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snowballjane's journal got me thinking - how many betas do people like to use?
Two is about the right number for me, any more than that and I tend to get a bit swamped with other people's opinions. Basically, I get confused and distracted, especially if people tell me conflicting things. Making objective decisions about what works and what doesn't in my own fiction is very difficult. It's so much easier with other people's!
But I've seen people thanking whole strings of people for beta'ing and wonder how they manage the process. I can see that having betas for different things makes sense, not only because it splits the work down into smaller chunks for them, but also because I can attempt to mentally parcel things off, as in 'these are grammar comments, these are plot comments, etc'. Not that things ever work that smoothly, really.
Also, the length of the story seems to make a difference to me. Shorter things I tend not to bother getting checked. If you choose not to get something beta'd, what's your reason?
[Poll #330108]
snowballjane's journal got me thinking - how many betas do people like to use? Two is about the right number for me, any more than that and I tend to get a bit swamped with other people's opinions. Basically, I get confused and distracted, especially if people tell me conflicting things. Making objective decisions about what works and what doesn't in my own fiction is very difficult. It's so much easier with other people's!
But I've seen people thanking whole strings of people for beta'ing and wonder how they manage the process. I can see that having betas for different things makes sense, not only because it splits the work down into smaller chunks for them, but also because I can attempt to mentally parcel things off, as in 'these are grammar comments, these are plot comments, etc'. Not that things ever work that smoothly, really.
Also, the length of the story seems to make a difference to me. Shorter things I tend not to bother getting checked. If you choose not to get something beta'd, what's your reason?
[Poll #330108]
no subject
Date: 2004-08-02 07:07 pm (UTC)Good Omens and Discworld stuff usually only goes through
Dariafic, even though I haven't written any in a while, is somewhat different. You can put out a call for beta-readers and get eight to ten responses, and since not everyone ends up replying, it's helpful to have that many people available. There're some BRILLIANT beta-ers in the fandom, too.
Drabbles and most things close to that length don't normally get a beta-read, unless it's a gift for someone. If it's a gift, it gets a beta-read. (One RPage fic I couldn't get characterisation beta-ed because it was for that character's RPer, but she loved it anyway. XD)