aww man

Spin the wheel to find out your weakness!

First of all, thank you for hosting so many discussions on your blog. It's always incredibly interesting to learn how fandom-related outlooks and experiences differ between individuals.

The topic of feedback and beta-reading has been particularly curious to me. However, while reading through the responses, I couldn't shake off the feelings that the underlying definitions used by each person may also be a fascinating thing to explore.

As such, if you don't mind: what would you describe as "inappropriate feedback"? What characteristics does it have? And likewise, what do you think is "appropriate feedback"? What's your personal guideline for that? Thank you for answering, and well... I would be thrilled to learn what your audience thinks too. 👉👈

Feedback that I give during beta reading is quite different from comments I leave on posted works.

First of all, when I'm a beta, I'm seeing the work while it's still being actively worked on and edited. That means I can make suggestions that I wouldn't make on a posted work - anything that's posted won't be edited beyond fixing typos.

Second of all, when I'm a beta I have a relationship with the author. I might or might not know them beyond being their beta, but as their beta I've talked to them about their story. I know what their goal is for the fic. I've asked about what their priorities are, what they're trying to improve, what they don't want me to comment on.

So for me, "appropriate feedback" is anything that falls within the boundaries they've asked for help with, that I have knowledge of, and that is aimed at helping the author make their story the best that it can be.

Inappropriate feedback would be:

commenting on something they've asked me not to comment on

commenting on an aspect that I'm not knowledgeable about (for example, I won't comment on characterization if I'm a casual fan or if I haven't interacted with canon at all)

making suggestions that would change their writing style to be more like my writing style

making suggestions that would change the story into something different from what they've told me they're trying to do

My goal as a beta is to help an author solidify the story they're already telling, clarify the voice they're already using, and support any areas where they feel like they need support.

I also love it when authors allow me to cheer read and add in comments about parts that I particularly enjoy. Not everyone wants that, but it makes me so happy to have that little back and forth of "OMG I LOVE THIS!" and "YAY! I'm glad that worked!"

Cheer reader comments are the kinds of things that I leave on posted fics as well.

The goal is to help the work become the best version of itself. I think the worst thing you can say when you are doing data for someone else is a flat “I don’t like this.” it’s not just that that kind of negativity can be really discouraging to the author, which it can, but also that you’re not giving them anything to work with. What do you wanna say is “I think this paragraph is too short for the rhythm on the page”. Or “ you’ve combined two ideas here that need more space to breathe.”that kind of thing.

No nuance. If you don’t have a mother/are no contact etc this is not a poll for you.