WTF beta reader?

[digital_opium]

Does anyone actually realize that beta reading actually involves ... wait for it... READING?

Yet another fic where the author thanks so and so for being their *airquotes* beta reader, and within two paragraphs I notice three or four errors.

Dude. Running something through word (or the equivalent) spell and grammar check doesn't count as beta reading. The author should be able to do that much.

Let's not even get into continuity and form.

*mutter mutter grumble*

Kids these days. A good walk five miles to a beta reader in a howling blizzard up-hill both ways would teach them a thing or two.

*grumble mutter mutter*


ETA: It's 'would have', people, not 'would of'. *mutter grumble mutter*

Comments

[digital-opium.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's acceptable. But argh.

Won't someone think of the fiction?!?

[kittydesade.livejournal.com]

Evidently not.

It's shit like that that makes me think I can get published. Especially when I start seeing it in published fiction.

Okay, maybe not that bad, but really.

[digital-opium.livejournal.com]

It's shit like that that make me want to highlight every instance of it in a book and send it back to the editor's with a resume.

Argh.

Do I do things like this? Yes. Do I check, double check, have someone beta read and then check it again?

Yes.

'Course, I could be a little bit obsessive. Heh.

[kittydesade.livejournal.com]

Obsessive is good. I don't do it myself for everything I write or even post, but everything I'm going to submit professionally? Yeah.

Which is why I never submit, 'cause it's never right. But.

[digital-opium.livejournal.com]

Pish. Submit it, dammit. That's why they have editors. Except, you know, good ones. That's why I'm on a mission to rid the world of bad editing.

*dragon snort*

[kittydesade.livejournal.com]

Hee. I'm working on it, slowly but surely. Hopefully the first query letter will go out tomorrow, then the manuscripts to the publishers that want entire manuscripts starting in a couple weeks.

I am so very neurotic by now.

[digital-opium.livejournal.com]

Good girl!

*excited for you*

[kittydesade.livejournal.com]

*tiny smile from beneath piles and piles of red-marked paper*

*hugs*

[digital-opium.livejournal.com]

*hugs right back*

[caoine.livejournal.com]

...editors?

*hides*

*late*

[digital-opium.livejournal.com]

Editors are your friends!

Well, they are if you really know editors...