Resource The Beta Reader Index v4.1 and Concrit Index -- April 2008 Update (New Info + Survey)

What era is it? You've got me interested. If it's characters that I know anything at all about, I'll read it because I want to see what makes it so "weird" or "pretentious."

 

Hello Beta's. Newbie here

Are there any Beta Master's looking for a new Betawan? I'm eager to learn and looking for a new challenge.

I've spent way too much time at home with the kids. I need to stimulate my mind more than Barney's ABC's and Blue's 123's

I'm a avid reader, but sadly not a writer myself yet.

Looking forward to meeting you all

 

We'll be starting the Beta Training Academy hopefully sometime this month. It should be easier to find a beta master once we've got that up

 

That's awesome. Can't wait

 

I'm pleased to announce that I have taken PRINCESSCAMBRIA as my betawan!

 

i may actually decide to be a beta, at least over the summer. depends on how much time i have. i've actually been betaing things for at least one person. it's something i enjoy, and i do like to help people improve their writing.

edit for spelling...

 

I've been adopted by VaderLVR64. Woohoo!

 

June 2006 Beta Index Update

To start off, we have an interview with Killik_Twilight.

Please tell us a bit about yourself.

My name is Nathan, I study aerospace engineering, I'm a huge fan of SW (obviously) and I'm 6'3''. I'm fairly good at sports and I'm awesome at video games. I'm also a Christian and I live in the Midwest United States.

And now on to ?teh questions.? How did you become a beta? Did someone tell you that you?d be good at it? Did you feel like it?

Teh answer: I had a friend named Jacee who asked me to beta one of her pieces, and I'm a sucker for cute girls so I could hardly say no.

Why did you decide to become a beta?

I enjoy helping people and seeing ideas before the general fanfiction public.

How long have you been a beta?

Approximately a year.

What was the first story you betaed?

Can't remember ? there's too many to count.

Do you beta a lot?

Yup. I beta for anywhere from 4-6 people at a given time, and I'm off and on for others. And I serve as a general idea bouncer.

Do you beta in other fandoms, or just Star Wars? Do you beta original fic as well?

Never been asked to do original fic, so just SW for now.

If you write fan fic, do you use a beta for your own stories? Do you beta your own stories?

It depends. Most of the time, no, because I thoroughly go over my own pieces with a fine-toothed comb. On occasion I do, though, mostly for flow and idea feedback.

Why do you feel it is important for people to use betas?

I could write pages on this one? but I'll keep it short.

First, betas can help you with ideas for how your fic should flow and what might happen next, if you're not sure. They can serve as a foil for you to bounce ideas off of and in general just help with the plot. Also, betas are helpful for catching grammar and general proofreading, and also as a general reader feedback giver.

Do you feel that it is important for a healthy beta/writer relathionship? Why?

Absolutely. When a beta and a writer get along, it's so much easier to look at their work and know they'll take your suggestions/criticsms/ideas well. Plus, when the writer and beta have a good relationship, ideas come more quickly and feedback is easier.

If an author sends you something that you can?t read because of multiple mistakes, how do you respond?

I usually ask them to take a second look at it and I try to weed out the errors with them.

If an author takes offense after you?ve betaed a fic for them how do you respond?

Never had this happen, but if it did, I simply wouldn't beta for them anymore.

What is the most important thing about being a beta?

Actually helping the person you're betaing for. If they need grammar work or spelling fixes or whatever, don't breeze through the piece and hand it back to them. Either fix the errors or point them out to the writer you're betaing for. They trust you ? it's up to you to be worthy of that trust.

What?s the worst thing about being a beta?

Hmm? time, probably. When helping one writer that I work with a lot, it took us three or so hours to come up with a name that she and I both liked. You know who you are.

What?s the best thing about being a beta?

Getting to see cool ideas before the general public and helping them come to fruition.

---

[b][color=hotpink]Announcements:[/color][/b]
[ul][li]We've reciently sent out PMs to all of our listed betas to check their entries in the Index and update it if necessary. We want to kep our information current. If you haven't updated your information yet, please do.[/li]
[li][b]Beta Appreciation Week[/b] is coming up! Be prepared to give a big 'thank you' to your beta for all his or her hard work. If you know how to create buttons and would like to make one for that, please PM [b]BetaReaderIndex[/b] or [b]NYCitygurl[/b].[/li]
[li]The [b

 

Okay, first answer: a semi-colon is used to separate two independent clauses, such as "She ran; the dog chased her" and I use it mainly when it just makes the words flow better. Semi-colons and periods are techinically interchangeable - though the sentences linked with a semi-colon should be related, not "She ran; chocolate is good."

The comma rules are, oddly enough, things I was never taught. But here's my mini-pet peeve of writers: the following is the correct way to write this, "I love you, too, [character]." Honestly, it's probably bad that I can't spew out the rules for commas, but I can tell if they're wrong.

As for mattering, it matters because they affect the flow of the story and because it can be grammatically incorrect. For flow, especially in dialogue, each comma, etc, represents a pause. So if it's awkward to read the sentence with a comma wherever it is, it's wrong. "That, is how we do this" reads awkwardly, whereas "That is how we do this" doesn't. And grammatical errors are pretty much plain mistakes.


Okay, okay, punctuation is a bit of a pet peeve of mine, and I've seen a lot of bad punctuation in fanfic.

 

For indexer news.... are these

* Laura
* Nat
* Myra
* Idri
* Jen

The onscreen, online names? Which indexes do they cover?

 

comma's can be painful, but as mirax said they're basically a pause in the sentence. they can be used for effect as well as when gramatically necessary.

when i've been betaing (what little i have) i tend to leave a note with everything i change, or just highlight it and let the person make the changes themselves. if they have to make the change then they may learn more from it than just finding things in the fic changed. that and i personally hate having something changed on me, as i prefer changing it myself.

i have something of a question. if a comma is incorrectly placed, but it serves a purpose being placed incorrectly is it still acceptable? or another way to phrase it, is it acceptable to use gramatically incorrect commas in any situation?

 

Okay, okay, punctuation is a bit of a pet peeve of mine, and I've seen a lot of bad punctuation in fanfic.



Me and commas, dashes and semi-colons = silly punctuation mistakes that I make over and over, mostly because I was never taught how to use them properly in school.

I'm not that bad, but I suppose I could be better. I never learned the comma thing, but I did learn that colons are to placed in front of a list and the same thing as Myra about semi-colons. However, I tend to use dashes and semi-colons interchangeably.

Okay, I'm kind of straying. My dad is thumping around upstairs; it's really annoying. I wish he'd take his clunking shoes off.

Congrats to Nat for getting a nice June update up!

EDIT: ardavenport: --

For indexer news.... are these

* Laura
* Nat
* Myra
* Idri
* Jen

The onscreen, online names? Which indexes do they cover?

Okay, let me clarify. We are all in charge of the Beta Reader Index, but we all do different things within the Index (ie. I usually set up the updates and Myra updates the list of betas).

As for the names, let me translate:

Laura is WynssaStarflare
Nat is NYCitygurl
Myra is Mirax_Corran
Idri is Idrelle_Miocovani
Jen is Alethia

Does that help?

Extra EDITS because I can't format things. Grr.

 

No, it's still incorrect. If you're writing a sentence in which the character speaking pauses somewhere where it would be incorrect to use a comma, then use an ... elipse, I think it is. Well, anyways, those three periods that I just used.

Incorrect: "That would be, Wedge being an idiot?"

Correct: "That would be ... Wedge being an idiot?"


Don't feel about about not knowing the comma thing, Idri. The only reason that I know it is that my mother was a copy-editor for a long time, and I swear that the ability to do that is genetic.

Oh, an semi-colons are used to separate a detailed list.

Example: Jaina, a Jedi Knight; Jacen, her twin brother; Anakin, their deceased younger brother.

 

thank ye muchly mirax, tis much appreciated. for both the commas and the semi-colons

 

You're welcome.

Actually, though, now that I think about it, it might be technically correct to use it in the way you mentioned, but it certainly makes you look like you don't know how to use a comma.

 

just like it's technically correct to use the word "were" instead of was in many cases. but that just makes the sentence clunky.

for instance, i had something in a fic that resemebled this sentence:

i was going there.

the grammar correction program in word wanted me to use the word were instead, resulting in:

i were going there.

that sounds like someone from the getto now... which is said if it's actually correct.

sometimes things that are technically correct shouldn't actually be applied.

 

Yes! Thanks!

 

You gotta make it correct - at least in narrative - but you also gotta make it flow.

Of course, I'm the girl whose computer recognizes 'Lujayne' and 'Alderaan.'

 

mines got coruscant, corellia and most of the names, as well as jedi and sith.

 

Oops, sorry, forgot that those are my nicknames for everyone . . . next time, going to use usernames . . .

 

We have some pretty important things going on this week!!

First of all, we'd like to welcome ophelia to the Indexing team. We're really glad to have her aboard

Second, the concrit index and the concrit policies of Resource indicies (provided by ophelia) have been successfully moved over!! They are in the formerly blank posts under the list of betas. Please go check them out, offer to give concrit, and use the policies as a guide to the Resource

And last but certainly not least, this is Beta Appreciation Week!! Please take this opportunity to thank your beta or betas for all their hard work! There are also buttons, provided by BigFatty, for you to put in your fic to show your appreciation there as well.

 

I'd have to see the actual sentence it was trying to fix to really see what it wanted you to do, but probably the best thing you can do is just turn OFF that darn grammar-correction function in Word. It's horrible. I've seen it suggest grammatically incorrect fixes more times than I can count, and I AM a professional copy editor, so I can tell the difference.

As far as commas go, the rules are far more complex than can possibly be covered here, but one of the most common problems I see is where people have a sentence with two independent clauses connected with a conjunction, but they haven't used a comma. It should be "Captain Needa paused by the shuttle door, and then he sighed and walked inside." Both "Captain Needa paused by the shuttle door" and "then he sighed and walked inside" are independent clauses, but since they've been joined by the conjunction "and" a comma needs to be placed before the conjunction.

I hope that's clearer than mud.

 

just upping this because people were asking about it, and i thought i'd make it easier to find!

meg

 

We should be careful about writing rules and one size fits all fixes. WHen writing creatively, punctuation is there to assist the writer in communicating her ideas, not hamstring her. There are thousands of variations on how to write a particular sequence but, in the end, the author must make some creative choices.

Comma usage is complicated beyond belief, as GrandAdmiralV points out, and I never get it right on the first go-around. Sometimes, commas might get moved around by my beta (GAV) and I'll put them back the way they were the first time. Why? Style. I don't think we should break rules indiscriminantly but we should recognize a simple axiom--"If it works, it's right. If it seems wrong, then it probably is."

 

Totally true, Souderwan.

But I still stand by a few rules. Basically, 9 out of 10 times "She, jumped off the bench" will make me hit that nice back button. There are exceptions. But not many.

Basically, the example is, in my opinion, always, always, no matter what wrong.