[ 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

[lb_lee]

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.

[(Anonymous)]

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.

[(Anonymous)]

SA

Aaaaaand in the finest display of irony ever...

"It'd" not "It's"

/cries/

[(Anonymous)]

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

[(Anonymous)]

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.

[lb_lee]

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.)

[(Anonymous)]

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.

[lb_lee]

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.

[(Anonymous)]

I HTML as I write these days. I don't use a lot of fancy formatting, mostly just italics and scene breaks, so it's still pretty easy to read and edit my work. Going back to change all the formatting later to HTML sounds like a way to drive me insane.

[lb_lee]

Enh, it's a case of old habits dying hard. I also make print versions of my stories sometimes, so HTMLing as I write would mean the story would print with HTML tags in it.

Sometimes, you just can't win.

[(Anonymous)]

I usually code html in Notepad.

[othellia]

This. Well, actually I use textwranger (windows equivalent would be notepad++). It's literally MADE for html and other programming language coding.

[badass_tiger]

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.

[lb_lee]

Ooh, this does look handy! I might have to check it out!

[(Anonymous)]

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.

[(Anonymous)]

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.

[(Anonymous)]

Maybe they write Twin Peaks Log Lady fic?

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

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

And now I want it too.

A LOG: MY STORY

[(Anonymous)]

I was just playing Fire Emblem: Awakening. One of the playable weapons in the game is a log, although it's pretty terrible for damage. I'm imagining a hurt/comfort fic from one of those logs' point of view.

A LOG: MY STORY

Handed down from fighter to fighter, abandoned whenever a better weapon comes along. Finally, after many battles, this humble log shatters into a thousand tiny splinters.

As those splinters are trodden into the mud, the log turns up and sees his king, finally victorious against the evil dragon. The log's wooden heart swells in joy. Sap rises to his knots. Given a chance, even the humblest log can help save a kingdom.

Swelling music. Fade to black as the log's splinters return to the good soil of the land it loves.

Re: A LOG: MY STORY

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

I love you, anon. I just love you.

[mimi-sardinia.livejournal.com]

~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.)

[lb_lee]

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.

[(Anonymous)]

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.

[lb_lee]

Yeah. I LOVE when a fan gives me some long, thought-out feedback, even when it's to say, "I was disappointed in this story, and think you can do better." It's proof that they care enough about my work and my opinion to tell me! They want to see me succeed and become even better!

That's really humbling and awe-inspiring in my opinion, that my work can get that sort of interest and care from people.

[ketita]

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.