Re: Reply to the replies on the memo

[Stephen Booth <stephenbooth@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 3 Apr 2001 21:57:18 -0000, you wrote:

>Now onto what Soren, Nyrond & Lurker pointed out, that finding plot holes
>and other bad things were the jobs of the beta's. This I disagree with, I
>use a beta to check through my writings to see if the conversation flows
>correctly, the spelling and grammar is doublechecked, but the plot is
>something that should be up to the writer alone to decide and the end reader
>to assess.
>	You should never have rely too heavily on your beta or betas. You are the
>author after all, the story is something you create and you should have
>faith in what you do. Not that I'm coming down on betas mind you, they serve
>a purpose and make life easier for both bards and readers alike. Also there
>can be a thin line between a beta and a co-writer.

I think that you have to be clear what you are looking for from a
beta. If you're just looking ofr a basic grammer/spell check then you
have to say so.  

Personally I see it as part of the job of a beta to basically do a
quality assurance type check of the fic, to make sure that it's clear
who does what in a fic (it can be very frustrating as a reader to have
an action decribed but not know who did it), to ensure that
motivations are clear, to make sure that there's no unreasonable
inconsitancies &c. I see the role of a beta as being closer to that
of an editor/copy editor than a co-writer (although the lines do blur
sometimes). You might disagree but if you don't say what you're
expecting then you might not get what you want.

I have betad for a number of people and it has varied from a
pleasurable experience to a very painful one. I distinctly remember
one story I betad that resulted in comments of about 3 times the
volume of the original. Whilst some were just reccomendations ("I
think that it would flow better if...") and were up to the writer to
use or ignore there were a lot of fairly major hard errors ranging
from fundemental inconsistancies both within the story and with accept
Jossverse fact and major spelling errors (from simple misspellings,
which a spellchecker should have picked up, to using totally the wrong
word (eg the common one of using 'except' instead of 'accept')). From
the response I got from the author it became very clear that what they
wanted from their beta was adulation and to be told that the fic was
perfect.

There is a similar problem with giving honest feedback, and I mean
actual honest feedback. A while back I sent some feedback directly
(ie off list) to an author on a fic they had posted to a list (not
this one) where I said that I'd enjoyed the fic but found it
distracting that it contained a lot of spelling errors ('except'
instead of 'accept', 'Sunnyvale' instead of 'Sunnydale', 'their'
instead of 'they're' &c) and continuity errors (Willow changed from
wearing jeans to a skirt in the time it took her to walk from Giles's
front door to sitting on his sofa in one scene). The author promptly
flamed me on list and emailed the listdad demanding that I be ejected
forthwith. The listdad emailed back (CCing to me) to say that he felt
that my comments had been fair, honest and positive, then ejected the
author for breach of the antiflaming rules (they'd been warned out
this before a couple of times). OK, so this is an extreme example but
I think that it illustrates the point.

On the other side of the coin I have also been flamed a few times for
giving honest positive feedback. It tends to make one gun shy.

Stephen
-- 

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