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

[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!