[ SECRET POST #3872 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3872 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 07 secrets from Secret Submission Post #554.
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

[(Anonymous)]

nayry, but ayrt did say "generally", and I tend to agree. Authors who refuse to take ANY input about how they write tend to be rather crap at best and no wonder - they've given themselves a serious disadvantage when it comes to improvement! There are no writers who are so perfect and flawless that they're above constructive feedback. None.

In the meantime, I've been in fandom for a long time now and if I had a dollar for every writer who thought that they couldn't possibly take a suggestion from a beta lest their precious "style" or "voice" is compromised... ooh, I could retire and do nothing but read fanfic forever. And those authors? Yeah, they don't have much worth preserving, to be honest. It's more about protecting their egos than their writing. Constructive feedback from a good beta is one of the most valuable resources any writer has. It might not always be pleasant to hear, but it'll help you grow as a writer.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, but how many betas are actually qualified to edit and give constructive criticism as opposed to being regular people just like the author who also think they know how to write but may not actually have any more skill just a different opinion of what "good" is?

[(Anonymous)]

I've always wondered this. I mean, there are obviously going to be some people who know more about technique and can proofread grammar and nitpick continuity and etc better. But, as far as matters of taste go, aren't we all just peers, here?

I did creative writing courses in university, and the peer-editing was often LESS helpful than you'd think it would be. Half because you've got twenty different people giving you twenty different opinions on your work, and half because it seemed like everyone was just competing to prove that no, THEY were the best writer in the class.

I feel that "good" is so utterly subjective that you've really just got to take what's useful to you, when it comes to criticism, but not lose sight of the fact that your own tastes and opinions are also valid and important.

[(Anonymous)]

+111

[(Anonymous)]

Do what works for you. To me, beta "help" that tells me to write something different doesn't improve my style. It doesn't make me grow as a writer. It makes me try to balance not hurting someone's precious feelings while trying to write the story I want to write (which I can't without going against their advice). IDK. I know it works for some people. Good for them. But I've been writing for more than 20 years. I know more or less how I roll by now. *shrug* There really is no one size fits all, whatever y'all want to say.

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT didn't say they don't take ANY input about how they write. They just said they don't take input about how they write their plots and characters. That still leaves quite a lot of area on which they will accept input.

We also don't know exactly what AYRT means by that. I mean, one form of advice might be: "The way this character goes from calm to sobbing sorrowfully in this scene feels very abrupt and a bit awkward. I think the emotions of the scene would land better if you incorporated his emotional transition a little more smoothly into the text." Is that character input, or something else? To me that feels more like input on the writing itself. As opposed to something like: "I think Character A is coming across too emotive and vulnerable, here especially, but also throughout the rest of the fic. I think the reader may find it hard to believe this is really him, as he's so much more stoic than this in canon." Here we have a piece of input that may well be correct, but if the writer wants Character A to be more emotive and vulnerable in their fic, then being told it's OOC to write him that way isn't going to help them any.

Of course, a really good beta is usually able to identify what the writer's intent is, and do their best to accommodate that (for example, accepting the OOC characterization if it's how the writer wants the character to be, while still smoothing out the writing so that the characterization - however OOC - remains stable, consistent, and relatively believable throughout). That said, a really good beta is - understandably - sometimes hard to find.