"Normal", my most recent finished story (Farscape; posted some way down around here, or on my website, in case you're interested) took three years before it saw a beta.
But the story I just had beta'd - by the wonderful amonitrate - has been finished for a long time; I posted it originally in August 2000. (And I wish I had gotten a good beta back then. Instead, I didn't get any beta at all, for a long time, because it was a Lyric Wheel story, and they're not supposed to be beta'd.)
What I'd been revising recently were mostly small stylistic flaws. The huge flaws of characterisation and logic, however, were invisible to me, and that's the scary thing. I think I'm pretty sensitive to out-of-characterness and logic flaws in other people's writing; arguably, hopefully, also in my own, more recent writing. (I really, really hope so.) But somehow that story - perhaps by virtue of being one of the oldest - always made sense in my head, even where it didn't (like, for example, parts of the characterisation).
Part of the problem is a failure on my part to show the reader enough background in a few instances, and part of it is my old inability - much less severe now, but by no means conquered - of writing *anybody* not sounding/feeling like *me*. Not exactly self-insertion, but rather, perhaps, a failure to 'get out of my own head' while writing... And the latter, in particular, is a scary thing to realise, 'cause if I didn't notice it here, then perhaps I'm not noticing it elsewhere, either?
Eh. Sorry for the angsty rambling non-reply. Yeah, anyway... I agree, getting a beta during the writing process usually doesn't help much. (Unless you're really badly stuck and need a fresh perspective or something. But then, what you need is more like a midwife than a beta.)
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I never get a beta before I feel I've finished a story.
Date: 2006-02-14 08:25 pm (UTC)But the story I just had beta'd - by the wonderful
What I'd been revising recently were mostly small stylistic flaws. The huge flaws of characterisation and logic, however, were invisible to me, and that's the scary thing. I think I'm pretty sensitive to out-of-characterness and logic flaws in other people's writing; arguably, hopefully, also in my own, more recent writing. (I really, really hope so.) But somehow that story - perhaps by virtue of being one of the oldest - always made sense in my head, even where it didn't (like, for example, parts of the characterisation).
Part of the problem is a failure on my part to show the reader enough background in a few instances, and part of it is my old inability - much less severe now, but by no means conquered - of writing *anybody* not sounding/feeling like *me*. Not exactly self-insertion, but rather, perhaps, a failure to 'get out of my own head' while writing... And the latter, in particular, is a scary thing to realise, 'cause if I didn't notice it here, then perhaps I'm not noticing it elsewhere, either?
Eh. Sorry for the angsty rambling non-reply. Yeah, anyway... I agree, getting a beta during the writing process usually doesn't help much. (Unless you're really badly stuck and need a fresh perspective or something. But then, what you need is more like a midwife than a beta.)