🌑🌒🌓🌔🌕🌖🌗🌘🌑

by the way. even badly.

even horribly

If this is your actual reaction to critique and not hyperbole to get your point across, you might want to read up on Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria and see if that’s something you’d like to talk about with your doctor. This level of a reaction to beta comments feels extreme and might be a sign of something else going on, whether that’s RSD or something else. 

If that’s just hyperbole and you feel a sense of disappointment or dejection as a result of hearing critique then you might just need to talk to your beta reader about how you want that critique to come at you. Do you want a negative to be balanced out with a positive? Do you want a critique to come with a plan for how to fix the problem? Do you want it phrased as a question rather than as a statement?

We all have preferences when it comes to receiving feedback, and we all respond differently to different styles. If you’re receiving feedback in a form that doesn’t work for you, then try a different form and see if that works better. 

Another thing that’s important to remember is that these comments are not about you as a person, they’re about your writing. The person who is giving you this feedback is invested in making your writing better. They want you to succeed and they want you to tell the best version of your story possible, and their focus is on helping you do that. 

Nothing that we write is ever going to be perfect, and a first draft is even rougher. There’s no shame at all in needing to improve. If there’s nothing to work on, then there’s nothing to learn. Accepting critique means accepting an opportunity to do better next time, to learn a new technique or concept. Doing something badly means that you’re doing something that’s hard for you, and it’s only by working beyond our capabilities that we can improve. 

It sounds like someone has convinced you that the only way to improve is having a beta, or that the only way to write ‘good’ fanfic is to have a beta. 

But the thing is - if having a beta is not something you enjoy, don’t. 

You don’t owe anyone any particular way of doing things. I think it is very important to keep in mind that fanfic is a hobby - something you should enjoy doing. Don’t do it in a way you don’t enjoy. 

No matter if you have a beta or not, if you get comments or not - just the act of writing does make your writing better. 

I don’t generally use a beta, because I know it would be stressful and un-empowering for me. I write the way I enjoy writing, and I think you need to step back and consider what are the reasons you enjoy writing? What do you get out of it?

Start with reading comprehension questions--and there is no such thing as a too dumb question!  What happened in that scene you just read?  Can you summarize the story or scene back to me?  Then, if there are any tricky points to your story, ask about those:  what did character Y do there?  Did you get what was happening between Y and Z--can you narrate back to me what you read? The next level up is motivation and feelings/interpretations: Why did character Y do that, do you think? How does he feel? How did scene V make you feel about this person place or thing? When did you think X and Y first had sparks?

Do not give your poor betas any answers to these questions, or give hints as to the “right” answers--because they’re not wrong or right. YOU are either coming across or you are not coming across: if the beta isn’t picking up what you are putting down, you have to go back and fix the story so that the words in that particular order create the feeling you want in the reader. If the scene is supposed to make you cry, and the beta thinks its funny, you gotta redo it.  If your brilliant plot point got missed, you were TOO SUBTLE and you have to add pointers and cues. I have been surprised btw that sometimes I have not gotten my straightforward plot points across--literally my reader doesn’t know what the hell happened, let alone why it happened or have feelings about why it happened. If they don’t know that Fred is dead, they sure won’t know who killed Fred or be sad that Fred’s dead or feel John’s pain at Fred’s untimely and tragic death!

Then here’s the thing--once you’ve done all this, then you CAN tell Beta A what you were on about and ask Beta A, like, okay, how could I have better clued you in to the fact that Fred is dead? Why didn’t you think Fred was dead? Work your way with them through Fred’s death to who did it and how you feel and all that.  This beta can now be your collaborator/partner in crime.  But THEN, like, sadly, you really can’t believe them really when they say the story is fixed, because now, like you,  they know what they were supposed to be getting from the story. You can’t know that the words on the page alone are what’s doing the work, and that’s what writing is.  So ideally you need to find someone ELSE, Beta B, and say, again, “Hey, can you read this and can I ask you some questions?”  Then ask Beta B--what happened? why did it happen? Can you tell me how that scene makes you feel? Who’s right in that argument, X or Y?--and when they’re like, *sobbing,* Fred he’s dead, he deserved better, I am keysmashing my way through John’s grief, you bastard--then: post! :D 

Generally, for example, I am not looking for spelling-and-grammar. It's great if someone can catch typos, but I am a good speller and I make stylistic choices that I am absolutely not going to change no matter how a beta feels about it.

On the other hand, I like working with betas who are willing to function as developmental editors; they're not interested in changing my style and they barely ever touch the sentences themselves. Instead they are looking for plot holes, continuity errors, character motivations, the clarity of events, timelining, flow. Often these types of betas also cheer me on and help me untangle occasional thorny rat's-nest sentences that I just can't make work; I've usually called this type of overall beta work "midwifing". (There are a lot of things I write, particularly short things, that really don't need that at all. There's a fair amount of unbeta'd fanfic in my ao3, and for the first few years I wrote, I didn't use a beta at all. And then there's stories that absolutely needed it, that never would have seen the light of day without betas.) This isn't an easy kind of author-beta relationship with the wrong person! I do not recommend this with a new beta; it should be someone with whom you are familiar and who you know you can work with, AND who you know is likely to be good at this. Sometimes you don't have that person, though, and need to find them. (I was once told by a previous beta that she couldn't work on a particular story, but that I should try a rather well-known reccer in the fandom, to whom I had never spoken. That worked out fantastically, but boy was I nervous about it.)

If you are someone who is willing to be a beta reader, repost this image and share the fandom(s) you are willing to beta read.

Other information you might want to include in your post:

Rating(s) you are or are not willing to beta

Ship(s) you are or are not willing to beta

The kinds of tasks you can take on as a beta (here's a checklist that might help)

Length of fic that you think you could take on (in hundreds/thousands of words)

How an author can reach out to you to see if you'll work well together

THONG

BUSTY

STUMP

Hideyoshi: God fucking damn it!!

Felt appropriate

>:]

Excuse me ma'am do you know what it's fucking like to work in a hot sweaty kitchen 8 full hours a day when you're autistic and have sensory processing disorders?? I'm well within my right to be tired as shit get the fuck out of here.