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My Five Stages of Beta
Sep. 26th, 2009 04:44 pmA few months ago I made the decision to not post or update any of my fanfics unless the whole thing was done ahead of time. The reason for doing so is to increase the quality of my writing, which has been pretty shoddy in the past (see the early chapters of Taking Sights for proof of that). A big part of making my writing better is using extensive beta reading during the production process. Detailed below are the five stages of my new beta reading process:
Stage 1: Rough -- This is a chapter or story in its rawest form, rife with spelling and grammatical errors. The early chapters of Taking Sights suffer from many errors because I didn't have anyone else beta for me back then. The one positive thing about Stage 1 is that the chapter is complete. Finishing shit is a big deal, y'know?
Stage 2: Gold Beta -- This is a chapter or story after its been proofread by at least two other people. Most if not all of the spelling and grammar errors should be corrected at this point. Any egregious story problems or OOCness will be also called out. Chapter 5-A of Facing Fearful Odds, for instance, underwent extensive revision after plot issues were pointed out to me.
Stage 3: Omega Edit -- This is a chapter or story that's proofread for sentence structure, pacing, and word choice. It's very nitty-gritty stuff and usually takes a long time to do. Chapters 1 and 2 of Facing Fearful Odds are currently undergoing this, and it's made quite a bit of difference.
Stage 4: Authorial Edit -- Once a story's completely in the can, an Authorial Edit happens. This is me reading over the whole story I've written and asking myself, "Did I tell this story the best way I could? Or can this sentence/paragraph/scene be improved?". Dialogue and scenes throughout the story are altered in order to tighten things up and unnecessary bits are trimmed off.
Stage 5: Final Proof -- Essentially a repeat of Gold Beta, intended to catch an errors on my part that pop up during the Authorial Edit.
And after all this stuff is done, the story -- of a much higher quality than it would otherwise be -- gets posted! Yayyyy! And even better, updates are regular and the whole story's done, so there's no fear of it turning into deadfic! Bigger Yayyyy!!
Stage 1: Rough -- This is a chapter or story in its rawest form, rife with spelling and grammatical errors. The early chapters of Taking Sights suffer from many errors because I didn't have anyone else beta for me back then. The one positive thing about Stage 1 is that the chapter is complete. Finishing shit is a big deal, y'know?
Stage 2: Gold Beta -- This is a chapter or story after its been proofread by at least two other people. Most if not all of the spelling and grammar errors should be corrected at this point. Any egregious story problems or OOCness will be also called out. Chapter 5-A of Facing Fearful Odds, for instance, underwent extensive revision after plot issues were pointed out to me.
Stage 3: Omega Edit -- This is a chapter or story that's proofread for sentence structure, pacing, and word choice. It's very nitty-gritty stuff and usually takes a long time to do. Chapters 1 and 2 of Facing Fearful Odds are currently undergoing this, and it's made quite a bit of difference.
Stage 4: Authorial Edit -- Once a story's completely in the can, an Authorial Edit happens. This is me reading over the whole story I've written and asking myself, "Did I tell this story the best way I could? Or can this sentence/paragraph/scene be improved?". Dialogue and scenes throughout the story are altered in order to tighten things up and unnecessary bits are trimmed off.
Stage 5: Final Proof -- Essentially a repeat of Gold Beta, intended to catch an errors on my part that pop up during the Authorial Edit.
And after all this stuff is done, the story -- of a much higher quality than it would otherwise be -- gets posted! Yayyyy! And even better, updates are regular and the whole story's done, so there's no fear of it turning into deadfic! Bigger Yayyyy!!
