To beta or not to beta?

[azziria]

Interesting discussion over at powrhug's journal about a comment someone made about never reading a fic if the author didn't use a beta.

Personally, I never use a beta and never have.

Why don't I use one? If I'm honest, the main reason is largely due to insecurity and to not wanting to be a nuisance by asking anyone to do it (yes, I have issues, want to make something of it?).

There's also a big issue for me of the fic being *my* work and *my* ideas - I don't actually want anyone else's input. That's not arrogance, it's more that what I write for work isn't *mine*, it's a framework for many other people to hang their ideas off, so it often gets ripped to bits and changed over and over. My fanfic is the only thing I write that is mine and mine alone, and that I can do with as I will. (I do enjoy knocking fic ideas around with the like-minded, though!) If I were going to use a beta, it would have to be someone pretty much on my wavelength, and I don't know how easy that would be to find.

Plus, once a fic is done I want to post it and get it out of the way, I don't want it hanging around.

Of course, I write and edit (technical/medical stuff) for a living, so I'm pretty confident in my spelling and grammar. I'm also picky as hell. I'm not saying nothing ever gets through (the occasional British spelling or term, maybe), but on the whole I'm happy with what I post. I can't stand to read badly-spelled or grammatically-poor writing, and I pride myself that what I turn out isn't either of those.

But I don't make a big deal about announcing that I didn't use a beta for a fic. I have confidence that readers will judge by reading my work. If they don't like it, they can close the window, move on and avoid me in the future.

Comments

[shinysylver.livejournal.com]

One of my worst points is dialogue punctuation. I always did research papers in school and had forgotten how to do creative writing so I still catch myself using a "." when it should be a "," or capitalizing after a ?" when I should lower case.

But those are generally far from glaring and I will fix them as soon as I realize them. Besides, I've only had one beta that fixed them and she was a professional copy editor.

On a related topic, one of my biggest pet peeves is when people don't start a new paragraph for a new speaker. Not only is it wrong, it makes things very confusing and giant blocks of text are not fun for anyone.

Anyway, I honestly don't think some people read over their writing at all. I think they just hit post. A missing word is a mistake, a dozen is sloppy.

[azziria.livejournal.com]

As somebody who trained as a scientist and works as a technical scientific writer, dialogue punctuation is something I struggle with. However, at the end of the day what is most important is clarity - so long as it's clear who's speaking, so no-one is confused, it's not too bad and I can live with it.

And sometimes, of course (says she, starting a paragraph with 'and') you have to break the rules for dramatic effect... but then you should at least know that you're doing it!