WIP CHALLENGE CHECK IN - DAY 23 WEDNESDAY

[peachpai]

Happy Wednesday! How's writing?

-Wrote something, woo!
-Planning, outlining, note taking, research, etc.
-Editing
-Sent something to my beta
-It's done! I posted!
-Thought about writing
-Taking a day off
-Something else (discuss in comments)


Wednesday Discussion: When do you send your work off to your betas? After you've already polished it up yourself? The second you finish the raw first draft? Multiple times during the first draft? Do you email your beta crying after two agonizing paragraphs?

Comments

[enemytosleep]

I beta'd more things for my friend, but I haven't drafted anything yet today (hopefully tonight after work).

I usually write shorter, standalone pieces, so I usually send them to my beta after I've polished them off and it's more of a double check on SPAG things and confirming the characters seem IC and the plot fits the canon reasonably.

The chapter fics I've worked on (then and now) I generally draft a chapter and send the rough version to go over plot points before we worry about the fine comb edits. I don't want to spend the time editing and polishing until I have the okay that the plot makes sense. Fun anecdote: my friend and I many years ago when she wrote her first chapter fic for our shared 'verse had a character do something incredibly dumb. I read the chapter as a beta and did not question the dumb thing even though I really should have. About 30 seconds after posting, another friend commented on the DUMB THING and was like you should have her do X instead of Y. We have both been a bit paranoid since that day and double and triple check our plots before polishing and posting. xD Lesson learned anyway haha

[enemytosleep]

I got a good chunk drafted just now before work, so I'm in a much better place to get this rough draft done by the weekend for chocolateboxcomm. I'll try to work more tonight when I get home.

[enemytosleep]

I got more drafted after work. I now have a [super crappy] draft of pretty much the whole thing. It has been so tough to get this idea together, but now I'm able to start polishing this now and making it into something good. I'm still aiming to send this off to beta this weekend if I can manage, so we'll see!

[frogfarm]

This morning, outlining with a bit of writing. This evening, hopefully more of the same.

As I was just telling my first ever beta reader, I've burned through betas like cheap cordwood, and currently haven't had one in years. But back when I did, I'd usually wait to send a piece on until after I'd applied at least a bit of polish. I wouldn't mind having one again, but relationships are so fragile these days.

[peachpai]

I feel like there's a story behind this, but I won't pry! I personally don't beta anymore because of past experience with my low empathy causing friends to feel sensitive about their work.

[frogfarm]

If I'm sensitive enough to spare most peoples' feelings, it bowdlerizes me to the point of silence. Like my mom said, "If you can't say anything nice..."

It's actually a somewhat amusing story that spans over twenty years, but the tl;dr is that in addition to my counter-productive perfectionism, I drove more than one beta away when they were turned off by my authorial choices, especially regarding ships.

[peachpai]

You lost betas because of your ships...when they agreed to read it?? As a staunch multishipper and hardcore supporter of Ship and Let Ship, that sounds utterly bonkers to me.

[frogfarm]

Let's just say that when you throw multiple partners and bisexuality into the mix, however brief and fleeting, a lot of sacred cows can be all too easily gored.

[linaewen]

Felt like taking a break today, so instead of actually writing, I just did more planning. Which was needed, it turns out.

I haven't used a beta for some time now, as I do my own editing. I found I didn't like waiting for them to send a chapter back, and there wasn't usually that much changed in the long run. I do a fair amount of copy editing in my Real Life work, so I'm confident in my editing ability. I edit as I go, plus a final edit before posting.

[lady_katana4544]

Took the day off of writing to focus on other things like job hunting and a job testing appointment.

[innitmarvelous_og]

I wrote today and what's a beta? LOL I've never had one for any length of time!

[samuraiter]

Concentration is a major issue today, but the up side of that is that I have amassed a number of You Tube links to music I can use for writing, and I have been planning, picking challenges to do, etc. Small movements, but they are still movements.

I feel sheepish for saying this, but I generally do not use a beta. Almost all of my fandoms are so small that I have to trust myself to handle beta detail, especially to meet the relatively tight deadlines I have for most of the challenges I do. ... Fortunately, I have a ton of experience at this, so that offsets the disadvantage, at least in fanfic.

[peachpai]

Don't feel bad about it! I don't often use betas either, these days, unless it's required for a challenge. Similarly, I'm into a lot of rarepairs which make it hard even if the overall fandom is large. Also, I write fic as a hobby for an audience of one (myself), and since I'm trying to finish a PhD right now I'm more often than not sick to death of the revision cycle. I just want to make something that pleases me, and I am not a very discerning critic of my own work. XD;

[doranwen]

(Apologies for the essay below - I didn't realize my comment would end up this long!)

Just joining this comm - I'll probably wait to actually sign up to a challenge till it gets to February or beyond as I'm frantically trying to complete some non-fanfic projects for a work-related thing with a deadline looming (and that's taking most of my time), plus I got all the Chocolate Box fics out of the way that I was going to write to give me time to work on these work projects. (That feels very satisfying - I can't wait till reveals to see if my recips like them.)

I have to admit I rarely use betas these days - I've gone through periods where I did a lot, particularly when I first started participating in exchanges - but I'm a compulsive proofreader so other than the rare typo, the only thing I've often found betas helpful for are spotting overused words or difficult phrasing (and I often catch some of that with re-reads of my fics). Most of these days I write for exchanges (where secrecy is an issue in finding a beta) so unless I feel like the fic is really poor quality, I don't try to find a beta. (Haven't had much luck the last few times I tried, anyway.) I feel like I generally have a good sense of whether it's decent writing or not.

One time I did sign up for an exchange and offer a fandom I hadn't tried - and realized with my first draft of a story in that fandom (of course I matched on it) that I could not write that fandom properly, and I was lost. The story was awful and I knew it, and that is the worst feeling. A beta saved the day there - I thanked them dearly for rescuing the terrible fic that resulted and helping me turn it into something useful.

What I tend to need more than beta readers are alpha readers - someone to bounce ideas off, help me shape the story, particularly to ask about characterization (I have mild Asperger's and find that affects my grasp of characterization and general situations sometimes - I don't trust my own assessment of things sometimes and have to ask "is this what they would do?" "would they say that?" etc.). But those are extremely difficult to find, particularly since they have to know the (often small) fandom in question and be willing to do a lot of dialoguing. (The lack thereof is why I have a bunch of WIPs - I will get absolutely stuck without someone to help in a spot, and I cannot continue until I find someone. If I never do, the story lives on my hdd forever - I don't post them until they're all done. You can see what I mean here if you're curious.)

[peachpai]

Welcome! :) I'm pretty new as well (joined in December), but this is a great chill writing comm and everyone here is super nice!

I tend to forget about alpha readers, and that's a very good point. Which is hilarious because when I think about it I use alphas far more than betas, just nor formally. I have several friends that I chatter at about fics I'm working on over Discord chat or text message. It really helps me get my ideas together and see if my humor and characterization are hitting the mark. I'll have to put this in a discussion question because now I'm curious about everyone else's use of alphas!

[doranwen]

You're fortunate to have some friends you can chatter at about fics! I used to have a few on IRC (I tried Discord but I can't stand that you can't turn off emojis completely so I don't use it at all) but everyone got busy with life or migrated elsewhere.

The few times I did have an alpha reader available are when I got either very far on a WIP (there's one that's a little over 13k, until the friend got swamped with work), or actually wrote several short fics in a series (I have series for both Push and Alphas that got where they were thanks to those friends listening to me bounce ideas and chatter on, etc.). I miss those times. It was really wonderful, seeing my fics take shape. More recently I got inspired by an idea, wrote 11k of it (and an outline that could end up over 100k, which I've never EVER written that much)… and then realized I absolutely *needed* an alpha reader to continue, and it was immensely frustrating to realize that because I was writing for a basically-dead fandom (Rookie Blue), I probably would never find someone and the story would never be completed. :(

[enemytosleep]

I've never heard the term alpha reader, though I suppose by this definition that my beta and I fall more into this category (typos and overused words are the things most caught in actual editing). We use each other more for the discussions on larger plot and how it fits into the canon.

As for small fandoms, I have a bit of that with Natsume Yuujinchou. It's far, far smaller than my other fandoms, and is one none of my friends or usual beta are familiar with. It leaves me either not sending things out (most common) or finding someone in a beta comm (what I did for chocolateboxcomm and we'll see how that works out).

Anyway, welcome to the group. We're pretty lowkey and happy to talk shop. Thanks for sharing!