|| INTERACTIVE: 30 DAYS OF FAN FIC || DAY TWENTY-FOUR ||

[slytherincesss.livejournal.com]

DAY ONE - How did you get into fan fic?
DAY TWO - What fandoms have you written in?
DAY THREE - Favorite characters?
DAY FOUR - "Muse" character?
DAY FIVE - Pushy characters?
DAY SIX - Male or female characters?
DAY SEVEN - Fic affecting your view of a character?
DAY EIGHT - OCs
DAY NINE - Favorite Pairings
DAY TEN - Pairings and your comfort zone
DAY ELEVEN - Favorite Genres
DAY TWELVE - Adaptations
DAY THIRTEEN - Canon or Fanon
DAY FOURTEEN - Ratings
DAY FIFTEEN - Warnings
DAY SIXTEEN - Summaries
DAY SEVENTEEN - Titles
DAY EIGHTEEN - Bunnies
DAY NINETEEN - Herding Bunnies
DAY TWENTY - Baby Bunnies
DAY TWENTY-ONE - Sequels
DAY TWENTY-TWO - Fests
DAY TWENTY-THREE - Where do you archive?

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?

We welcome your participation! There is no minimum or maximum requirements for your answers -- they can be as long or as short as you'd like. I will include my answer as a comment.

Comments

[slytherincesss.livejournal.com]

Oh my God, I like to use as many beta readers as I can rope into reading my fic. For the last fic I did, I had four beta readers and each one gave invaluable feedback, including constructive criticism that made the fic a better story, IMO.

angelofthenorth was my very first beta reader back in 2002/2003, for Muggle Studies ♥♥♥ We found each other at The Sugar Quill (www.sugarquill.net/) when I put up a post asking for a beta reader. I had four people respond and out of the four, Angel was the one for me! Angel encouraged me as I wrote my very first fan fic, but was also tough when she needed to be. Angel is extremely skilled at constructive criticism and never once did she make me feel bad about my writing even when my writing was quite flawed. Not only that, but she's brilliant. Just absolutely brilliant. Angel is a long-time friend and a true inspiration. Angel is my dream beta story! Without her, I doubt I would have continued to write. Nor would there be Walking Through Treacle (http://www.fictionalley.org/authors/angel_of_the_north/WTT.html), the first ever HP bird slash, featuring Fawkes the Phoenix and the As Yet Unnamed Malfoy's Eagle Owl! Angel was very encouraging to me regarding my OCs in Muggle Studies. She introduced me to Witchfics (http://www.witchfics.org/) (a WIKTT-esque archive) and to the works of TextualSphinx, still one of my very favorite HP authors.

BETA APPRECIATION! I would like to acknowledge and thank the many others who have read through my stories and given kudos and criticism, who have beta read in one capacity or another for me over the years: longtimegone; jlh; tartpants; mollymoon; kerosinkanister; allysonsedai; wordplay; cedarlibrarian; ceilidh; emmagrant01; geoviki; furiosity; groolover; maegunnbatt; alaana_fair; and absynthedrinker! You all have my heartfelt gratitude and appreciation for your time and efforts

I don't have any beta horror stories, thank God.

Having beta read myself for quite a few people, I will say that beta reading is not easy! It's very detail-oriented and you really have to know your SPaG (I'm still learning SPaG tricks myself).

[lordhellebore]

I use a SPAG beta, because I'm prone to typos and English isn't my native language, but that is it. I don't like for a beta to do anything but SPAG. When I have plot and characterisation questions, I ask friends of mine and chat with them.

After my wonderful former beta disappeared from the itnernet without a word some years ago, I've never had a regular beta. I usually ask LJ friends of mine when a story is finished to give it a quick look concerning SPAG. And mostly, I only use one beta, sometimes two.

Myself, I only do SPAG beta-reading as well. I'm no good at giving plot/characterisation advice.

[slytherincesss.livejournal.com]

Basically, me too. I prefer doing SPaG betas, but if something is canonically incorrect or something seems grossly OOC, I will comment on it just to bring it to the author's attention. Also, I will comment on continuity errors.

[lordhellebore]

Yes, if there are blatant errors or major OOCness or just incoherence, I'll also mention it. But the general plotting and characterisation, when there's nothing completely wonky, is not my thing. I usually mention that to the author in the beginning and suggest getting an additional plot beta (or somebody who does both if 2 betas are not what they want) if they want comments on that as well.

[amt149.livejournal.com]

If I'm just writing a fic for me, I'll use maybe one or two betas. If I'm writing as a gift for someone or if I'm writing it to someone's prompt I usually use 3-4 betas. I don't have a long-term beta, and none of my friends are in (any) fandoms so it's really just whoever will read it and cover my page in red ink, I guess.

[deirdre-aithne.livejournal.com]

I use one beta, full stop. xD When my usual beta is unavailable or I'm in a rush and she's not around, I'll ask around, but 99% of the time, if the fic is beta'd, it's done by the lovely lorca.

As for beta horror stories, does a beta disappearing without any notice count? *might still be bitter about that one*

[kinky-kneazle.livejournal.com]

I generally just use one beta, unless I'm really wibbling on the actual story, in which case I'll ask a second person to read for story things. However, the lovely Lorca is very awesome in every way and will always point out the things that aren't working and fix all the SPaG things which occur because grammar isn't taught properly in schools anymore.

I have a couple of horror stories. In the first, I had someone beta who I had never met before - one of those last minute things where I put out a call on a community. She was okay, generally, but she went through and changed every "-our" spelling to "-or" and then made a bitchy comment about my appalling spelling. I never asked her for help again.

The second horror story is a bit funnier. I used to get my bf to beta for me (he is now an ex). He'd been a freelance journalist in an earlier life and tended to pick up lots of things for me. However, he didn't know fandom and he didn't know the internet. I always put tags in as I go, so if a word is going to be in italics, the < i > is sitting there in the document. The first time F did a beta for me it happened to be one of those stories with a lot of formatting - letters or memories or something. Not knowing what it was he deleted every damned tag. It was for a fest and the beta was really last minute and I ended up having to ask for an extension just to go through and add the tags back in. Made sure he understood tags after that incident.

[tigersilver.livejournal.com]

I started off with my Built-In (lonerofthepack), who is my eldest spawn and therefore was always available--plus rather damned good at both plot and SPaG beta, being a writer herself. But I am also obsessive about these things, so I'd self-beta constantly throughout the writing process...which led to longer fics and not always teribbly sucessfully. Then I struck gold and some rather excellent people came along (or were possibly kidnapped by me...hmm, it's al so foggy in my mind, now) and volunteered their services. And I Love Them All and will be Forever Grateful! My last effing gigantic fic had multiple betas, some for plot, some for SPaG, some for advice, and the marvellous phoenixacid who descended upon the whole mess and coded it (plus illustrating it with two (count em!) awesome artworks!)
I've never had a beta horror story; I consider myself immensely fortunate.
As for me, I am not a particularly wonderful beta (certainly wasn't at first!) but I can SPaG to a point and I suppose I get by. I'm hesitant about doing it, tho.

[norton-gale.livejournal.com]

With HP fics I usually use a beta and a Britpicker (who are sometimes the same person). I have never used more than two betas. It can be useful to have more than one because sometimes they both pick up different things.

Most of my betas have been fantastic. It makes sense - people came to HP fandom because they're passionate readers, and they care about good writing. I did have a beta once (when I first started writing) that made some weird changes - she removed every single contraction. At first I wondered if she was right, but then came to my senses and ignored those changes.

I'm probably someone's horror beta - I can be pretty harsh and I cross out a lot of what I see to be excess verbiage. But you take your betas as you find them.

[meglw0228.livejournal.com]

For a fest fic I like to use two or more, but good betas are so hard to find, I usually settle for one. Just a fic that I wrote for fun: usually none, unless it's important to me.

The first time I ever tried getting a beta was for a Star Wars fic, and I think it was like the second or third fic I ever wrote, so I was pretty new to writing in fandom. The beta was one of the worst people ever; I don't mind con crit, even when I haven't asked for it, but this person didn't seem to have a nice bone in her body, and ripped my story to pieces. The characterization, plot, and grammar were apparently completely wrong to her and she rewrote quite a bit of my story to how she thought it should read. I don't mind someone questioning my characterization or plot, but I also think you should be able to back up your claim of why you think it's 'wrong' and I certainly don't mind listening to opinions, but I do mind when people say 'this is how it should be' because I certainly won't learn anything that way.

As for a dream story...the first story I ever wrote for Harry Potter was for a fest and winterstorrm was nice enough to volunteer to beta for me, and she is a terrific beta: very nice yet very truthful! It was so refreshing to find someone who could help me with my writing, and not just tell me it sucks/it's good. It's so hard to find good betas that can also be a good help, and both winterstorrm and nomeci have helped me tremendously since I started writing HP fanfic to become a better writer.

[dulcemia.livejournal.com]

My first attempt at finding a beta resulted in a woman who "corrected" my "its sharp echo skating across the.." with a possessive s, and changed my correct thans to thens. I ran off with Kurtz's The horror! The horror! and stopped writing for a month.

[dulcemia.livejournal.com]

Oh my. Your encounter with Beta of Doom makes me realize perhaps I got off easy. *Sympathies*

[meglw0228.livejournal.com]

Yours actually sounds about similar to mine! Just quite a bit more...they corrected that same stuff in mine plus others! Still sucks either way, but at least you continued writing: that's all that counts! It made me more determined to e a better writer in the end, so over all I'm happy for the experience...just never trusted the internet as much anymore, and I get more nervous showing people my work now!

Thanks!

[lordhellebore]

I had some people do this with my fics as well. It's kind of disheartening.

[hpfangirl71.livejournal.com]

I never used to beta any of my stuff, I would just check and recheck it so I eliminated as many of the mistakes as possible but with Fests I found that I had to have a beta so since my story had MPreg in it I was having a horrible time finding one. I told the mods of my dilemma and winterstorrm rec'd her own beta since she loves MPreg. anyways from there started a beautiful warm friendship with singlemomsummer Rarely a day goes by that we don't AIM chat with each other and we are as close as two internet buds could be, its just too bad we live on opposite sides of the country. She is now my go to beta for anything and everything except for HET stuff which she prefers not to read so I go to my daughter polkadotgurlk I think my stories are better for being beta'd but I still dont beta most of it except for fest stuff and chaptered fics.

[dulcemia.livejournal.com]

And on so many levels, not least the apparent dearth of self-awareness extant; how can people believe themselves an authority qualified to be advising others when the reality is so radically different? Easily, apparently. Que Sera. I look forward to checking out your work.

[rebecca_selene]

I'm awful at deadlines, so a lot of times I don't leave enough time for a beta. I have used betas, though, and I've never had a horror story. I'm so grateful for the betas who have looked at my fics. <3