THERE, sitting across the coffee table, perfectly content with our system, taking my advice and discussing it when it wasn't clear. It wasn't a problem, and so my worry that I was somehow being a raging bitch was just stupid.
I'm not a terribly good comprehensive beta. I'm much better than I used to be, but I'm not really usually going to be your girl if what you need is someone to tell you that you've written yourself into a corner or your character has no motive. I am the kind of reader who is so often just happy to be taken on a ride, and so I tend to be very forgiving of that sort of thing. I am, however, excellent for line edits - I compulsively line edit as I read, even in published novels. It's a problem, really. The other place I can be very good is talking things out. I'm pretty great at listening and offering input as you write yourself back out of those pesky corners, as you try to make your story come together. I think all of these are incredibly important in betas, but you don't need the same person to do all things. Of course.
I have, to my mild consternation, found myself betaing for quite a few people in the past year. I'm not sure how I became people's go-to beta, and my experience of the whole thing varies wildly - there are people with whom it's all easy, and I feel super-helpful and useful, and there are people for whom I beta where I feel like something about how their brain works gives me a headache, and this is usually the least productive-feeling beta job I can do. When I feel stupid or dense or made foggy by your prose, I tend to rubber stamp things a lot more because I just can't do anything else and hate to make people spell things out... and when I do ask people to spell things out, usually because I have no idea where they were going with something, or because they have left me completely confused and a bit foggy (I've noticed I sound the most synaesthetic when I try to talk about writing and reading), I've found they most often say some variant on "But I don't want to spell it out completely!" and then I'm left with the dilemma of whether to point out that I'm asking because they've utterly lost me, with a possible side of giving me a headache, or to just let it go. Anyway, people seem to like my betaing enough to keep having me do it - I've a bit lost track of how many people asked me to beta them repeatedly this year.
When it comes to vids, I've only betaed a couple, and only for one person. I've found it to be a fascinating experience, and I've found my usefulness has varied. The first vid I betaed I thought I was pretty useful for - I mean, I can't speak to the QUALITY of my advice, but I did offer quite a bit, at various levels. The second, less so; I felt it was pretty together by the time I saw it, and it wasn't the kind of vid that really comes together that well for me as a viewer, so I felt I had much less to offer (it likely didn't help that it's a canon I barely know, but c'est la vie). I found it a super-fascinating experience and would love to do so more in the future, especially the more I am vidding myself. I have already found my experience of vids and observational thoughts on them have shifted considerably as a result of how I look at my own vidding - the difference in my awareness of timing and clip choice and effects and literalism is startling.
And of course, as I vid more (and begin to run up against problems within my vids which are frustrating me), I find I need a good stable of vid audiencers and betas - much like I have a variety of people who will beta fic for me. And so I've begun thinking about what I want in a vid beta, what I value, and once again - I'm looking for a certain ruthless ability to say "This isn't working, and here's why." I have spent a while working on vids with several friends looking over my shoulder, literally or technologically, and I find that is a bit brilliant - it's almost the vidding equivalent of line editing for Dala over our coffee table, or maybe of writing in the room with her and occasionally calling out things like "What's another word for aggravated?" or "Which way does this sentence sound better?"
I find a very collaborative relationship, both as a beta and with my own betas, to be maybe the most natural, though not by a long shot the only valuable option. I do find when writing, at least, that it does always make me wonder where the line should be drawn between credit as a beta and credit as a co-creator, though...
*For those reading this who audience me and worry now that you're too nice? I'm talking about BETAS, not audiencer-types. It's nice to have easygoing people to talk at, too, but it's a very different thing. I love you lots!
I used to think, as hesitant about my own writing ability as I can be, that I would want a kind, gentle beta. I used to think that if someone said BOO! at my writing, it would traumatize me and make me shrink back into my little mousehole, abandoning what I'd been working on. That it would somehow dry up my creativity. And then I started to write, sometimes, snippets of things, and I discovered that my betas were too wimpy on my work - that they let me get away with all sorts of things, that they allowed me to be wimpy and unclear and lazy and self-indulgent, and that they let me cheat my work. And I learned that what I want is not a kind beta, not a gentle beta, but someone willing to tell me when my work is a fucking mess and I need to step that shit up. I don't need someone to coddle me, I need someone to be like "Yeah, that's nice, now fix it. Now." and to crack a whip over me. For Yuletide I am BLESSED with having found someone to do that who knows my canon, and who is generally brilliant at it anyway, but it's funny to me how totally not what I originally thought I'd want, years ago, that is. *
I used to be afraid to give harsh crit. I used to be a pushover beta, someone who let my authors get away with murder, someone who was afraid to call them out when something was off. (I am to this day haunted by a scene in a fic which I should have pulled and didn't. I feel like I failed that fic, and also that author. I live with this.) I still am always more likely to pull my punches than not - frankly, once you've made one author cry, you're forever terrified of doing it again - but I do my level best to ween myself of that habit. The other night I was sitting in my living room, betaing the_dala's latest fic aloud to her so she could make edits as I go (god I love this system), and suddenly in the middle I was seized by a sudden worry that I was, like, crushing Dala's tiny fragile writing ego. I suddenly needed to check that she was ok, that I wasn't scarring her for life by telling her that she had to use a proper noun or change a sentence. It was absurd - I could SEE HER RIGHT THERE, sitting across the coffee table, perfectly content with our system, taking my advice and discussing it when it wasn't clear. It wasn't a problem, and so my worry that I was somehow being a raging bitch was just stupid.
I'm not a terribly good comprehensive beta. I'm much better than I used to be, but I'm not really usually going to be your girl if what you need is someone to tell you that you've written yourself into a corner or your character has no motive. I am the kind of reader who is so often just happy to be taken on a ride, and so I tend to be very forgiving of that sort of thing. I am, however, excellent for line edits - I compulsively line edit as I read, even in published novels. It's a problem, really. The other place I can be very good is talking things out. I'm pretty great at listening and offering input as you write yourself back out of those pesky corners, as you try to make your story come together. I think all of these are incredibly important in betas, but you don't need the same person to do all things. Of course.
I have, to my mild consternation, found myself betaing for quite a few people in the past year. I'm not sure how I became people's go-to beta, and my experience of the whole thing varies wildly - there are people with whom it's all easy, and I feel super-helpful and useful, and there are people for whom I beta where I feel like something about how their brain works gives me a headache, and this is usually the least productive-feeling beta job I can do. When I feel stupid or dense or made foggy by your prose, I tend to rubber stamp things a lot more because I just can't do anything else and hate to make people spell things out... and when I do ask people to spell things out, usually because I have no idea where they were going with something, or because they have left me completely confused and a bit foggy (I've noticed I sound the most synaesthetic when I try to talk about writing and reading), I've found they most often say some variant on "But I don't want to spell it out completely!" and then I'm left with the dilemma of whether to point out that I'm asking because they've utterly lost me, with a possible side of giving me a headache, or to just let it go. Anyway, people seem to like my betaing enough to keep having me do it - I've a bit lost track of how many people asked me to beta them repeatedly this year.
When it comes to vids, I've only betaed a couple, and only for one person. I've found it to be a fascinating experience, and I've found my usefulness has varied. The first vid I betaed I thought I was pretty useful for - I mean, I can't speak to the QUALITY of my advice, but I did offer quite a bit, at various levels. The second, less so; I felt it was pretty together by the time I saw it, and it wasn't the kind of vid that really comes together that well for me as a viewer, so I felt I had much less to offer (it likely didn't help that it's a canon I barely know, but c'est la vie). I found it a super-fascinating experience and would love to do so more in the future, especially the more I am vidding myself. I have already found my experience of vids and observational thoughts on them have shifted considerably as a result of how I look at my own vidding - the difference in my awareness of timing and clip choice and effects and literalism is startling.
And of course, as I vid more (and begin to run up against problems within my vids which are frustrating me), I find I need a good stable of vid audiencers and betas - much like I have a variety of people who will beta fic for me. And so I've begun thinking about what I want in a vid beta, what I value, and once again - I'm looking for a certain ruthless ability to say "This isn't working, and here's why." I have spent a while working on vids with several friends looking over my shoulder, literally or technologically, and I find that is a bit brilliant - it's almost the vidding equivalent of line editing for Dala over our coffee table, or maybe of writing in the room with her and occasionally calling out things like "What's another word for aggravated?" or "Which way does this sentence sound better?"
I find a very collaborative relationship, both as a beta and with my own betas, to be maybe the most natural, though not by a long shot the only valuable option. I do find when writing, at least, that it does always make me wonder where the line should be drawn between credit as a beta and credit as a co-creator, though...
*For those reading this who audience me and worry now that you're too nice? I'm talking about BETAS, not audiencer-types. It's nice to have easygoing people to talk at, too, but it's a very different thing. I love you lots!