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Jul. 16th, 2011 01:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
turpsHaven came back last night! I've missed that show and its threesome of awesome. Sadly the copy I downloaded wouldn't unzip so I still haven't actually seen it. But soon.
Its been raining all morning, but I've already been out to the shops and the clothes are drying in the tumbler so I can kick back and just chill now, or you know, frantically write being as wave 2 deadline is less than a week away.
On tumblr someone was asking if this version of Na Na Na was different, and watching it I got hit by a wave of happiness as I remembered the glee when, after so long with nothing, the teaser video hit, and then the squee when the actual video itself arrived. So much has happened since then, but one thing hasn't, I still love this band and this fandom so much.
24 – Betaing – How many betas do you like to use to make sure there aren't any major flaws in your fic? Do you have a Beta horror story or dream story?
I'm really lucky because I've had a core group of betas who've been there for me through both popslash and bandom. I will post ficlets without using a beta, but for bigger stories I'll always get them beta read, and then checked again for Briticisms as my main bandom beta is English too. And in fact, most of my main popslash betas were English, so it's become habit to get that last check over as there's always something I miss.
Okay, stories. Let's start with the tree story. I wrote When Day Is Night Alone fast, it pretty much took over my life for a while and by the time I'd finished I wanted that story done and posted.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
arsenicjade had been a star and was reading along in Gdocs, and I remember in email she brought up trees. In one of the scenes Spencer and Ryan had jumped from a moving truck and rolled into a forest at the bottom of the bank. Arsenic pointed out that the location they were in had no trees. And I remember sitting there being boggled by that idea, because everywhere has trees. So I re-wrote, and made it less of a forest and more just some trees at the side of the road where they could hide out. Again, I got the comment no trees. It's totally flat there, so I had to re-write again turning trees into a corn field. Which shows why I do always have a beta because it had never crossed my mind that some places could be treeless.
Another time I had to re-write multiple times was in Sound Tracking.nopseud was a beta on that, and she's one of the best, the kind that lets you get away with nothing. It was the scene where Ray and Matt were being saved from the slave planet, and I just couldn't get that scene written well, it was a high action scene followed by a bit of hallucination and the action part was killing me. I lost count of how many times I re-wrote and got it sent back saying it still didn't work. It's one time I've been close to cutting something out completely, and I was having malicious thoughts of just leaving Ray on that planet.
But as frustrating as it was, I ended up with something I love, and that's because I had someone willing to push until I got there. Those kind of betas are the best.
And I'll add this one even though the people that know this story tend to laugh at me.themoononastick is an incredible beta, supportive always but won't let me get away with being lazy. The main thing we have issues with is that I'm horrible at writing endings, which lead to her telling me something I'll always remember, that something I'd written wasn't h/c but h/lesser hurt. And she was right, because I get to the end of a story, know someone is going to be okay and think it's okay to end it there. Then themoononastick comes along with her flashing, big text 'needs more comfort' comment, and I end up writing thousands more words.
The worst was probably in The Trails that I Follow where I had Bob be rescued in the med helicopter and be sent on his way to hospital, even though he had a collapsed lung and other such stuff. In my mind he was safe and that was in the end, I was told in no uncertain terms that my thinking was wrong *g*
A good beta is something that's very hard to find, and I treasure the ones that I have/had. They'll support, point out your mistakes without making you feel like an idiot, and will read stuff that isn't to their taste ( I've scarred poor Sperrywink many times I'm sure ) They do a lot of work and get very little credit which is why I'm sending a ♥ to every person who's beta read for me in any way. &betas;
Its been raining all morning, but I've already been out to the shops and the clothes are drying in the tumbler so I can kick back and just chill now, or you know, frantically write being as wave 2 deadline is less than a week away.
On tumblr someone was asking if this version of Na Na Na was different, and watching it I got hit by a wave of happiness as I remembered the glee when, after so long with nothing, the teaser video hit, and then the squee when the actual video itself arrived. So much has happened since then, but one thing hasn't, I still love this band and this fandom so much.
24 – Betaing – How many betas do you like to use to make sure there aren't any major flaws in your fic? Do you have a Beta horror story or dream story?
I'm really lucky because I've had a core group of betas who've been there for me through both popslash and bandom. I will post ficlets without using a beta, but for bigger stories I'll always get them beta read, and then checked again for Briticisms as my main bandom beta is English too. And in fact, most of my main popslash betas were English, so it's become habit to get that last check over as there's always something I miss.
Okay, stories. Let's start with the tree story. I wrote When Day Is Night Alone fast, it pretty much took over my life for a while and by the time I'd finished I wanted that story done and posted.
arsenicjade had been a star and was reading along in Gdocs, and I remember in email she brought up trees. In one of the scenes Spencer and Ryan had jumped from a moving truck and rolled into a forest at the bottom of the bank. Arsenic pointed out that the location they were in had no trees. And I remember sitting there being boggled by that idea, because everywhere has trees. So I re-wrote, and made it less of a forest and more just some trees at the side of the road where they could hide out. Again, I got the comment no trees. It's totally flat there, so I had to re-write again turning trees into a corn field. Which shows why I do always have a beta because it had never crossed my mind that some places could be treeless.Another time I had to re-write multiple times was in Sound Tracking.
nopseud was a beta on that, and she's one of the best, the kind that lets you get away with nothing. It was the scene where Ray and Matt were being saved from the slave planet, and I just couldn't get that scene written well, it was a high action scene followed by a bit of hallucination and the action part was killing me. I lost count of how many times I re-wrote and got it sent back saying it still didn't work. It's one time I've been close to cutting something out completely, and I was having malicious thoughts of just leaving Ray on that planet.But as frustrating as it was, I ended up with something I love, and that's because I had someone willing to push until I got there. Those kind of betas are the best.
And I'll add this one even though the people that know this story tend to laugh at me.
themoononastick is an incredible beta, supportive always but won't let me get away with being lazy. The main thing we have issues with is that I'm horrible at writing endings, which lead to her telling me something I'll always remember, that something I'd written wasn't h/c but h/lesser hurt. And she was right, because I get to the end of a story, know someone is going to be okay and think it's okay to end it there. Then themoononastick comes along with her flashing, big text 'needs more comfort' comment, and I end up writing thousands more words.The worst was probably in The Trails that I Follow where I had Bob be rescued in the med helicopter and be sent on his way to hospital, even though he had a collapsed lung and other such stuff. In my mind he was safe and that was in the end, I was told in no uncertain terms that my thinking was wrong *g*
A good beta is something that's very hard to find, and I treasure the ones that I have/had. They'll support, point out your mistakes without making you feel like an idiot, and will read stuff that isn't to their taste ( I've scarred poor Sperrywink many times I'm sure ) They do a lot of work and get very little credit which is why I'm sending a ♥ to every person who's beta read for me in any way. &betas;
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Date: 2011-07-16 02:46 pm (UTC)But yeah, batas are amazing, putting in a lot of work and don't even get comments afterwards.