i will never be over Rhodey seeing a Giant Fucking Explosion near where tony was taken after searching for him for 3 months and just. instantly being like “…..wow………that is………some Tony Stark Level Shit™ oh my g OD GET ME A HELICOPTER i have to go personally pick up my favourite asshole nerd” like. listen. bless him
*sees explosion* “ah yes. there he is. my favourite person”
I’m interested in the kinds of fanwork that goes on in the production of fanfiction; there’s more than we usually articulate, and I’ve often felt like we haven’t got the language to differentiate between the different kinds of beta work that goes on behind the scenes. So I’ve given a shot at articulating and classifying the various kinds of beta reading I’m familiar with.
SPAG Beta. Spelling, punctuation and grammar. This is your basic line edit. This is the person who catches your typos and silly mistakes.
Dropped Words Beta. Some people might be both a SPAG and a dropped words beta, but I feel this one deserves pulling out. I don’t know about you, but I can’t write a damn sentence without dropping at least a word or two. I think the word is there, I can practically see it there, but it’s not there. Many (if not most) people will add the lost at or an or the in there for you in their minds and not notice, but the laser eyes of a dropped word beta will put you to rights again. To be a dropped words beta you need to be able to look at the text without getting drawn into the story, and that’s both a special skill and a sacrifice for someone who actually likes your story. So anyone who can do this: you are a treasure, a gift, and made of gold.
Plot Beta. This is work that happens at the very beginning, as well as throughout a story. A plot beta is the person you talk your story out with, she’s your sounding board in the creation process. She may not be into SPAG or dropped words, and might not be a britpicker or formatting genius, but that doesn’t matter. Your plot beta’s not really there to worry about your word choice. She’s there to help birth a story with you. I write very long stories, so plot betas come in early go through my outline with me as I construct it. A plot beta is one of the few who end up beta reading an outline, in my experience. Many betas I’ve worked with don’t want to know what’s going to happen next in a story. They don’t want to be spoiled. So you can keep the spoiling conversations between you and your plot beta, and keep surprising a SPAG and formatting beta.
Research beta. This person works with you to help you pin down the bizarre facts you need to get your story right. Like a plot beta, they can act as a sounding board and help you construct the fine details.
Character Beta. This is someone who will act as a north star for you on a particular character. This is helpful if you’re writing about a character you don’t feel entirely certain about, or you just want someone to argue with you about the actions of a particular character so you can feel confident that s/he is at least close to being in character. It’s actually hard to keep the canon core of a character in your mind as you morph and change him/her, so having someone around who isn’t off on your flights of fantasy with you can be helpful in that respect.
Emotional Flow Beta. This is someone who reads your story for its emotional flow. Is it working? Does it ring true? They’re not there to debate whether the characters are OOC, just to tell you if the actions you’re describing feels real. This is related to a plot beta, and can be related to a character beta, but is different than both. Your emotional flow beta might have no idea where you’re story is headed and is just reacting to what’s on the page right now, which is useful. (hiddenlacuna suggests: whump!beta.)
Settings and Location Beta. This is someone who is attuned to the places you’re setting your stories, works well with Google Maps, and is anal retentive enough to correct you if you say it takes forty minutes to walk to that Tesco when it actually takes about twenty-five. This person is often also your Britpicker, but this is a separate service, I’d say.
Britpicker. Everyone knows what a Britpicker is, right? The person who tells you you’ve used the word “gotten” again, and that “recognize” doesn’t have a z in it in the UK. Also it’s a lift for God’s sake, not an elevator! In other fandoms, you may need an Americanpicker or other. (I’ve yet to be asked to act as a Canuckpicker, much to my disappointment.)
*-picker. You can call in an expert on anything, really. If you have violins in your story, call in a violin expert! Cricket? The inner workings of the BBC? Find a picker for that! It never hurts to call in someone with specialist knowledge.
Smut Beta. The person who helps you sort out those insanely complicated sex scenes. This is someone you trust not to laugh their bums off at you as you stumble through this terrifying territory.
Canon Beta. Someone whose inner knowledge of the canon in question is exquisite, and who can make sure you haven’t made any egregious mistakes.
Formatting Beta. This is a person who makes sure your code is clear to be posted. In more complicated stories, this might be a bigger deal than usual.
One person can be many of these things; obviously they’re not mutually exclusive. I think you could merge a few of the pieces and end up with a sort of sounding board beta you talk to before and during the writing, and then the person with the laser eyes you call in once you have something to actually look at. But these are (at least some) of the work that is behind the scenes of a fanfiction story.
If you are someone who would like to be someone’s sounding board, but you don’t really want to be responsible for line editing, you can still offer to beta. It’s just a different kind of relationship, and different expectations on both sides! All kinds of betas are welcome, useful, and intensely valuable!
YES, GOOD. This is the kind of writing resource post we need more of. It covers the basics and gives you good jumping-off points to google more details on a specific condition, plus offers a bunch of great references at the end.
THE FIRST SUPERNATURAL FANFICTION APPRECIATION CHALLENGE IS COMING AUGUST 14TH THROUGH AUGUST 20TH.
There are 141,576 works on AO3 listed under the Supernatural fandom. On fanfic.net there are 115,000 and on Livejournal there are more than we can even fathom. Fanfiction is and always has been a crucial part of the Supernatural fan experience, but more often than not, the authors who take hours, days, week, months, even years to write these fictions get little to no feedback. It’s time for that to change.
THE CHALLENGE
For each day of the week, fanfiction readers will choose fics that fit a theme. The list is below:
Favorite Author Sunday: Choose an author to feature. You can choose one that you love in particular, or choose a few! BONUS CHALLENGE: Read a fic of theirs you’ve never read before and give it kudos/likes/comments/ect. Rec it on your blog afterwards.
Long Fic Monday: Pick your favorite ‘long fic’ (over 10k words). BONUS CHALLENGE: Choose more than one to feature on your blog and let the authors know you promoted their work.
Team Free Will Tuesday: Choose your favorite “TFW” ship (Wincest, Destiel, Sastiel, Wincestiel, or Gen) and promote your favorite fic. BONUS CHALLENGE: Read a fic from a TFW pairing you’ve never read for before.
Short Fic Wednesday: Choose a ‘short fic’ or ‘drabble’ (under 10k words). BONUS CHALLENGE: Try writing your own drabble and post it!
Underappreciated Fic Thursday: Choose a less well known fanfic that has 500 notes/kudos/reblogs or below. BONUS CHALLENGE: Go to the first page of AO3′s ‘Supernatural’ tag and read the first fic you find there. Leave a comment if you liked it!
Wayward Friday: Choose a fic with SPN women as the main pairing/group. (Ex. Jody, Donna, Alex, Anna, Cassie, Kali, Billie, Jo, Claire ect.) They cannot be the side pairing to a M/M one. BONUS CHALLENGE: Let a femslash author know that you enjoy their work. This is one of the least reached areas of fandom when M/M gets way more attention than F/F pairings. Let’s give them tons of love! Open-Ended Saturday: Is there a fic that didn’t fit the other categories? Feature it now! BONUS CHALLENGE: If you’re a writer, self rec yourself today. You deserve to get recognition for your work, too!
THE RULES:
You can use any form of media to promote these fics. Write reviews, create art, design graphics or gifsets to accompany your fics of choice. Anything you feel will give this fic more recognition goes.
Please put a link to the fic you’re recommending in your post.
Tag your ships! This is a challenge for all ends of the SPN community, but we want people to be able to blacklist ships they don’t want on their dash. Be considerate of your other fanfic readers.
If you’re lost on where to begin, this is a template you can go off of:
Fic Name: Fic Author: Word Count: Link to Fic: Thoughts on Fic:
This format is not required, but for those who are unsure of what to do, this is a good beginning point. Remember, you don’t need to create art to participate. You can write a review, praise your favorite fics, and tag your authors! An example post will probably be on the challenge blog when it’s up and going too.
You do not need to post for all days if you do not want. Post whenever works for you!
The big rule: in your post, link to the fic! We won’t accept it otherwise.
Questions? Comments? Ideas? I’d love to listen to them all! The best way to get a hold of me is through Tumblr IM because asks can get eaten. Promos of this are greatly appreciated! If this goes well, possibly it will become a bi-monthly thing? If the interest is there, I could bring in a few co-admins and do this again. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves 🙂
That is all I can think of right now! I’m positive they’ll be questions, so feel free to ask them. The blog won’t be on default theme for long, and I’ll update you all when it’s ready to go. Let’s give fic writers love!
Robert Singer on fans not liking bad character decisions but watching still after the fact (via SDCC 2016: https://youtu.be/P4RV-CeBdUs)
Yeah that’s definitely why there are 140,000 fics on AO3 alone correcting your bullshit decisions and why hundreds of mini-fics and codas pop up on Tumblr after every episode. Because we secretly want it all exactly as-is~ you fucking moron
Wow, this is actually terrifying. This is the same fucking message as ‘Blurred Lines.’ It’s the same misogynistic, dismissive shit that female fans have been hearing all their lives from show runners and gatekeepers. What utter horse shit. What disrespectful, ugly behavior and what a stupid thing to say. Way to completely ignore and demean your own fucking fanbase, you clod.
Can you imagine the changes to the workforce and how we treated workers if no one HAD to work to survive?
Like often I see these complaints about a universal basic income that are like “well then no one would work!” and I think there are lots of people motivated to have more money even when they have enough to get by, but I also I think, that’s kind of true, if regular employment looked and functioned the way it does now.
But with UBI if both employers and society wanted people in certain jobs those jobs would have to offer more than just “you need us to survive”. They’d have to offer satisfaction and community and purpose.
Imagine the changes places like WalMart and McDonalds would have to make to how they run their enterprise if they had to woo and entice their employees into wanting to be there. Imagine the end of “the customer is always right”, both because employers know their workers won’t put up with and because consumers are forced to have a respect for workers choosing to do this with their time to make the community function when they don’t have to.
Imagine the progress to automation and technology now that we don’t have to worry about unemployment as a result. So instead of a store having 40 employees, they have 10 and automated self check out and price scanners and store apps you can pay on, and automated self-driving bots to keep inventory and restock at night. (And that’s when you don’t just order online, shopping in-store is now inherently a Boutique experience).
But those ten remaining employees are So Valued by the company, and so carefully educated and trained and respected as experts in what they do. People go “you could do that when you grow up, help people shop and find what they need and know what products are best for them.” And it wouldn’t be an insult like “you’ll wind up flipping burgers”, but instead a respected option “you can help people have warm fresh food in one of the oldest and most prestigious international groups in the world, and look at their travel programs and free clubs and classes” (McDonalds wins the Fast Food Mario Kart Tournament every year, their team is best in the nation and if you want a good esports program you work at McDonalds).
Evidence shows people would still work. Evidence shows people want to improve their situations and want to have structure in their lives. Evidence shows the only populations who take advantage of a UBI to not work are students who choose to focus more on their studies and new mothers, who choose to spend more time with their kids.
But it would increase the bargaining power and social power of the average employee by so much. They’d have the option to walk away. And employers would know it and consumers would know it and employees would know it. So if we wanted it to keep working, employers would have to start catering to their employees wellbeing and health and happiness as well as their wallet.
And it would be so good.
This is exactly the kind of future that I want, and it always amazes me at how much pushback there is to the idea that people don’t have to work to live.
Imagine all the talent that’s wasted because they went and got a job in order to pay their bills; people like Rebecca Sugar are at this very moment toiling away at JoAnnes and Walmart, they could make just as amazing content if they had the chance. The only difference between amazing creators we love like Alex Hirsch and Noelle Stevens and everyone else is that they got a CHANCE and lucked out enough that it took them somewhere. There are more people who never got the chance because life got in the way and money is necessary for living. I feel so bad for all the amazing creations, books, music, art that is lost because people feel that you ‘have to earn’ a ‘living’. As if creating art isn’t living.
kototyph 