donutsweeper | (no subject)

I met a person once who never used a beta because she was "the only person who knew exactly what she wanted to say", so therefore all her stories were perfect from the first draft and no beta could improve them.

I leave the "check spelling as you go" option turned on in Word when I'm writing, although I have a bad habit of backspacing to the error instead of using the cursor. I suspect it comes from learning to type on a typewriter instead of a computer keyboard with mouse.

I can see not spellchecking until you are done writing so you don't interrupt the flow. But not spell checking at all? My mind boggles.

Betas are SO useful. Or at least a first reader or someone who will skim though it and say- oh hey you forgot to explain X - or something. Some people don't use them and I sort of understand it, but IMO stories are better off if they've been betaed.

I don't generally use a beta for anything under a thousand words, or a "one-facet" fic. I *almost* always do for my longer ones, even if I sometimes forget to credit them (big oops there).

It's amazing what you can miss in your own work - I was writing a Sherlock Holmes with a blackmail aspect, and my beta asked "If he's so rich and powerful that they can't touch him, why is he reduced to using blackmail to get what he wants?" They were absolutely right, why did he?

Betas are also useful if you're writing sex scenes and you get the ol' "three hands" problem. :D

I almost never use a beta for my drabbles or short ficlets, but I trust my flist to poke me if they spot something that needs fixing.

I only started using a beta for Torchwood Big Bang last year, but that was habit as much as anything else - the betas in Trek fandom (where I first started writing) were harsh in a not-good way and I wouldn't have been able to cope with that so I always made sure I spell checked things pretty thoroughly myself.

Now I have a kind of 'official' beta and we bounce stuff around between us all the time when we're writing and we know each other well enough to be critical if required - funnily enough she's one of my LJ flist.

Still can't get my head around the no spell checking thing.

Oh, that's the best kind of beta!

I feel for you, I really do. So many of those are out there, waiting in the shadows for you to happen across unexpectedly. And they would be so much better if only they did not contain a mishmash of typos, misspellings, and oddly humorous yet no less likely off-putting homophones.

Spell check is your friend. Grammar check is your friend. Betas are your friend (and I am not talking about the fish). Seriously, spend the five minutes, or the day or so turnaround time, to have it checked properly and it will be so much better for it.

Yes! THIS. And there is no excuse not to spell check, there are online versions and nearly every writing program has one.

I don't mind a few mistakes, even with betas and spell checkers something is going to slip through, but I don't understand when people don't at least try to make their writings the best they can.

I may have possibly thrown a hissy fit over this very thing with my partner recently. I may have also possibly refused to beta her work until such time she presented me with a spell- and grammar-checked copy. Maybe.

I have caught typos in my own fics that made it through beta months later, after something is posted, and still get embarrassed and go fix it, despite no one mentioning it.

I've caught stuff too, especially if I'm looking at it in a different format (posted on AO3 instead of LJ or something)

*hee* I can understand wanting a spellchecked copy!!

True!

No spellchecking at all? Not just those odd words that end up out of context (I saw one with cord instead of chord today)? Ulp. That would possibly have me bouncing out of the fic.

As a dyslexic, I am more than willing to ignore the occasional they're/their/there, chord/cord, seem/seam and typos like so instead of to or it instead of in. But randomly capitalizing letters in the middle of words or massive misspellings where you have to struggle to figure out what word was meant? That's unforgivable.

Ugh. I know I've let spelling mistakes and typos slip by me before, and I'm naturally a good speller (at least I used to be... I think I'm getting worse!) so I'm guilty of forgetting to actually use the spell check tool. (Though I do try to pay attention to the red squiggly lines!) But if I were not using a beta that is the *least* I would do.

Anyone is bound to have a few things slip by, I've found mistakes in published works! *giggles at your icon*

I'm a big fan of invented spelling, as anyone who watches my tweets while I'm grading papers will know, but published works are another matter!

Hee, that icon is so useful. :)

Those tweets are fascinating, sometimes I have no idea how you figured out what they meant

Usually it's a combination of knowing something about the student's native language and having context to go on. For instance, one essay recently had the word "hapoop." Fortunately I've learned that there's an Arabic word "haboob" that means a type of dust storm that comes on the head of a thunderstorm. I also know Arabic speakers very often confuse "p" and "b," and the question was about wind, so... *g*

It's a big puzzle to figure out! Wow, neat, I didn't know that.

Yes! I don't need to play word games online. I have my job. *g*

So, erm, you get paid to play? :)

Ah ha ha ha ha ha. ::headdesk::

*passes donuts*