The World Beyond BetterMost > Anything Goes
Midnight Rant of a Beta
delalluvia:
--- Quote from: littleguitar on June 01, 2006, 12:08:11 pm ---Can I ask how you became a beta? I've never heard of this before and I think it's really interesting. Is it just a hobby or something you actually do for money?
--- End quote ---
Hiya little,
It's just a hobby, fan fiction is by definition a copyright infringement, so everyone is very careful not to make it a money making venture.
But I am trying to get into regular writing/editing for a living.
I fell into beta by accident. I was on a forum, reading the fanfics there, and I followed a few authors, liking their work and styles and offering comments and another fan was there who was trying to post her stuff and she liked my comments so much, thought they were insightful and very useful, so she asked to me beta her work and it just started from there via word of mouth.
The regular way I am told is that one joins a forum fanfiction listing and offers services as a beta. Some writers are very picky about who betas their work, I'm sure, but others usually go begging for people to proofread their work.
It can be extremely time-consuming. This one I'm currently working on for example. Like I said, the author is talented, but lazy. She'll send me her work - basically an outline of a manuscript with some sofa covers thrown on it - so I have to literally go line by line, offering up suggestions, expansions, descriptives, corrections and she'll respond with 'Oh I know, I just didn't want to bother with the details right then'.
Which meant I spent all my time doing something she should have done in the first place. Literally at times, rewriting her story for her.
And then sometimes there are artistic differences. Sometimes I think something won't fly and say so several times, but she will leave it in. [shrug]
--- Quote ---Del, if you manage to turn that pig's ear into a silk purse, you should be a candidate for writers' and editors' secular sainthood!
--- End quote ---
Jeff,
What can I say? I'm a miracle worker. She might be able to pull this one out of her @ss, but IMO this last story is pretty crappy in concept. If you ever saw the movie 'Throw Momma from the Train"? Billy Crystal teaches a writing class and there is one writer there, an older woman, who writes a short story about submariners while knowing nothing about the subject. Her characters just 'press a button' when torpedoes are launched or the submarine is manuevered, etc.
This manuscript is full of things like that.
Jeff Wrangler:
Del, do you ever feel conflicted between changing things to how you would do it, as compared to sticking with how the author would do it?
delalluvia:
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on June 02, 2006, 09:06:37 am ---Del, do you ever feel conflicted between changing things to how you would do it, as compared to sticking with how the author would do it?
--- End quote ---
Yes, but I always cave because it is THEIR story and not mine. THEY will get the criticism when they finally post it, not me.
In the second story of this particular trilogy, I told the author that one of the plot-twists was not believable, but she went ahead with it anyway and sure enough, the critcism came in on how unbelievable it was.
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: delalluvia on June 02, 2006, 08:18:48 pm ---Yes, but I always cave because it is THEIR story and not mine. THEY will get the criticism when they finally post it, not me.
In the second story of this particular trilogy, I told the author that one of the plot-twists was not believable, but she went ahead with it anyway and sure enough, the critcism came in on how unbelievable it was.
--- End quote ---
Yup, in the end, it is the author's story. I have done editing professionally, though not of fiction of any kind, and eventually you have to let go and let the author stand or fall--or hang--on the virtue of his or her own work.
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on June 02, 2006, 10:01:43 pm ---Yup, in the end, it is the author's story. I have done editing professionally, though not of fiction of any kind, and eventually you have to let go and let the author stand or fall--or hang--on the virtue of his or her own work.
--- End quote ---
Me too, Jeff, and I have found that letting go is the hardest part. (Which is why I never stuck with editing for long -- too much of a control freak, I guess.) It requires a delicate touch. You need to fix things that are outright wrong, but the writer's voice must somehow remain (even if you think that voice is $#$^%&@##).
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