teyla | Beta Woes

This post is pure and plain procrastination, but it might be interesting anyway since I'll be addressing a subject most of you are probably familiar with.

How much and what sort of crit is acceptable in a beta?

I actually don't beta all that often, because I don't like beta'ing for people I don't know well (as in, talk with often on LJ and/or AIM). I want to be sure that the people whose story I'm reading can take criticism. Because I'm a wise-ass, I can't keep my mouth shut. If I'm reading a sentence and I've got a formulation in my head that I think would sound better, I put it in there.

I've started to use a color coding system in my betas. Red is everything I think needs changing. Pink are punctuation mistakes and typos. Blue are suggestions.

Now, the people I beta for do seem happy enough with this. I've never had anyone complain, really. The fics usually go back to the authors rather colorful, but I'm always careful to never sound condescending or conceited, to make the suggestions actually sound like suggestions and to point out exactly why I think something needs changing, and how I'd change it if it were my fic.

This all works very well, really, except when it comes to one thing: my pet characters. I have a pet character in every fandom. In Enterprise, it was Malcolm, in House, it's House and in Doctor Who, it's Ten. I have very, very clear characterizations of those people in my head; if I want to, I can make them talk to me. I can hear their voices in my head (no, they're not telling me to blow myself up, no worries xD). I like to think that these characterizations are IC and congruent with the shows' characters. When I'm writing and in a good writing mood (= not struggling to finally get the damn scene done), then those characters are almost no work at all to get right. I usually know exactly what they're going to do or say next without really thinking about it.

This is awesome for writing, but for beta'ing, it's disastrous. If the story is compelling, if the plot is pulling me in, then I slip into this one-track mood, and it's insanely hard to accept a character not saying the thing I think they should be saying next. Even if what they're saying is more or less acceptable and within the range of IC for this character and the many ways they can be interpreted, I can't help but color the whole thing blue and write my suggestion down. And then the other character's answer doesn't fit anymore, and I come up with a suggestion for that. And before long, I find myself rewriting the scene, and then I stop and think, now wait a sec, what the fuck are you doing? This isn't your sandbox, you're just allowed to visit and have a look around.

Of course, I could just get over myself and take on a less rigid view, at least as long as I'm beta'ing the fic. Theoretically, anyway. It's not that easy, though, sadly. Because where do I draw the line? Maybe the author has a very good grip on character A, but character B isn't quite spot-on. It's my job as a beta to point that out. But maybe it's just me again, with my rigid view of my beloved character B. So maybe I shouldn't point it out after all. What?

I usually end up pointing it out after all and leaving my suggestions in there. I worry, though, that I'm being too pushy, too bossy, especially when a scene I saw a lot of problems with ends up being a lot more blue and red than black. The thing is, the more colorful a fic ends up being, the better it usually was. If I get excited about something, I have ideas upon ideas how to make it even more awesome (in my eyes, anyway). If something bores me, I usually don't want to waste a lot of time thinking about it.

That's not true in all cases, of course. I've beta'ed fic that I thought was awesome, but that I had nothing to add to. Usually, though, the more energy I pour into a beta, the better I thought the fic was.

Sometimes, though, I'm sure it's too much, and I'm not beta'ing but rewriting. And then I start pointing out that all my edits are only suggestions and should probably all be ignored. And then I get annoyed with myself and with the fic and procrastinate.

Gah. My life = complicated. And I just got back a beta of one of my own fics, and the beta was so omg awesome that I'm totally thinking about going and deleting all my edits from the scene I was just beta'ing for somebody else and starting over. Brain, stop it. It's too late for this sort of confusing shit right now.

Anyway. How do you feel about beta'ing?

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Wih does my beta, and she also uses colours. I'm happy that she does it, as she always makes things better. I welcome any sort of suggestions at all. I often have problems getting Wilson right (which is totally his own fault as he won't talk to me, whereas House rambles on and on and ON), and Wih always saves me/the story with better lines. I understand that when you do beta, you are very thorough, well that's just great! I think anyone who takes his/her writing at al seriously will welcome beta like that with open arms. Even if it means you rewrite stuff. If the suggestions don't sound right, I mean, hey, you don't have to take them, right? But if I'd get a story of mine back looking rather colourful, and that has happened, I only feel happy that someone actually took the time and the trouble to give it serious thought. So, my advice, for what it's worth, would be to keep on doing beta like you do, as any writer will love you for it.

Yeah, that's what I'm always hoping for when I end up sending back a beta that's all colorful xD.

hey, you don't have to take them, right?
Exactly. I always think, hey, I'll put it in there, if the author thinks its crap she can ignore it xD. But still, criticizing something, even if the author decides to ignore the criticism, is a bit like painting and then repainting something. The author will always know that it's been tampered with.

Ah well. I can't really do my beta any other way, so I guess the authors will just have to live with this, lol xD.

The author will always know that it's been tampered with. That sounds too negative, in my opinion, I always think of the stories as having been "made better"!

Well, yeah, if the author accepts my suggestion. However, if she decides my suggestion was worse than what she'd written, then she will still always think of my nagging when she reads this bit, and maybe feel not quite as secure about her writing anymore.

Oh, yeah, I get your point. Still, I would prefer a beta who takes my stuff seriously and suggests away, than someone who goes 'very nice' and offers no suggestions at all...

When I beta something it happens sometimes that I have to remind me that this is NOT MY fic, but someone elses and that they are allowed to write that sentence/character that way. And then I sit over a particular spot and wonder and ponder if I should suggest something different there or not. If I do it really depends on what the suggestion would be about.
If it's just reformulation, I mostly leave it. (Unless it's grammatically wrong, or feel OOC to me.)
Anyway. I mainly try to change the least amount possible, because like I said, it's not my fic.

I am always happy to get a beta, though, because usually the person nags about bits that I had problems writing myself, and then I'm glad for suggestions. :-)

Yeah, that's how I go about it, too. But then, sometimes, I just can't help it. Because in my head, I have this scenario playing, and I get so excited about it that I just have to put it in the beta xD.

In the end, I always count on the people I beta for knowing that if they want, they can ignore every and all of my suggestions and post their fic the way they wrote it in the first place without me being insulted or offended, lol.

I read this last night, and was a bit at a loss as to what to say. My first and primary reaction was mainly to be envious that you hear House AND Ten so clearly; House I have a crystal-clear sense of...Ten, not so much. He is my favourite Who character thus far, but I feel so fuzzy on what's IC for him. Is it bad form here to ask which authors you personally think have a strong grasp of Ten?

Beyond that though, I wasn't initially sure what to say. I have enough experience with editing non-fiction that I'm quite confident in that realm, but I've never been completely sure how well that would translate to editing fiction. (Part of the reason I've never offered myself up as a beta.)

This evening though, I ended up going back over some notes for a long-abandoned Housefic for no good reason, and while I was doing so it occurred to me that if I had a beta re-write scenes on me, I might be rather miffed...but it would depend on what was re-written, and how it meshed with the rest.

It's a very fine line here - there could be a scene that I'd struggled with, and to have suggestions on how to sharpen the dialogue and such in that spot would probably be a relief. Editors sometimes have to suggest even very drastic changes - character death, for example - because the author is too in love with that character to see that their death might be dramatically necessary. In theory, there is no change which is too drastic to suggest, if the suggestion could genuinely be interpreted as helpful or even necessary.

Without actually seeing your betas though, it sounds a little like you might be pushing it a bit past that line. Just evaluate: do your suggestions mesh organically with the rest of the story? Does the rest of the story's "logic" make sense with your suggestions in place? Maybe that scene really COULD use rewriting - messing around with a whole scene is not necessarily overboard.

But... Do you need to rewrite, say, a third or more of the story to make your suggestions fit? I'm just throwing this guideline out off the top of my head, but it seems to me that once you've re-written more than a third of the story you are really rewriting the story, period.

And at that point, I think the author's got reason to say, hey, do you want to edit the story in your head, or my story?

I DO totally understand getting that carried away by a story... I sometimes find myself walking away from the computer in the middle of the fic I was reading, madly ranting to myself under my breath as I "write" more bits to it without waiting to see what ACTUALLY happens. LOL. So I'm not finger-wagging (I feel a little like I'm finger-wagging, and I don't want to be) over that.

But many of the same rules for writers apply to betas (who are writers too), in particular:

Kill your darlings!

/2 pennies

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