Comments | bauble: Crucio is never a good safe word - or, a meta on editing & the beta process

bauble

Crucio is never a good safe word - or, a meta on editing & the beta process

May 06, 2012 02:13

It's been a while since I've done a meta post on writing, so I thought I'd try to tackle a topic that is near and dear to my heart: editing. And more specifically within that: the beta process ( Read more... )

meta, writing, beta

Comments 6

laria_gwyn May 7 2012, 04:30:18 UTC

♥

Looking forward to reading more of your thoughts, B. :)

bauble May 8 2012, 02:33:01 UTC

Thanks, doll :)

eustacia_vye28 May 8 2012, 03:43:12 UTC

Here via laria_gwyn. This post is exactly what has been on my mind lately when I was talking to a non-fannish friend about profic that was just awfully constructed. I felt like the writing detracted from the story itself, but I couldn't quite articulate at the time what help a good editor could have done. Thanks for writing this!

bauble May 9 2012, 03:50:51 UTC

I find good editors are best at protecting authors from themselves, sometimes. Most authors have at least a weaknesses, whether that be the tendency to go on tangents or not including enough description or what have you. A lot of these issues are easy to fix with the help of a good editor/beta and can make any piece infinitely better.

jibrailis May 10 2012, 03:07:11 UTC

These are some very good points you bring up, naturally, especially with regard to a beta's ability (or inability) to pinpoint exactly what the problem is with a story and how to fix it. In my experience, this is an incredibly difficult thing to do, and not a lot of people actually have this skill. I know I don't. I can usually see the weaknesses in my own stories, or if I don't, I can understand what to tweak if someone else points them out. But a lot of times, point me to another person's story and I'm baffled, simply baffled hahaha.

I think, for me, some of it comes down to the fact that I can only tell someone else how I would tackle a particular problem, and obvs. my opinion is not the be all and end all of things.

Which is all to say: a good, confident, adept beta = diamonds.

By the way, you are a fucking fantastic beta.

bauble May 14 2012, 05:10:29 UTC

Yeah, sometimes the hardest thing is really to pinpoint exactly what's wrong with something in a way that's constructive--that is, in a way that can be fixed. Just saying, "I didn't like X's characterization" is close to useless, "X's dialogue sounded weird" gives the author someplace to look, and but "X's dialogue is rather formal throughout the story, which goes against the many incidents in canon where blah blah blah" actually gives the problem and an author the place to start fixing ( ... )