why I love my sister

[edenfalling]

Usually I don't send stories to beta until I'm pretty comfortable with them, because an unfinished story is a glimpse into the unedited mind of the writer, and because I am a perfectionist and I don't like people seeing me with my metaphorical pants down.

But when something is off with a story, and I can't quite figure out what, I send it to Vicky.

Because Vicky knows me well enough to understand what I'm trying to say, and yet we think differently enough that if I'm unclear she'll miss my point rather spectacularly -- and that lets me know what I need to explain better. She picks out the subtext I don't realize I've written, and tells me how the implications work or don't work. She tells me when I start using odd grammatical constructions. She jumps up and down and yells at me when my narrative voice goes wonky. She shows me where I need to use more description, so my stories have a physical setting. (That's something I've always been bad at, since I tend to gloss over that sort of thing when I'm reading -- I just don't notice settings.)

Vicky's the one who told me I had to completely rewrite "Fire" because Hermione's narrative voice was wrong. And she was absolutely right. She's the one who got first crack at "Parseltongue," and made me change all my verb tenses. And she was right about that too.

The problem with "Knives" isn't that the ending is off. It's that I forgot to include a couple other scenes earlier on, I got some other things mixed up in terms of timing, I didn't make certain reactions detailed enough, and I left certain things unexplored that should have been clarified.

This is why I send stories to Vicky. She finds the problems I'd never see for myself.

Comments

[annearchy.livejournal.com]

mollymoon used to do that for me, last year, when she was still beta-ing for me. She made me rewrite Bittersweet Sixteen twice because the original scenario stank, then I'd written it in the wrong voice (third past instead of first present). She always told me when something didn't work. Alas, she isn't betaing for me anymore (for personal reasons related to her having lots of health problems). Now I rely on abigail89 to tell me which things suck :)

[edenfalling]

It's good to have a person to do in-depth corrections and criticism. :-)

I think I also rely on Vicky because she's family, so it's less embarrassing for her to see very rough drafts and I don't mind when she rips my words to pieces. Besides, we've been editing for each other (and trying to do collaborative writing) since as far back as I can remember. I used to open her computer files and correct her spelling -- she'd scream at me for invading her privacy -- and she'd read over my shoulder while I was trying to write and tell me I was being stupid. After that sort of thing, ordinary editing is peanuts.

I think I even still have a one-page story we co-wrote back when I was about 9 and she was 6. It is an utterly surreal thing with no plot, in which you can, if you squint, sort of discern her interest in geography and my then-obsession with Egyptian myths, but the sentence quality is pretty good for our ages! :-)

[annearchy.livejournal.com]

LOL well, you're the opposite of me there. My family has no idea what I write. I plan to keep it that way...:D

[edenfalling]

Oh, Vicky and I have never minded telling each other what we're writing. In fact, we sometimes use each other as idea sounding boards, to see if a story is even worth the trouble of a rough draft. I think this is because writing is one of our major common interests.

On the other hand, I was really knocked for a loop when my mother told me she'd been reading my fanfiction. Fortunately, she really only reads "Secrets." I don't know that I want her reading the darker stuff, or the threesome sex scene!

[annearchy.livejournal.com]

I might let my family read my G to PG-13 stuff. Alas, there's just sooo little of it... Why do you think oh_honestleigh was born? Specifically to post the "mature" stories...Which reminds me that 'she' needs to do an author application for Portkey.org.