He Said, She Said -- A Sort-of Lesson in Writing

[sophisgotagun]

He Said, She Said
A Sort-of Lesson in Writing

Wonderful directed me to an interesting (and, evidently, controversial) entry at keket_amunet's journal on the topic of why we get addicted to fanfiction. The topic that seemed to get the goat for everyone was the mention of saidisms; keket said an abundance of saidisms would turn her off of a fic (and I assume

Comments

[karelia]

Very interesting and helpful! I find it very useful that quite a few people have been posting about writing (rather than the fandom as such), and your article is definitely amongst them. One of these days, after I'm a bit more settled, I'll collect them all in one post with links.

I have noticed recently that quite a few people who beta-read (be they accredited or not), use various means to do so. Their betas range from the 'admin style', ie. using square brackets to indicate corrections, to haphazard changing of everything without giving the author a chance to see the changes unless the author pulls up two documents to compare the original version with the beta'd version. You wouldn't like to do an article on something like 'The Perfect Beta-Reader'??? I'd definitely pimp it!

[sophisgotagun]

I've beta'ed for about fifteen different people and none of them have seen my particular style before. I think it's an each to his own thing... everyone has their own way. I've never seen a guide on beta'ing before. I get compliments on my style, but I feel like it's how you *should* do it, so I'm rather curious as to see how everyone else does it, 'cause evidently I'm unique or whatever.

I've never considered doing a guide before. I'll definitely think about it :D

[misstee123]

If you decide to do a guide on being a beta, I would direct you to harmony_bites LJ. She always has some good ideas, and she posts on writing fairly often. She did a post about betas not to long ago, and I would love to hear what you've got to say about it, too. Sorry I don't have the exact link, but they're easy to find. She tags them with "craft".

[sophisgotagun]

I'll take a look before I begin my foray into writing a guide. The only experience I have is what I've been doing innately, and I really don't know what the fandom looks for outside of the scope of my seven (sometimes more) or so authors. I'm a bit busy this week, so all you might get from me are a few update-y posts and something basic, maybe on the semicolon.

The poor semicolon. I feel so bad for it.