thirty days of fanfic, day twenty-four
Sep. 24th, 2011 07:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jlhForgot this yesterday, probably because it's really emotional. Backdating is my friend once again!
(list of questions can be found at day one)
one | two | three | four | five | six | seven | eight | nine | ten | eleven | twelve| thirteen | fourteen | fifteen | sixteen | seventeen | eighteen | nineteen | twenty | twenty-one | twenty-two | twenty-three
24 – Betaing – How many betas do you like to use to make sure there aren't any major flaws in your fic? Do you have a Beta horror story or dream story?
If something is longer, I like to use more than one beta, and hopefully one of them is someone I'll talk to as I'm going along about the plot and where I think I'm going. If it's short, a one shot, I can just have one person look it over for sense and errors.
I once had a very close fandom friend with whom I often discussed what I was writing, and she helped me think about things in bigger ways and was so encouraging, especially for the WWII AU and the early stages of the EWFS sequel. She made me feel like she really wanted to hear about my writing, and that I wasn't imposing. Ely was a fantastic person, and I lost a really good friend when she passed, but also to a much smaller extent a really key person for my writing.
Ali is super fantastic as well, and she's been so helpful for pretty much every long thing I've written in the past few years--the WWII AU, the 90s AU, the EWFS sequel, the Hollywood AU. I also get to read what she's writing, and I really enjoy that kind of reciprocal relationship. It makes me feel more comfortable to ask people to read over what I'm doing when I'm also helping them.
And seriously, there is no one better for beta'ing kink than Catja. No. One. And no one better for encouraging me to write it in the first place than one evil_erato. And I doubt that the recent Pansy/Parvati stuff I've been writing would be as good as I hope it is without slytherincess's help.
The WWII AU in general was probably the dream beta situation. I knew that the story wouldn't have many readers, and I got most of my pleasure in the process. I had about five people reading that story at various points in the process, and while Ali and Ely did most of the heavy lifting in terms of structure and characterization, I wouldn't have gotten through it without Juli's cheerleading nor had the courage to post the thing without Allyson batting clean-up as the SPAG beta and Dana being the unspoiled reader-stand-in. It was really super fantastic, working on that story and feeling like people were excited about it while it was in progress.
I guess the horror story would be the Hollywood AU. I'd come off an unfortunate situation where a beta disappeared on me, so I was nervous about asking people to read my stuff anyway. And then in the course of that story--which really, Ali beta'd from stem to stern with a big late-game assist from Catja--I had three betas drop out on me, two without any sort of notice or communication. It was honestly pretty horrible, probably one of the worst experiences I've had in fandom. I had to chase people down, which I'm not good at because I really hate being a burden or an intrusion (I have a lot of issues surrounding those words). I had people tell me over and over that they were just behind, only to seemingly never really get around to reading it. And these people I had trusted, so I wanted to believe what they were saying to me. It got to the place where I wasn't even excited when I finished a new chapter, because I only saw my writing as a burden for other people--another chapter finished meant that my overburdened betas were even more behind on giving me any feedback. After a January in which I had horrible writer's block, a February where I finally broke through only to have my notebook stolen in a mugging, a March where I could do no more than try to recreate the writing that was lost, and finally hitting a groove with the story in April, to spend all that spring trying to get people to read a story that they had agreed to beta was a little more than I could really handle. I'm so glad that people had such a great reaction to the story, because by the end I was convinced that the whole thing was just a horrible mess, or otherwise why would all these people refuse to read it for me? It was just, unfortunately, a truly lousy writing experience.
It's left me very distrustful of betas to be honest; I don't really believe people who say they'd like to beta for me because they so frequently punk out on me. I don't like asking people to read over my stories, I'm shy about even talking about what I'm writing, and I still see my writing as a burden for someone to have to look over.
It's unfortunate because I actually really like being someone's beta, and I'm not really doing much of that at the moment, either, for various reasons, though I'm hoping to get back into it soon. I miss that kind of relationship I had with Ely, that thing where you're very involved with someone else's writing and you're excited and positive and cheerleading for each other. But I also miss having the sense that when I finish writing something, that someone else will be excited to read it. I think the Hollywood AU experience really broke me of that.
And of course it's all incredibly ironic, since I'm the beta coordinator over at the Jim and Bones community. While I haven't needed a J&B beta since I started as a mod, I have in the guidelines stressed very much that everyone has to be honest and realistic about time commitments before agreeing to work on someone's story. It's really lousy to agree to do a thing and not do it.
(list of questions can be found at day one)
one | two | three | four | five | six | seven | eight | nine | ten | eleven | twelve| thirteen | fourteen | fifteen | sixteen | seventeen | eighteen | nineteen | twenty | twenty-one | twenty-two | twenty-three
24 – Betaing – How many betas do you like to use to make sure there aren't any major flaws in your fic? Do you have a Beta horror story or dream story?
If something is longer, I like to use more than one beta, and hopefully one of them is someone I'll talk to as I'm going along about the plot and where I think I'm going. If it's short, a one shot, I can just have one person look it over for sense and errors.
I once had a very close fandom friend with whom I often discussed what I was writing, and she helped me think about things in bigger ways and was so encouraging, especially for the WWII AU and the early stages of the EWFS sequel. She made me feel like she really wanted to hear about my writing, and that I wasn't imposing. Ely was a fantastic person, and I lost a really good friend when she passed, but also to a much smaller extent a really key person for my writing.
Ali is super fantastic as well, and she's been so helpful for pretty much every long thing I've written in the past few years--the WWII AU, the 90s AU, the EWFS sequel, the Hollywood AU. I also get to read what she's writing, and I really enjoy that kind of reciprocal relationship. It makes me feel more comfortable to ask people to read over what I'm doing when I'm also helping them.
And seriously, there is no one better for beta'ing kink than Catja. No. One. And no one better for encouraging me to write it in the first place than one evil_erato. And I doubt that the recent Pansy/Parvati stuff I've been writing would be as good as I hope it is without slytherincess's help.
The WWII AU in general was probably the dream beta situation. I knew that the story wouldn't have many readers, and I got most of my pleasure in the process. I had about five people reading that story at various points in the process, and while Ali and Ely did most of the heavy lifting in terms of structure and characterization, I wouldn't have gotten through it without Juli's cheerleading nor had the courage to post the thing without Allyson batting clean-up as the SPAG beta and Dana being the unspoiled reader-stand-in. It was really super fantastic, working on that story and feeling like people were excited about it while it was in progress.
I guess the horror story would be the Hollywood AU. I'd come off an unfortunate situation where a beta disappeared on me, so I was nervous about asking people to read my stuff anyway. And then in the course of that story--which really, Ali beta'd from stem to stern with a big late-game assist from Catja--I had three betas drop out on me, two without any sort of notice or communication. It was honestly pretty horrible, probably one of the worst experiences I've had in fandom. I had to chase people down, which I'm not good at because I really hate being a burden or an intrusion (I have a lot of issues surrounding those words). I had people tell me over and over that they were just behind, only to seemingly never really get around to reading it. And these people I had trusted, so I wanted to believe what they were saying to me. It got to the place where I wasn't even excited when I finished a new chapter, because I only saw my writing as a burden for other people--another chapter finished meant that my overburdened betas were even more behind on giving me any feedback. After a January in which I had horrible writer's block, a February where I finally broke through only to have my notebook stolen in a mugging, a March where I could do no more than try to recreate the writing that was lost, and finally hitting a groove with the story in April, to spend all that spring trying to get people to read a story that they had agreed to beta was a little more than I could really handle. I'm so glad that people had such a great reaction to the story, because by the end I was convinced that the whole thing was just a horrible mess, or otherwise why would all these people refuse to read it for me? It was just, unfortunately, a truly lousy writing experience.
It's left me very distrustful of betas to be honest; I don't really believe people who say they'd like to beta for me because they so frequently punk out on me. I don't like asking people to read over my stories, I'm shy about even talking about what I'm writing, and I still see my writing as a burden for someone to have to look over.
It's unfortunate because I actually really like being someone's beta, and I'm not really doing much of that at the moment, either, for various reasons, though I'm hoping to get back into it soon. I miss that kind of relationship I had with Ely, that thing where you're very involved with someone else's writing and you're excited and positive and cheerleading for each other. But I also miss having the sense that when I finish writing something, that someone else will be excited to read it. I think the Hollywood AU experience really broke me of that.
And of course it's all incredibly ironic, since I'm the beta coordinator over at the Jim and Bones community. While I haven't needed a J&B beta since I started as a mod, I have in the guidelines stressed very much that everyone has to be honest and realistic about time commitments before agreeing to work on someone's story. It's really lousy to agree to do a thing and not do it.
