~~ when self-betas go bad

[reenka]

I just found a reference to something the person claimed was one of writing's oldest rules: Finish your first draft.

I've never heard of this being a "rule" before. Are there more rules where that came from? Something like, "make sure you always make the character's motivations clear" or "go over the text and look for cliches" or "construct a time-table and see where everything fits" or "make sure you know what the other character's motivations are even if you never mention them" or something (see, those are things a beta wouldn't bother with, but I have to do anyway). Or are those too vague and general? I mean, those are things I just do -naturally-, without thinking about it, but maybe it'd be helpful to have it in list form?

So this is your chance to tell me what to do, or something like it. I'm currently in the self-editing stages of a fic, and even though I feel it's -done-, I'm vaguely dissatisfied with it, but the inspiration to write new things for it and really rethink it is gone. I was just wondering if there are some things you -do- ... like a writer's postfactum check-list toolkit sort of thing. Yes, a check-list; that sounds all organized and writerly (well, to my easily impressionable ears).

I realize this sounds like the job for a beta, but the fact is... I have some sort of mental road-block with being beta'd. First of all, it's such a Big Deal to even ask anyone, and then... I find that by the time they get back to me, my original rush of inspiration to edit had gone and I procrastinate to the point that I don't feel like doing -anything- with the fic anymore. I think with enough discipline and capacity for obsessive attention to detail, one can be one's own editor, especially if one has the capacity to look critically at one's work, which I think I do. Plus, the grammar end of things is pretty easy-- if I don't know it all, then I can find out.

Most people's "beta problems" are because they're so protective of their work or are afraid of harsh criticism, and I'm neither. Most people aren't harsh enough for me, but that's not the point; thing is, few people will pay as much attention to my work as I do. The writing and editing both are usually processes built on the same burst of inspiration; I work continuously, writing the first draft and then prodding and fixing and editing as the inspiration strikes. After that rush of movement, I generally lose all interest, so in the end I generally settle for a critique more than an edit. If this makes me sound lazy, that's probably because I am.

And then I thought... maybe what I need more than a beta is more -structure-... some sort of plan to follow, some sort of rules that I can use to self-edit 'cause clearly that's what comes naturally to me. All writers self-edited traditionally, didn't they? At least on the level most people beta: the basic self-consistency and grammar level, rather than a deeper mechanics of the story itself, in which case one rethinks basic plot-points and characterizations (which I admit one could always use outside help with).

So then... what is your check-list? Do you -have- a check-list? Am I on crack? (You don't have to answer that last one; it's pretty obvious anyway.)

Comments

[shatterglass.livejournal.com]

I usually go through and find the parts which make me slightly bored to read. Chances are the reader won't find them very interesting. I also edit out extra crap I put in dialogue - too many synonyms for "said" or more than one adverb per page. :P Per hundred pages, I wish I could make myself do. That's all I can think of off the top of my head... :)

[addictedkitten.livejournal.com]

Self-betaing, ahahahahahaha. I would help you on that, but usually by the time I finish a fic I'm so tired of it that I don't even give it a readthrough, just send it off to betas. That's what they're there for, man. I edit as I go, which is why it's so goddamn hard to revise, because I'm usually like no, I've done what I can for this sentence, I can't do anymore, THE HEART'S STOPPED, CALL TIME, etc. Sometimes I read outloud to myself, though. That can be helpful for flow issues and the like.

My point is: do you still want me to do that beta, or has the editing desire fled and you'd ignore it? Cos I haven't done it yet (busy, man! lifesohardetc.) and I won't if you don't think you'll use it. Although I can't promise I won't "!!!1" at you in the comments and make all the other commenters think I'm Satan muahahahaha.

~~ when self-beta's go bad

I find it perversely amusing that you have a grammar mistake in the subject line of a post about self-editing. *cackles* This self-beta- does it possess something? Is it something? Heart, Reena.

[dahlia-777.livejournal.com]

The final thing I do before posting a chapter is give it a fast read - just a skim, really. This is to find out how smoothly it reads. It's a good way to spot jarring words, or clumsy sentences, or paragraphs that have the wrong rhythm.

[eleveninches.livejournal.com]

I think she possibly means you can't properly beta an entire fic if you don't know how it's going to end? Flow and all that jazz.

[spare-change.livejournal.com]

I have a huge list of rules ... there are a lot of line-editing rules, of the sort that everyone mentions (no adverbs, not overwriting), but then I have all these structural principles as well ....

I just cannot begin to go into all the different things I demand of my writing. I Just. Cannot. Begin. To Say.

All I will do is point out that I don't ever post anything, as a result.

So I always thought betas were to keep you from becoming like me. Betas were to keep you from editing and self-censoring yourself into oblivion, and tug the text out of your hand and say, "It's fine!!!"

But you know, very independently I came up with the idea of finish your first drafts, and this is because I usually don't have the stamina to write a first draft at one go. And it's always easier to edit than push forward. So what happens is that I end up with a piece that is polished, except missing one scene, but the problem is that the inspiration that first motivated the piece is gone. So I can't really go back and write the scene, because whenever I try to return to the story I end up rewriting it entirely. This is also why I have so much fic on my hard drive that I never finished and posted. I can see, now, that if I had forced myself to get the idea fully fleshed out on paper first (i.e. a fulll first draft), before I started cleaning it up and polishing it so obsessively, maybe I would have been able to finish it. It's just that, unfortunately, when I have an idea for a scene I want to get it all out (esp. dialogue), so I end up writing is all down as quickly as possible, with lots of placeholders for various things, and then later I get lazy and don't feel like filling bits in. If I slow down, then I lose inspiration.

In any event, I don't know why you really need a structure or a checklist if you are already asking yourself the right questions anyway. And, from what you've written above, I think you are. There are plenty of books available, but I am always loathe to recommend them to people 'cos I think they are overwhelming and tend to suffocate the muse.

As for being able to return to your work after the first rush of inspiration has hit ... well, this is just about discipline, isn't it? We seem to have similar problems, it's just that we get tripped up in different ways.

And about the larger question about whether a beta is necessary at all ... the necessity of a fresh eye ... I've heard people argue not only that the author is unequipped to judge her own fics, but only someone who doesn't share her kinks is capable of editing them. That makes no sense to me. I think that the only standards that matter are the author's own, and you need to find a beta who is shares your kinks and is interested in helping you be the best writer YOU can be, rather than try to force you into a different mold. I think being a beta requires you to check your ego at the door in a way very few people are willing to do. It's absolutely exhausting.

That's actually the practical reason why I don't have a beta ... (a) not a lot of folks share my kinks, and those that do, whose writing I like, are not necessarily willing to beta for me, and (b) I may have zero confidence in my own writing, but I do have 100% faith in my taste.

What I want, basically, is another Me. Who can tell Me if I am actually living up to My Own standards. Because sometimes it is hard to tell.

*head spins dizzily*

But I think you may be similar in that you do have pretty strong ideas about your ambitions for your work, and your goal is to live up to them, rather than to something else altogether. Am I right?

sorry for the early morning ramble ... *makes coffee*

:smacks you HARD:

[ishuca.livejournal.com]

i have emailed you about this.

[bookshop.livejournal.com]

just one, and that is:

If you are writing a LONG story, i.e. anything that is more than one chapter, do not start writing unless you have an outline.

drabbles and one-shots and other spontaneous fics are fine. but if you are writing a WIP, DO NOT START WITHOUT AN OUTLINE. even if it's just a mental one.

people who say, "and after that, eh, i figured i'd just write and see where the story took me," are people who end up writing themselves into corners, or not finishing their epic stories after they hit like chapter 20-something. i am a firm believer that you should know exactly where you're going before you start writing a novel, and that the outline is your roadmap of how to get there. that's not to say that you can't change and grow through the story--but any time you are dealing with plot, you *must* be able to know at any given point in the story what conclusion you are working towards.

So. that's my only rule. :) Thanks for asking--am enjoying everybody's responses.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Yeah, see... I'm tired of it now... but! Not so tired that I wouldn't edit it in the next few days. I can never tell, that's the problem. Like... I prolly should work on things even when I -am- tired. 'Cause I get tired (and sick of my own fics) really easily. Like, when I'm writing, it's all flow & it's easy, but then it's like ERGH GO TO HELL YOU EBIL MONSTER.

Anyway, yeah, I still wannit. I've edited a bit since then, but sluggishly. I'm very sluggish with it. I dunno why. A part of me thinks it sucks, but a part of me doesn't. It's doing funny things to my motivation, y'know? On the one hand, I don't wanna just -stop-, but on the other, I don't love it. Eh :/

I know how you feel, about the doing-what-you-can. That's how I feel all the time. But... see... Ishuca's been away for so long and everyone else I can ask... it's a Big Deal, y'know. Like... I have to go and sound convincing and... I dunno. You intimidate me, eheheh. *coughs* But yeah. My point is that I wanna know what you think, still~:)

And also... I almost never make that mistake. The word "beta" is the one that I do it with, generally, 'cause I don't think of it as a word... like, it's a fake word. I'm not sure how to end it. Like, "betaed" looks wrong, you know, even if it isn't. I feel like I'm making things up either way; I'm just uncomfortable not knowing the correct ending for it. Um. But yeah. -.-

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

I tend to only say "said" and the rest is... if I really feel it's something else. I think the synonyms are more difficult to think up than not to think up, for me anyway. And also, it always breaks the flow.

Now I'm paranoid about the boring parts. 'Cause some parts are boring to different people, but it takes a while before I'm distant enough from the fic to judge effectively. At the editing-craze point, I'm generally interested in every part. *sigh* So much for being critical of oneself ^^;

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Hehe, I think the guy was referring to the practice of writing a starting paragraph & then throwing it out & starting over and over again. Not that I do that, myself. I just -quit-, I don't try again, ahahah ^^;

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

OMG THAT IS SO MY PROBLEM!!1 *weeps*
What is the solution to that? What, what, what?? Er. I mean... the whole thing where I have some specific scenes missing but the inspiration is gone. DUDE. That is what's killing my WIP, y'know, my baby, my darling, the one I'm so ridiculously proud of (and also all the other pretty-damn-good-but-with-holes one-shots I have). It's always... I know pretty much what has to go where, and then I think my mind decides I'm done, and then... and then I never do anything with it again, except think about it all the time and pat myself on the back about how good it -could- have been. Which is Not Good, but.... I don't know how to stop ><

I slow down! Exactly it! Getting it all out on paper!! Me too!! That's what happened with my chaptered fic, man! WOE!! Gah! There must be a solution! Besides being doomed to a) never finishing or b) rewriting... 'cause... it is my best work. Well, I think so. I don't want it to molder and die. *sigh* I had this burst of manic energy for like, 3 weeks in August, and then... it ran out, y'know, and I wasn't quite done yet. I didn't get bogged down in editing, the plot was just growing at a rate faster than I could keep up with, so I kept having place-holders and running to put -this- scene in or -that- scene in, and then I burnt out. Wah.

I know exactly what you mean about another You. That's exactly what I was thinking about, what with the "attention" I was talking about. It's not that I'm so critical of myself, but just that everything that goes into what I write... who really knows all that? And don't you need to know that to really tell me what I'm missing? I mean, I -want- a beta, I just want a beta who -knows- my writing and -me- to an extent that seems impractical, y'know?

Yes, anyway, we do have very similar problems. I just... want -solutions-, 'cause the horrid spectre of No Inspiration just drives me up the wall, especially when I -care- about whether it gets done or not (often enough I just throw up my hands and move on to the next fic, 'cause there's -always- the Next Fic, for me).

Generally, I don't start a story with an ambition for it... usually I operate through some random burst of inspiration... but there's another level, definitely... like... where I'd like to go (in general), which makes me dissatisfied with some stories. I definitely haven't been able to merge my ambitions with my output very well, 'cause my output is so unconscious, yet I think about my writing so much. It's a source of a lot of frustration. I don't know how to follow my "ideals" or even my ideas. Generally, I listen to what each particular story tells me... and most times I have to be really patient, too, 'cause often enough it takes its own sweet time to tell me what's going on.

I dunno about -kinks-, though, exactly, 'cause I don't necessarily even -notice- my kinks in my writing (porny as a lot of it is). I mean... I write weird stuff, but it seems... I dunno, within the bounds of the normal, or something? Okay, no it's not. Heh. But... I want to be more normal, more comprehensible anyway. I do want someone who -understands- what I'm doing, trying to do, and -not- doing, and I think that's what you meant anyway. And dude, that sounds like the nirvana I'll never reach. -.-

But it's nice not to fell alone :D

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Heheh. Sometimes I find that knowing it leads me to either get bored with the plot or, if I take time out, to forget exactly what I was going for and thus be stuck and unmotivated 'cause I feel I'm doomed since I've forgotten and thus cannot do anything. But that certainly sounds like common sense, since that was what killed my first chaptered fic. Then again, I almost -never- know what I'm doing, and when I do, it generally intimidates me into not doing it 'cause I'm paranoid I won't live up to my own hype -.-

Although I would say that I can't -help- but know where I'm going after a certain point, if things are going right. Having the patience to actually go there is another thing entirely -.-

[bookshop.livejournal.com]

I almost -never- know what I'm doing, and when I do, it generally intimidates me into not doing it

well, i really do think that sometimes it helps to let yourself be surprised. also, you mostly tend to write one-shots, and i really like writing one-shots without an idea of what i'm going to say. I sat down, for instance, to write one of the original fics yesterday, and found myself staring at a totally surprising first sentence that came from god knows where, and I absolutely loved it and have been having a total blast with the fic ever since, even though I'm not sure where I'm going to end up. but i view those things as being sort of, moments of tiny epiphany, not something you can necessarily regenerate every time you sit down to write.

The most successful short story that i ever wrote (which i actually talked about earlier today in a reply to ontheside--let me know if you'd like me to c/p part of that comment here and I will) had a writing process that was pretty unique. I had all the ingredients of the story because it was a writing project for a creative writing class, and we'd had to research the facts we were basing the story on from newspaper articles and magazines from a certain period of time. And I had all the characters in place and just had this universe in my head for two weeks. For two weeks I just sort of thought about the characters and the setting and the story, without really any idea of how it all fit together, and what I was going to say. And then I sat down and finally started to write, and it was really like the narrative voice of the story took over and literally started telling me what happened. The character was also something of a real bitch, and I had never written a character like her, with as much depth, before, so the entire experience was one of spontaneity joined with surprise, and a really memorable one.

All that is to say that I think there can be a definite advantage to *not* knowing where you want to go, and letting the story take you there. And I know what you mean about being intimidated by knowledge--there are so many times that I feel like I've bitten off more than I can chew, and what I *want* to write is far beyond my ability to pull off.

But I also think that writing through the intimidation and the fear--and yes, also the impatience, which is a huge problem for me, too--is what helps us become disciplined and confident as writers. "Trade" was a hideously different and poorer fic this time last year than it was when I finally posted it. And I am really really happy that I committed myself to working through all the difficulties and issues I was having with it, because I know I am ten times prouder of the finished product than the one I originally sent to beta. And, I know you understand that, but I just want to encourage you not to be intimidated or afraid, because you'll never know what you're capable of as a writer unless you stretch your limits. You seem to be really good generally about wanting to do that, so I would think that you would benefit a lot from pushing past your misgivings about where you *want* a fic to go, and seeing what happens when you consciously attempt to take it there.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, I wasn't talking about short stories, but it's not like I -mean- to write one-shots or anything, it's just that I don't know how to marshall my energy & stay focused through the process of following through on the many longer-fic ideas I have. I mean, some people naturally think in smaller terms or something, I'm sure, but.... Er. I'm not like that. I'm just... undisciplined (and/or lazy).

The only way I meant short stories intimidate me is after beta. When the inspiration has run dry and yet I feel like it's a Really Good Story (or so my betas tell me), so I feel I -should- finish, and yet now I'm all flatfooted and feeling like I have something to live up to and also my fire tends to have been severly banked by that point. Usually these are the stories with some sort of plot. Oh boy. -.-

See, the reason the fandom (and you) thinks that I write non-plotty short fics is because that's all that gets -finished- and I generally don't even get them beta-read, y'know. So no pressure. But I write a host of things I never actually finish, which is my problem.

I'm still patiently waiting for the moment an original fic plot/characters clicks enough for me to feel inspired near as much as fanfic inspires me. I can come up with both plot & characters on the drop of a hat, and I can equally easily discard it all. I mean, it matters in a sort of theoretical way, but there's no urgency to it. With the whole exercise-like nature of fanfic ("I'm trying for -this- aspect of -this- in this fic") and the whole built-in audience thing... I'm much more pushed along.

But anyway, um. Yeah I'm curious about the comment~:)

[bookshop.livejournal.com]

I generally do that too, and when I don't, as sometimes happens when I'm posting a one-shot in a hurry, I always go back and re-read later and see tons of little things I should change, just to make the story flow better. I'm a little obsessed with the rhythm of words, I think.