[ SECRET POST #2937 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2937 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 056 secrets from Secret Submission Post #420.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

01. http://i.imgur.com/giOp2JG.jpg

[(Anonymous)]

I will never understand people who don't want criticism from their betas. Sure, I enjoy gushing from my reading audience (although I will accept their criticism as well). But a beta is supposed to help you write, otherwise they're basically the literary equivalent of a cheerleader -- standing on the sidelines and cheering you on instead of actively engaging with your writing.

[sarillia]

Eh, some people want a cheerleader. As long as expectations are upfront on all sides, I don't see the problem.

[diet_poison]

ia - what's the point of a beta? Nothing wrong with cheerleaders, but then you should just have your friends read your fic casually. If you are going out of your way to get a beta and then not changing anything, what's the point?

[(Anonymous)]

Some people like the idea that their work has undergone tough scrutiny by a beta, but in reality most people cannot take that level of concrit. It's a problem I've run into many times when people assure me that oh yes, they want me to run their fic through the gauntlet, no holding back! So I take their word for it and do a thorough job and they get all upset because deep down, they didn't expect me to find anything wrong.

It's a puzzling facet of human behavior, but it happens so often.

[tabaqui]

Yeah, people who don't want their beta to actually...beta baffle me. My beta is awesome, points out *all* my mistakes, tells me when i've dropped a stitch or whatever, and gets that sometimes my 'style' isn't perfectly in line with Proper English Grammar and knows when to let it slide and when to tell me it's too much.

I don't mind gushing, but from my beta i want *facts*, not praise. The praise can some when i've fixed a weird sentence so that it finally reads coherently *and* conveys what i want it to convey.

[(Anonymous)]

I think it depends on what kind of beta that you want. I've asked (and received) beta for grammar only. I find asking someone to analyze my content incredibly overwhelming and paralyzing.

That said, people really should be upfront up exactly what kind of betaing that they want.

[(Anonymous)]

Because you can grow as a writer by learning from your mistakes. They're often invisible to you yourself.

[diet_poison]

Aw, I think I'd just feel really frustrated. :/ She might not be able to tell that her writing is going downhill.

Transcript

[(Anonymous)]

Image: a cute little calico cat poking her head above the bottom of the secret.

Text: A fandom friend recently stopped using me as her beta. I’m pretty sure it’s because I always complemented her writing, however. .. I was honest about any mistakes or problems I saw in it. I wasn’t rude about it because I genuinely enjoy her fic and she always claimed to want this level of concrit. I noticed her current betas are the kind of people who gush and squee and don’t offer any criticism. I also noticed her writing has suffered as a consequence.

I’m trying very hard not to be glad about this.

[solticisekf]

ot, but this's a pretty image.

[(Anonymous)]

It's got to be a general human thing.

I love me the Fix It shows Hotel Impossible/Restaurant Impossible/Kitchen Nightmares, and around 90% of them are "Please come help my business I don't know what's wrong. Wait. What do you MEAN there's something wrong?! MY BUSINESS IS PERFECT. I wanted you to come in and tell me I WAS PERFECT!!!!"

"My kitchen is spotlessly clean!"
"What about that dead rat on the floor?"
"ITS A VERY CLEAN RAT RATS ARE CLEAN ANIMALS YOU BIGOT"

But it's a lot funnier I'm sure to watch it rather than to be lured into the drama bomb thinking someone actually wants crit.

[dahli]

Be glad, OP. Be glad and gloat in it.


In all seriousness, I don't see why they wanted a beta but not want criticism and ways to fix up their writting. I'd rather have someone point to me (politely) what's wrong with my writting instead of having me drive myself into a ditch.

[(Anonymous)]

Eh, I think some people just like the idea of a beta - and of being able to tell the world that their work is being betaed - but don't actually want a true beta.

There's someone in my fandom who endlessly announces that their fics have gone off to be betaed/edited, only to post them with the same terrible writing as usual. Knowing this person and knowing their betas, it's very much the same situation as OP mentions, and that all these people really are are cheerleaders because to point out any actual errors would lead this person into a very public pity-party meltdown.

[(Anonymous)]

I have a friend who went full Tumblr and all her fandom activity and writing now consists of capslock squee and meta discussion. No concrit, just OMG THIS IS SO IMPORTANT YOU GUYS BLAH BLAH BLAH. It's sad because she's a good writer with great ideas but she needs an editor. She used to want to be a published author, but could never hack the revisions needed when agents and editors told her the manuscript needed work. Only now she gets so much positive reinforcement that she believes she can dispense with revisions and editing altogether. Fandom's a kinder judge in some ways than the publishing industry.

Me, I keep my mouth shut and avoid giving her my opinion on the quality of her fics now. She's happy. She really just wants cheerleaders, not real betas, so... /shrug

[(Anonymous)]

Oh op, relish it. Vindication like that doesn't come around often.

[anonymous4]

I run a fic exchange and I sometimes offer to beta for participants. Most submissions require very little comment, because the writer's using a beta as a final sanity check, but some stories are no more than a first draft, and I find myself spending hours thinking about the characterisation and explaining why it's OOC, thinking about the plot and pointing out the holes, the leaps, and the missing scenes, correcting the spelling and the punctuation, raising matters of canon...

And I have to say that it baffles me.

I mean, how can a writer bear to put her name to a story when she's relied on a beta to sort out the plot and the characterisation for her? (Why would a writer want someone else do all the best bits of writing for her?) And why does a writer need a beta to format paragraphs and punctuate dialogue correctly, when she can just open up the nearest Penguin paperback, check how a respected publisher does it, and do the same?

I can well believe that your friend's writing has deteriorated because you no longer beta for her, OP, but I find it really, really sad that she needed you so badly.

[(Anonymous)]

I may be a petty person, but this would make me so happy, too.

[(Anonymous)]

With this level of pettiness, I wonder just how "not" rude you actually were in your critique.

[(Anonymous)]

Or maybe you did a crap job betaing - maybe your grammar was off, maybe you had rotten characterization - and the new ones while gushing also get the job done.

Or maybe you treated it like a terrible chore and they went to people that didn't act like it was?

[(Anonymous)]

I've never understood the desire to not want a beta, at the very least for grammar and spelling corrections. I get that people won't want their plots messed with, but for things like grammar and spelling? I always have my beta look over my chapters at least 2-3 times before I post it...

[(Anonymous)]

The clarity problems in this clumsily written secret lead me to believe that she had other reasons for dropping you as a beta...

[(Anonymous)]

having first-hand experience on different aproaching of her work or writing, i think she just wanted to seek various opinions, if it's possible for her. good thing she tried but i think she had prepared the respond from the general public.

[(Anonymous)]

Gloat as you much like, love. Even my worst writing is better than your best.

[(Anonymous)]

I understand being sensitive about your beta. I never had a beta because I've never been social enough in fandom, but I pretty much never took criticism gracefully back in the day. I'd try to blow it off, generally, but a couple days later I'd sit down and say "okay they were actually right" to myself.

I never really got good at accepting criticism until I entered the professional world as a translator. I have to have things edited every day, now, and it's gotten to the point where it doesn't bother me anymore, but it's taken over a year to stop wincing over it.

I think a lot of the kids who are acting super sensitive about crit now are going to have a reality check later in life. Maybe not in the field of writing, but somewhere in their work the hammer is gonna come down and they're gonna have to suck it up in the name of their paycheque.