a musing on editing and publication

[edenfalling]

Only one day since I posted chapter 14 of "Apartment Manager," and chapter 15 is already halfway written. (Also, I have edited some of the squoodgy bits out of chapter 14 in preparation for its appearance on ff.net.)

*feels smug*

-----------------------------

It's funny. When I write Harry Potter stories of any length (that is, more than about 1,500 words), I send them to beta readers for editing. I haven't ever done that for my Naruto stories. However, I do post Naruto fic on my livejournal, and I don't always do that with HP stuff.

I think what I'm doing, really, is using livejournal as a sort of generalized beta-reader. What I post is the second draft of a story -- the equivalent of what I'd send to my HP betas -- and then I go back and revise after a few days, taking various comments into account.

I don't mind the delay in posting that beta-reading causes for my HP stories, but I also like the immediacy of posting a second draft directly to lj. I can't really see posting a chapter of "Secrets," say, without beta feedback, but I also have a hard time wrapping my mind around a several-day gap between finishing a chapter of "Apartment Manager" and making it public.

I think this may be because I'm just more careful about the structure of "Secrets," and I take so long to write any given chapter that a week or two of editing time seems negligible. It may also be related to the speed at which new canon comes out for Naruto -- a chapter every week instead of one book every couple years.

If any of you write in more than one fandom, do you have different posting styles in each of them?

Comments

[erised1810.livejournal.com]

I haven't posted anyting on archives. Everything is in my lj. I haven't had real beta's either although if someone suggests in the comments I take those along.
Acutally I use spell-checker and then my speech software to read it to me. that latter thing is a rather clever way to find mistakes.

[edenfalling]

No archives? Out of curiosity, why not?

[erised1810.livejournal.com]

wel lfor one thing, ff.net is messign with m ysoftare. i had it mhelp me akign he mistake f puttinga h/g fici n the 'grek mythology 'section. plsu i just meh dont' liek hat site.
i had two o nFA until I nibbled onsome chapterowls and found varius WEIRD disturbingthigns and a remus/voldemrothat madem e just delete hte stuf ("this site has otugrown my stories"). i jstu felt a bit werid sitting net al those sophisticated literary thigns and al lthose strange eery/disturbing/squicky thignsand well, i probaby jsut wsa shocked (remsu is m yfav character .and that was dark fic with some psychologicla werewolf/demon stuff form what i red inthe summary).
anyway i have m yow nhomepage now which i'll ahe to get crackign and fill with real stuff as soo nas possible. i know archives most yahve easy reviewing systems and so forth adn we'l lsee i i post somethgn somewhere .i' myself get always confused thoug hwhen an author sends stuf to more than three sites, lol!

[annearchy.livejournal.com]

Well, I only write in the HP fandom. But normally, if a story is less than 2,000 words, I might or might not get it beta'd. If it's something I feel like I sweated over (and sometimes 2,000 words is a killer for me) I'll get it beta'd. If it's something that I want to have more of a stream-of-consciousness feeling, then no, I might not (I've got a short WIP on Portkey now that's like that). Certainly anything that's bigger and more involved (like a certain Fic of Doom), I'll get beta'd chapter by chapter. I really would like to have my betas more involved in story plotting (so I can bounce ideas off them) but alas, they have RL commitments that make it hard for all of us to chat together. *sigh*

[edenfalling]

Stream of consciousness... yeah, I can see that. I don't like bouncing plot ideas off people -- I'm too possessive of my stories, and too likely to just drop things on no particular notice -- but I can see how it would work for other people.

Real Life can be a pain. *sigh*

[ladylisse.livejournal.com]

I post pretty much everything I write and I don't get things betaed if they're under a couple thousand words -- like, y'know, most of my stuff is. :/ I do have the most totally off-the-wall quirk though. I have tenses that I associate with different fandoms. It is very, very hard for me to write Naruto fics in the past tense, and while I just posted a Star Wars fic in the present tense, it felt odd and weird the entire time I was writing it.

I think that has something to do with how I perceive the canon. With HP I can go either way, because while the canon's still open, the first six books are pretty concrete and not likely to suddenly change come next week. With Naruto, the new canon turns up pretty much every week, and with Star Wars you've got a closed canon. Hell, if you just want to deal with the general overarching backstory, you've got a canon that's been pretty closed for a couple of decades. I'm much, much more likely to write short, present-tense pieces if the canon's still open. Damned if I know why.

[edenfalling]

Really? That's kind of cool.

I use present tense as a sort of hook, since for me it feels more immediate than past tense, more directly hooked into the POV character's actions and perceptions. I find it sort of... makes the reader more complicit in the story action, I guess, whereas past tense allows a greater sense of distance.

This is probably why my two experiments in second person -- "Knives" and "Parseltongue" -- are also written in present tense. The idea was to be massively invasive, to tell the reader "YOU are doing this, right here, right now."

Although, come to think of it, "Apartment Manager" is set pre-manga, whereas "Tides" (which is present tense) is in kind of an indefinite, slightly AU near-future. You may be on to something with this sense of 'open' vs. 'closed' canon. *wanders off to contemplate*

I do! I do!

[(Anonymous)]

I don't really get prereaders for my Evangelion stories, as I'm usually pretty sure of what I'm writing about. I'm confident in my basic writing skills as well, so that is never really an issue for me. My Naruto stories, though, go through a prereader - I usually like to make sure I'm offending as many brainless yaoi fangirls as possible; the prereader makes sure that happens.^^