Beta Heaven

[icarus]

CLS has finished the Beta review of the last few chapters of Primer to the Dark Arts.

Yay! Just a few changes. I really have to write a steamy version of 'Morning Breath.'

Axelle's done a final on First Signs of Magic: Severus Snape, part of my gen series on the Sugar Quill. She loved A Moment of Sin and she did the final clean-up Beta. Alas, A Moment of Sin is too hot for prime time, and won't go up on the Quill.

Now she's going to final 'Your Friendly Neighborhood Death Eater.'

tboy has volunteered to Beta my drag-fic 'Sex, Drugs and Death Eater Rock'! Go tboy! I took a lot of my previous Beta's suggestions, cut it to ribbons. Additionally, I chopped about eight pages off its length.

The writing of this story has gone as smoothly as throwing up a hairball.

Note to all: despite the fact 'Death Eater Rock' is a sequel to the (heavily plot driven) Beg Me For It it has no plot, and only minimal character development. Unless you call wine and bubblebaths 'character development.'

Comments

[tboy.livejournal.com]

Let me tell you about the scariest thing that's happened to me in a long time.

For a fic that size, I reckoned I needed a hard copy. My printer is dead, which meant I'd have to print at work.

I sent it to print. Nothing appeared. I panicked.

I deleted the print job.

I kept walking back into the (empty) print room to see if it would appear anyway.

On one of my several visits to the print room, I discovered the new exec (started today) standing at the other printer. My heart fell to my toes.

Sure enough, the first seven pages of your somewhat explicit story was in her hands. "Is this...yours?" she asked, in a strangled voice.

I'm doomed. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck.

My only hope that as a brand new person, she'll think twice about reporting someone as soon as she steps in the door.

FUCK!

Oh BLOODY hell

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Unbelievable. It's like there's a curse on this fic.

I checked the document, and there's no explicit sex in those first seven pages. Thank god. There's alcohol and Draco teaching Ron how to dance. That's as far as it gets.

*winces painfully*

"Eheh. Well, I was honing my editorial skills on this short story written by a friend of mine... Uh."

~Icarus

Re: Oh BLOODY hell

[tboy.livejournal.com]

There's a lot of highly explicit language in the first seven pages. There's drugs everywhere, Draco's high, he's saying 'fuck' every other sentence, Ron's watching his hips pump and saying he looks hot, and...

I'm so fucked.

Sigh. I've decided to try to pretend it never happened, especially as I'm in the midst of trying to get transferred to another department right now. If this comes out now I'll...

It won't happen. It will not happen. I'll get my transfer, and will not be fired. Definitely.

whimper

Re: Oh BLOODY hell

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Alright. I've got my fingers crossed for you. Shit.

~Icarus

[tinderblast.livejournal.com]

Poor Tboy. Maybe you could pretend something outrageous like it's an example of something that your priest was e-mailing to his flock to warn them against, heh heh ...

Unbelievable. It's like there's a curse on this fic.
No, it's just that the gooood things are often the most challenging. Or so Dr. Phil would have you believe.
I bet it's great.

brodie

Hmmm.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

No, I'm holding with the 'cursed story theory.' Really.

I've been stuck numerous times.

I had a pot-hole - er, plot-hole - that threw the last third of the story into disarray.

I've struuuuugled through and finally Spellotaped together a finished story.

I didn't like finished product, so I ripped through the story late one night. And pretty much every change I made has to be taken out.

Handed it to a Beta who, as it turned out, expected a plot, really wanted to see Ron take on the Ministry. But this story really is just a PWP. There's nothing in it but sex, drugs, and Death Eater rock. Really. There is no plot. So she was disappointed, took it out on the story over the weekend. She rewrote an entire page.

I took one look at it, shot her a flip email: "What?! You're fired."

She laughed and sent me a 'oh c'mon, I didn't change that much' email back.

I emailed her saying, look, I can tell from the tone of your comments you don't like this story. It's happened to me as a Beta.

She said, alright, I expected this to tell us more about Ron's plot to take out the Ministry. There's a little bit at the end of the story... *sigh*.

I said, that's okay. Fly and be free. And to show you there's no hard feelings, I'll still Beta your Boozefic.

Now this.

New story name: "Titanic."

~Icarus

Re: Oh BLOODY hell

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I feel horrible. I know there's nothing I can do. But I still feel horrible. How are things?

~Icarus

Re: Oh BLOODY hell

[tboy.livejournal.com]

Don't feel horrible! It's not your fault I'm not coordinated enough to have a private printer.

I only spent a couple of hours at work today as I had a funeral to attend (my aunt), so if there *was* any fallout, I currently remain unaware of it. Will know more tomorrow. I'm hoping she just shuts up and continues to smirk at me. Yes, I feel threatened by the smirk, but that's only because I'm vulnerable! She's probably only smirking because, well, she caught me.

Re the story - I've been sitting on trains with pencil in hand, making notes as I go. There's very little to mark, as it's obvious you've already been over it. A few points I could make are really more along the lines of "well, it works, but you could consider this...". A few others where I have to go back and check the character's positioning (I always do that, I'm very visual. I once stopped Snape from drowning in the bath simply by virtue of pointing out to the author that by that stage his head would be under water *g*). A few question marks over use of ellipses, a POV slip I think I saw... nothing much so far. I'm up to about page 20-ish, I think.