One thing I haven't really tried yet, regarding my writing.

[hmpf]

I've said earlier that I know from experience that nobody can really help me when I get stuck, and I think that's the truth, if 'help' means 'take a look at the fic fragments and tell me what's wrong with them/tell me what to do next'. However, I've never really tried talking the fic - its problems and my 'mental blocks' - through with someone. I wonder if that would help? I've noticed that sometimes it's ridiculously easy to develop an idea in conversation, but I've never actually tried to use this as a method to tear down/scale/get around the frequent brick walls in my head.

There's a twofold problem with that approach, though: 1.) you'd need a volunteer who's fairly deeply into the fandom you're writing (and, ideally, probably also into the kind of story you want to write - this may in fact be the more important condition), and 2.) that volunteer will be hopelessly spoiled for the final result, i.e. the actual story, in the process. (Optimistically assuming that the process will actually result in a story.)

Anybody have any experience with this kind of thing? Does it help? (Though of course what may help one writer may be useless for the next, anyway, so I'm not sure asking anybody else about their experiences with any kind of technique actually means anything.)

Comments

Re: Well, I'm screwed then. ;-)

[maestro1123.livejournal.com]

Hmmmmm, you raise an interesting point. My wall-bouncer is occasionally my beta, but usually not. I don't really have a regular beta as such (which makes me sad) but more I just grab whoever's online and hand them stuff to read. But I understand what you mean, I feel like when I need a beta I want someone to read the fic just as a fic, not as how I read it - an exercise in what I was trying to do and what eventually happened instead. I need a fresh pair of eyes.

What time zone are you in? I'm an extreme owl, which means I go to sleep when the sun comes up, most days, so the time difference may be less of an issue than you think. Also, there's e-mail.

I'm in Japan, which puts me at GMT+8 right now. I work silly hours though, and my net time is usually sort of 10pm to maybe 2am. I'd be happy to chat through stuff with you if this suits, but owing to the aforementioned stupid job, I can't promise when I'll be around. Best bet is to email me and ask me to come online. :)

And the beta offer still stands, now and forever. Just chuck it my way.

Re: Well, I'm screwed then. ;-)

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

>I don't really have a regular beta as such (which makes me sad) but more I just grab whoever's online and hand them stuff to read.

Finding a beta who can *really* help you is one of the most difficult things about writing fanfic, IMO. I was extremely fortunate to find mine. I had many different betas before beccatoria, but there always remained a faint sense of misunderstanding. I was never really comfortable with the stories, even after thorough betaing. Becca, on the other hand, just... seems to get what I'm trying to do, and what's more, she manages to identify all the bits that strike me as problematical, and she usually can articulate what exactly the problem is. She's very good at explaining my own stories to me. *g* I wish I could reciprocate, but I'm actually a fairly crappy beta. (Not that I beta much; most people wisely prefer a native speaker.)

>I'm in Japan, which puts me at GMT+8 right now. I work silly hours though, and my net time is usually sort of 10pm to maybe 2am. I'd be happy to chat through stuff with you if this suits, but owing to the aforementioned stupid job, I can't promise when I'll be around. Best bet is to email me and ask me to come online. :)

Okay... first I have to do the math to correlate our time zones, though. ;-)

>And the beta offer still stands, now and forever. Just chuck it my way.

It's nice of you to extend that offer to 'forever', because with me it's quite possible I'll take you up on it five years from now. I'm ridiculously slow.