Beta

[BlindedxxFalcon]

It took me FOREVER (okay...two weeks) to figure out what beta meant by myself...so, how does betaing help you with your fanfics?

And I need a beta for Insanity...but be warned, I almost never update.

[Nittanylizard]

justonegreaser said:

It took me FOREVER (okay...two weeks) to figure out what beta meant by myself...

Aww, you should have asked! Maybe we should start a thread for definitions. I was completely clueless when I started writing fanficiton, so I think for me, as well as many others, it's easy to forget that some of these terms can be unfamiliar.

I haven't posted many fanfics lately, but for my original stories, I love having extra sets of eyes to tell me what I'm blind to. You get so close to a story that it can be hard to step back and see things that somebody who doesn't know what's in your head would see. I have great betas who have been enormously helpful.

I haven't done any official beta'ing for fanfics, but if you're willing to put up with pickiness I'll volunteer. It's good that you don't update often, haha, because I probably wouldn't be able to keep up if it was, like, a chapter a day.

My philosophy: I won't try to change your story to fit my own preferences, because then it wouldn't really be your story anymore, but I will help with things like grammar, punctuation, characterization, etc. Some things are subjective, and everybody has their own view of who the characters are and how they react, but again, I may be able to point out things that you aren't seeing. Feel free to decline, I won't be offended .

Liz

[BlindedxxFalcon]

Okay, great! And I lwasn't in any ruch to find out, lol!

[hahukumkonn]

Getting a beta is pretty much a "must", in my view. A good beta will say "wait a sec, this doesn't flow logically, fix it" and stuff like that. Case in point - if I'd had a beta for my quantum electrodynamics paper it would have been loads better. As it is when I looked back over it a week after I handed it in, I cringed at some of the retarded mistakes I made in it.

Your brain fools you more than you'd like to think about your own writing.

[zevie]

"Quantum electrodynamics paper..."

OMG, are you a rocket scientist?! *iz awed* I love rocket scientists.

Betas sound fantastic. I don't think they're *necessary* to fic survival, but from all accounts, they seem to be the fastest tool, outside of reading, for improvement.

[Des]

My brothers beta mine for plot and character, but they're just as bad at grammer and spelling as I am.

I have what you call a "Grammer Bot" that a friend of mine made for me. It corrects my spelling and grammer as I type, and alerts me to anything that doesn't make sense.

-laughing-

In other words, it tells me when I've lapsed into German while typing, and tells me to get my brain back on the English track.

[Keira]

I've never had anyone officially beta my stuff... at least not since I was about 14-15, but that's not to say I never needed one. I'd pass things along to friends, but none ever beta'd them, which was fine by me. Goodness knows I'd NEED a beta, it's just a matter of someone doing it. Right now, that's pretty unnecessary though, as I write very little fanfiction at the moment.

Another key point though, is to not be offended by anything your beta says. They're there to help your story, to smooth things over, and if you won't listen to their advice (which isn't always necessary, of course), it's not going to do anyone much good. Multiple betas are good, if you can find them.

I do more beta'ing then actual writing these days. I love to beta for my friends -- they don't get offended, and they're writing great stories that I get to feel included in on, lol.

[hahukumkonn]

thread drift: Well, I'm a nuclear science guy to be exact, but I took a course in QED

Undrift:

More than one beta is always good. Although there is a compromise between more sets of eyes being better than just one set of eyes, and too many cooks spoiling the recipe.

[Keira]

Good point. Conflicting ideas can lead to uncertainty, but then there's always the other end of the spectrum where more than one beta agreeing to something can be more helpful than just the one beta.

A lady I beta for in the HP fandom uses Google Docs for her betas. She uploads the documents and we are given a link to go in and "mark up" the chapter. We each use a different color font as to separate whom says what. It's helpful to see when other beta's agree to what you're saying, or pick up on something you didn't notice yourself. I do find myself disagreeing with the other betas at times, as well, but that's not a bad thing. Just because someone says to change - or keep - something doesn't mean they're necessarily right.

[Tensleep]

Beta's are good for several reasons. I think a lot of it has to do with how serious you are about fixing up your work. I mean, I had my brother, who pretty much flunked English but knows everything about gangs and cars, read over chapters and later on my buddies. They gave good suggestions, but they know me too well. I found I needed someone more objective, someone who tells me when I've drifted off into space and missed words and the like along with the good stuff. And I have an awesome beta who does that as well as adds

So now I believe having a beta is awesome because I see the difference in my own writing in comparison to what it was like before hand. So a beta is not necessary, no, but you really can't go wrong with a good one.