fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2937 ]

[ SECRET POST #2937 ]

⌈ 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.

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Because many writers are this weird combination of deeply insecure, super-sensitive about their work and criticism, yet convinced that anyone who dislikes it or finds fault with it is full of shit. IDK, man.

I once lost a friend (I guess not a very good friend) because she asked me to beta a fic for her and I pointed out ONE tiny mistake. It was a factual error, easily fixed by changing a single word and no reflection at all on her abilities as a writer. She was very good, in fact. But somehow, me pointing out that ham comes from pigs as opposed to cows (made up example) made her flip her shit. She gave me the cold shoulder and then later went off on me about what a Mean Girl I was to hound her like that.

I apologized, but I still have no idea what was up with her. We don't speak anymore. So yeah, I found out the hard way that she thought she wanted a beta, and she said she wanted a beta, but she didn't really want a beta.

This so much.

Some people don't realise that part of getting a beta is the horrible process of being told you've done stuff wrong. I can sympathise. I still find it tough. It's one of those things, like getting no comments on a fic, that can't be understood until you've experienced it. Even in private, it's embarrassing.

The rest of your ex-friend's behaviour is down to her own childishness and failures of character. It's how we handle difficult experiences that shows our true colours.

You were definitely better off finding out about her sooner rather than later.

Yeah, I'm sure you're right. We weren't that close, but I thought we were good enough fandom friends and she didn't seem like the overly sensitive type otherwise I would never have agreed to beta for her. I'm still confused by what happened because honestly, it was NOT a major critique by any stretch. I thought she'd just go, "Oh, whoops, my bad!" and then fix it. It was like... on level with a typo. Pointing out a typo isn't a personal attack, ffs, who in their right mind holds a grudge for that sort of thing?

Now I don't beta for anyone. :(

I find I learn as much doing beta for other people as getting beta myself, and it's a lot easier (emotionally) giving than getting beta. It's a pity that it put you off entirely but understandable.

When people over-react bizarrely on the internet I find it leaves me so confused. I left a message on a comm last year, literally one sentence and a link I thought might be useful. I was piled on and attacked.

Luckily I was able to talk about it on a private post on another comm I'm a member of, asking everyone else to explain what I'd done wrong. They were able to tell me that the other people had just over-reacted, and then likely got their friends to join in. My mistake was in inadvertently pointing out the person had posted something wrongly, even though I'd tried to do it in a helpful way.

Like you, next time I won't bother. At the time, I nearly confuse-quit the internet. I would have, without other people to talk to.

Some people really just go crazy if anyone even suggests they're not perfect at all times, even though no one is always perfect. It can be confusing and disorientating to meet a person like that. So much.

NAYRT

I think all this exemplifies why it's so important to choose your betas well.

Personally, I find it much easier to get crit from someone I don't know and have no emotional ties to. So if a friend beta'd my work and pointed out mistakes I'd cringe, but if someone in whom I have no real investment did the same thing it wouldn't bother me.

Some people are the complete opposite, and would rather have things pointed out by an understanding friend who knew their personality. Finding some random beta, however thoroughly they worked, would feel as though some stranger was barging in and telling them what to do.

I think too many people just jump in all "Yeah, gotta get a beta!" without considering how they react to criticism on a personal level and which method best deals with that while still giving you a nicely edited fic at the end of it all.

haha, that is ridiculous.

I'm sorry that happened do you. I also hope you now have better friends.

ayrt - I do. :) It was more confusing than sad, because we had such different takes on what happened. What felt like a civil exchange to me was a huge, antagonistic deal to her and on reflection... I honestly don't think I was hard on her at all. It's probably for the best we didn't remain friends.

Oh man, I hear this. I made the mistake of offering to give my mother's romance novel in progress a red penning.

She... was not thrilled when she got her work back looking like a butcher had attacked it.

I myself am bad and don't have a beta; I don't want to wait a few days to post a story when I got paid just now. I try to self-edit as best I can, but I still get typos and html borks pointed out by my kindly readers. (And I have had a great reader say she was disappointed in one story, and spelled out exactly why and how. I really appreciated that, even though it stung a little.)

The REALLY humiliating part is when there's a typo or HTML bork and NOBODY TELLS ME. Months, YEARS even, my Labyrinth fic had borked HTML and I NEVER KNEW TILL NOW.

DA

Urg, this.

I usually don't bother with a beta either; I'm reasonably confident in my grammar etc., at least to the point where no-one I could ask would be significantly/usefully better, and I know I'd just get irritated with someone trying to mess with my plot and ideas so I tend to eschew them.

I ended up re-reading a 3 year old fic the other day, and noticed a typo (one of those "on/of/or", "is/it/if" typos that both spellcheck and your brain gloss straight over).

It's be fine if this didn't happen to be one of my most popular and most-read fics, so literally thousands of people over three years have probably seen that error and nobody thought it'd be an idea to let me know.

I'm so embarrassed that I still haven't fixed it.

SA

Aaaaaand in the finest display of irony ever...

"It'd" not "It's"

/cries/

thousands of people glossed over the typo. hundreds of people saw it.

The problem with most of the betas I've ever had is that a significant amount of them did correct my grammar and punctuation wrongly.

I try to still get something out of the betas, but it's hard when things like that make me doubt the credibility of the rest of their notes.

Nowadays I flick through any potential beta's fics before accepting to check they know how to use punctuation themselves. I have this problem far less these days. I should have done that to start with but I was just so glad to get any beta at all.

Yeah, my LJ readers are really quick to point out my typos (I have like two or three regular readers who are hardcore grammarians) but on AO3, sometimes HTML borks go unnoticed for YEARS.

It really doesn't help that I have to manually do all the HTML formatting myself for all my writing. (Word 97. Sigh.)

Word for me insists on putting the wrong version of apostrophes into HTML and breaking all my links and cuts. Not sure how to change that, so I have to add the apostrophes in DW/LJ/AO3 when posting, then copy paste them back to Word. Tedious and easy to forget.

I prefer to manually do the HTML formatting anyway. Rich text option in LJ is very cranky and usually not worth the trouble.

OH GOD I FUCKING HATE THAT.

Yeah, what I generally do is, I work in Word97, formatting as I prefer. I then search/replace all the indents to make line breaks, then copy-paste the whole thing into the LJ HTML thing. I then use 'Find' to manually put in all the formatting. (Italics, mostly. Centering ellipses tends to cause breakage in crossposting and fuck it.)

Thankfully, popping it in plain text doesn't seem to wreck the apostrophes. And now I have Notepad++ to do all my website HTML coding, so I haven't had that problem so much anymore.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2015-01-19 10:57 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

lb_lee - 2015-01-20 00:29 (UTC) - Expand

I usually code html in Notepad.

(no subject)

othellia - 2015-01-19 07:19 (UTC) - Expand

It really doesn't help that I have to manually do all the HTML formatting myself for all my writing. (Word 97. Sigh.)

Have you tried using them convert Word documents to HTML tool thingies? Love these things, I'm always pretty careless about formatting myself but these things just do all the work for me. Only problem I noticed is that it adds those p line break tags which is fine for ao3 but gives me double spaces on LJ/DW, but I can just pop it back into Word, use the 'find and replace' tool to get rid of them all, and they're all ready for LJ/DW posting.

(no subject)

lb_lee - 2015-01-19 16:12 (UTC) - Expand

This so much.

Nothing embarrasses me more than missing typos and I'm always grateful when someone takes a moment to point them to me; same with silly mistakes that are easily fixable.
Plotholes when I write log fic are my other fear, since I rarely can get a beta to help me avoid them (I blame it on being into small fandoms).

Concrit about anything else stings in a way the previous stuff doesn't and it's easy to just say "that's subjective!" and use that as an excuse to ignore it.

I had a hard time learning to accept it and learn from it, but now I can take a breath and try to reexamine the fic from the reader's perspective without such a knee jerk reflex.
Even when I don't agree fully with their concrit, that can still help me to learn something new.

Well, now I just want fic about logs.

(log fic typo is awesome)

And I have that Ren & Stimpy song running through my head.

What's great for a snack and fits on your back? Log, log, log.

Maybe they write Twin Peaks Log Lady fic?

...I wish they wrote Twin Peaks Log Lady fic.

AYRT

And now I want it too.

A LOG: MY STORY

(Anonymous) - 2015-01-19 01:09 (UTC) - Expand

Re: A LOG: MY STORY

(Anonymous) - 2015-01-19 01:43 (UTC) - Expand

~It's lo-og, lo-og,
It's big, it's heavy it's wood!
It's lo-og, lo-og,
I's better than bad, it's good!~

(I love that piece.)

Some of the greatest art advice I ever got was from my younger brother, who will proudly announce he has all the creative artistry of a bowl of yogurt.

See, back when he was maybe in his early teens, he watched me draw over my shoulder, and said, "Have you ever noticed you only draw skinny or normal people?"

I clutched my high-school pearls. HOW DARE YOU. YOU'RE INTERROGATING MY ART FROM THE WRONG PERSPECTIVE. And then I hastily beat a retreat and started changing that because when a twelve-year-old boy knows you're full of shit, it's time to change.

I tend not to feel the sting too much? But then again, my fans have all been really nice, and their critique has always been thoughtful and interesting, even when I personally don't agree or choose not to follow their advice. They're not out to ruin my day, they're just giving me feedback in a way I can use. It'd probably be another thing entirely if I got someone trolling me.

AYRT

"They're not out to ruin my day, they're just giving me feedback"

Exactly!
Most people who take the time to give any kind of detailed feedback usually meant well.
They aren't always right, but in these times clicking "like" is the most people do to express themselves, people who say something that is not 100% praise are just giving a new perspective and hope their opinion can help.

Trolls just flame thing without even caring if any of their "critique" makes sense and are rude enough that it's easy to know they're just trolls.

(no subject)

lb_lee - 2015-01-19 02:30 (UTC) - Expand

My favorite type of crit (to get and to give) is plot-related, but I think it's also one of the most difficult. You need somebody who has a good head for plot, but who also has good enough rapport with you that you they know to help you make the plot into the plot you actually *want* and not just "oh it would be cool if this happened".

Plothole-fixing is also very touchy in that many people get extremely defensive if you find a serious plothole, because that can involve rewriting a lot, or having to rethink everything. Again, to my mind it's worth fixing, but still. Touchy business.

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