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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: 2004-08-03 04:08 pm (UTC)... Of course, that's not because I think I'm too good for a beta reader (far from it!) but because I can't find any.
me: I've just finished [latest fic]! Would anyone like to beta it?
lj: *crickets*
The closest I came was to have a friend look over my latest before I posted it. (Thankfully, she is feared in two fandoms for being a 'evil bitch' with impossibly high standards.)
(Of course, then I stumble across a fic that has had *five* betas go over it and still sucks like a vacuum. It makes me wonder sometimes if I even *need* a beta, since it didn't seem to have helped that author. *shrug*)