Love Is For Children - Creative Support Group

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15 October 2012 @ 04:17 pm

Creative Support Group - The Beta Edition

I’ve been on both sides of the writer-beta relationship and both come with lots of questions. I thought maybe we could have some discussion :)

> Finding a beta: always awkward. Do you leave a message on your own journal or on a community and hope that someone’s interested? Is it too cheeky to send someone a private message asking them? Is there beta etiquette?

(I noticed that a fair amount of people said on the Secret Santa post that they would be happy to beta. If there are people on the comm who beta, what would you think about maybe setting up a kind of beta directory for writers looking for betas?)

> Being a beta: has it’s own worries. How harsh do writers want you to be? How thorough? What kind of help are they looking for? What kind of help do betas offer?

> Keeping a beta: is there an etiquette on how many times you can ask someone to look over the same fic? Is there etiquette for how long a beta can take to look it over? Can you have more than one beta at a time? If one beta says one thing and the other something different what do you do? Do you introduce them to each other? If you need a beta again in the future do you have to start all over again or can you email the same beta and ask, ‘um, remember me?’

I’m guessing a lot of this is personal and that there are a lot of different views, and that I’ve missed a lot of questions, so bring on the discussion! And if you’re looking for a beta this could be a good place to start :)

Tags: beta directory, creative support group, discussion post, questions

133 comments | Leave a comment

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lar_laughs.livejournal.com on October 15th, 2012 05:33 pm (UTC)

Ohhhhhhh! Please, please, please make me a Commas By Debate icon!!!!!!!!! Not only should it be the name of a geeky alternative college band but it feels like my life! I seem to be such a stickler about commas that I correct bound books. Like ACTUALLY correct them. With a pen.

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shenshen77.livejournal.com on October 15th, 2012 05:54 pm (UTC)

Just replying for the spaces here, it is only one after a full stop, has been ever since I took a typing class in school in the late 90s :) But that is also one of the biggest issues of my colleague who is 18 years my senior, she frequently uses two, it drives me nuts ;) But the commas issue, that is not really an issue, I take the same approach, commas are up for debate.

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inkvoices on October 15th, 2012 06:24 pm (UTC)

I've been dredging my brain trying to figure out why I think that it's too spaces and the only thing I can come up with is that when I learnt to write, as in handwritten writing, we were taught to leave a bigger gap after the full stop than between words. Maybe that's where I've carried it on from? It's how I've always typed academic work and office work things as well though. Bah.

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shenshen77.livejournal.com on October 15th, 2012 06:49 pm (UTC)

That sound like a reasonable enough explanation. I don't think most people would mind, I am just a little OCD with spaces and grammar and such *grins*

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lar_laughs.livejournal.com on October 15th, 2012 07:28 pm (UTC)

When I took typing (as in on a typewriter, dear things) it was two spaced. It was changed when computers came along because the spacing is different or something very nearly like that.

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http://users.livejournal.com/_samalander/ on October 16th, 2012 12:44 am (UTC)

I'ma geek but - it actually goes back to the really early forms of typesetting, when they used different blocks, and carried over to typewriters. It's mostly been phased out with computers, but there are proponents of both ways. I don't think it matters, so long as you're consistent.

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themadramblings.livejournal.com on October 16th, 2012 11:17 am (UTC)

I was reading about this recently and it had to do with the width of each letter being the same so that the eye could only discern the change in sentence by double spacing.

This (http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/concepts/rules_onespace.html) explains it better than me.

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inkvoices on October 16th, 2012 08:04 pm (UTC)

Interesting! Thank you :D

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inkvoices on October 16th, 2012 08:05 pm (UTC)

I can be consistent! And I can be consistently wrong :D

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scribblemyname on April 14th, 2014 08:00 pm (UTC)

It's a holdover from typewriters and monospaced fonts where it aided readability just like paragraph indents.

With computers and font choices, two spaces are just not necessary. I started grammar right when the change was being formalized.

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inkvoices on October 15th, 2012 06:06 pm (UTC)

Geeky alternative college band, haha, YES :D

How are these:

I'll fall back on Strunk and White if I'm unsure, but my main criteria are readability and effect - does it make sense and does it read the way you wanted, or have the emphasis that you wanted. I don't care if someone I'm beta-ing for disagrees with my comma corrections as long as they have a reason and can defend it. Democratic grammar for the win.

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lar_laughs.livejournal.com on October 15th, 2012 07:26 pm (UTC)

To you, thank you, thank you! *hugs them close*

I've tried to go with readability and not just "but they told us to put a comma here BECAUSE" whenever I'm working on something for someone else. Well, actually I waver between the two sides which I'm sure can be frustrating for the person on the other end.

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http://lar_laughs.livejournal.com/: Commas by Debate

lar_laughs.livejournal.com on October 16th, 2012 05:05 am (UTC)

I once decided that to be a good writer, I needed to be a proper writer. I'm ever so glad that got beaten out of me. It made my English teacher so very happy, though! That does mean that Strunk and White used to be my bible. I've been meaning to get a new edition on my Kindle.

I think I've gotten to the point where I don't care if people take my beta suggestions or not. As long as I've done my job to the best of my ability, I'm happy. It's up to them to decide what they take or leave behind.

Come see
COMMAS BY DEBATE
at the Student Union
Friday, midnight

I think I've discovered my College/Rock Group/Coffee Shop AU. *grins*

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inkvoices on October 16th, 2012 08:08 pm (UTC)

I have a copy, but I don't check it half as often as I should *grins*.

It's up to them to decide what they take or leave behind. Exactly! At the end of the day it's their writing and I'm just a sounding board :)

Come see
COMMAS BY DEBATE
at the Student Union
Friday, midnight

I think I've discovered my College/Rock Group/Coffee Shop AU. *grins*

OH MY HEART, YES PLEASE! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE YES PLEASE :D

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