Do-it-Yourself Beta Guide


I don’t encourage people to disregard the benefits of getting a beta reader. Even though it’s often not easy to find one who works well for what you want, when you find a good one, they can raise your story from good to great. In the meantime, though, you can do some things yourself (and in fact, you should do them before sending it to your beta reader anyway). While there will be several things covered here, by no means is this an exhaustive post regarding grammar, spelling, punctuation, or writing in general. There are other sources available to you online if you want something very thorough and very specific. The things I’m referring to in this post are only things I’ve seen creeping into fiction on a regular basis. As well, this will be divided into two parts- one is strict English grammar rules. The other is personal opinion only. One cannot be refuted; the other can be taken with a grain of salt.

The Rules

Again, these are only a small sample of rules; however, these are the ones that seem to get used incorrectly most often.


**

1. When writing dialogue, the punctuation goes inside the quotation marks.

So, for instance: “I don’t know what to do,” she replied. “It’s difficult for me.”

When you have a dialogue tag like “she replied”, you do NOT end the first line of dialogue with a period. You can end it with a question mark or an exclamation mark, but not a period.

So, not: “I don’t know what to do.” She replied. “It’s difficult for me.”

But you can have: “I don’t know what to do!” she replied. “It’s difficult for me.”

Notice, you don’t begin “she” with a capital letter.


**

2. When writing dialogue, each new speaker gets a new paragraph. As well, make sure your dialogue tags are in the same paragraph as the words they are speaking.

So, not this: John looked at Sally. “I don’t know what to do.” She wailed, “I don’t know what to do either!” He looked crestfallen.

And not this: John looked at Sally. “I don’t know what to do.” She wailed.

“I don’t know what to do either!” He looked crestfallen at her words.

Who is saying what here??

John looked at Sally. “I don’t know what to do.”

She wailed. “I don’t know what to do, either.”

He looked crestfallen at her words.


**

3. When one word doesn’t mean what you think it does

Also known as, “loose/lose”, “than/then”, “further/farther”, “affect/effect”.

Loose- description. As in, “The tie hung loose around his neck."
Lose- an action. As in, “I don’t want to lose you."

Than- comparison. As in, “I like music better than movies.”
Then- measure of time. As in, “Eat your broccoli, then you can have dessert.”

Further- intangible distance. As in, “His memories took him further back in time.” (He’s not actually going back in time; just mentally.)
Farther- actual distance. As in, “He ran five miles farther than he did yesterday.”

Affect- verb. As in, “Maybe prison time will affect her behaviour.”
Effect- noun. As in, “It didn’t have the effect we had hoped.”

(Note: further/farther is often debated, where the term “further” has become almost standard for both instances. However, I couldn’t find anything that said “farther” had the same flexibility.)


**

4. Its versus It’s

This is tricky, I know, because we’re taught that an apostrophe often refers to possession. However, there is a difference in this instance. Here, the apostrophe (as it does in other cases) is standing in place of a missing letter. In this case, the “i” in “is”. “It’s” is actually “it is”.

So: “The dog is chasing it’s tail,” is wrong. Read aloud in full, it would be, “The dog is chasing it is tail.”

Instead, it should be: “The dog is chasing its tail.”


**

5. In the same vein, the use of the word “Till” for “until”.

As mentioned above, an apostrophe is used in place of missing letters. “Till” is slang for a cash register. As in, “The clerk put the money in the till.”

Instead, it should be: “I couldn’t wait ‘til morning.”

In this case, the first apostrophe replaces the missing “o” of “not”, and the second apostrophe replaces the “un” of “until”.


**

6. Inner thoughts.

Though technically they don’t require quotation marks, single quotation marks or italics separate it from the narrative and make it easier for your reader.

So: ‘I feel so tired,’ she thought to herself.


**

7. Their/they’re/there.

Their- possession. As in, “It was their favourite movie.”

They’re- contraction of “they are”. As in, “They’re going to their favourite movie.”

There- place. As in, “They’re going to their favourite movie which is over there.”


**

8. Paragraphs

Separating your story into paragraphs makes it much easier for your reader to follow. There are many little rules that are quite flexible about paragraph writing. However, very simply, the first sentence introduces the subject of the paragraph and the closing sentence ties everything together. A paragraph can be any number of sentences, though a handful (4 or 5) is usually considered the minimum.

As mentioned above, dialogue gets its own paragraph.


**

9. Alot/Alright

Though there is some room for argument regarding “alright” being acceptable as one word (similar to how “altogether” and “all together” are both equally correct depending on the sentence), I suspect a lot of writers are unaware there is actually another version of the word! (i.e. “All right”)

And there is no argument for the misuse of the word “alot”. It is not one word. Never. It is, and always has been, a lot. (In fact, I had to trick my Microsoft Word program in order to not have it automatically correct it!)


**

10. To versus Too

Of course, there’s also “two”, but I find the error is mostly in the use of “to/too”.

Too- also or as well as. As in, “I like ice cream, too.”
Too- descriptive comparison. As in, “I left my ice cream in the car too long.”

To- a preposition. As in, “Go to the car; I’ve left the ice cream in it!”


Check out Ceridwyn's post Some Writing Help and Guidelines, which has several links to grammar help sites and such.


*****

Personal Preferences

This is going to run the risk of making me a very unpopular person, I know. However, if it means anything, let me assure you, in almost ten years of reading fan fiction, these things are not specific to one fandom or another. It might seem that way because I am posting in this forum, but believe me, I can easily substitute “Nikki” and “Helen” for “Mulder/Scully”, “John/Aeryn”, “Sara/Grissom/Catherine/Sofia”, or “Olivia/Alex/Elliot”, just to name four other fandoms I’ve followed over the years. These are things that are universal, so please, if you think I’m pointing the finger at you, or turning the spotlight on one specific piece of writing, you couldn’t be further from the truth.


**

1. Gratuitous spelling errors

I’m not talking about one or two mistakes in a story. We’re all human, after all. We spell something wrong and don’t even realize it. (I bet there are mistakes in this post!) As well, the tolerance level is different for all of us. But for me, if I see one or two mistakes in the first sentence (!), and notice this is a trend throughout the first paragraph, I stop reading.

To quote Gordon Ramsay, “Please, please, please, please, please, please, please” put your story through a spell check program. One comes with Microsoft Word. Of course, a spell check won’t correct the “right spelling/wrong place” error, like “its/it’s”, but that’s a huge step towards beta-ing your own writing.


**

2. Incorrect spelling of names

Similar in some respect to #1. I see this quite a bit in CSI fiction- “Sarah” for “Sara”, but I’ve also seen “Helen Stuart”. If you can’t spell the name of the main character of your story, how much confidence does it give me in the rest of it?


**

3. Product placement

There are rare occasions where this works, particularly if you want to use it as a way to give information about your character to the reader. But really, even something like, “Helen took one look at the 2006 Lexus LS 430 parked in Nikki’s spot and for the first time, wondered just how much the ex-con was worth,” could be replaced with, “…took one look at the gleaming silver car parked in Nikki’s spot…” Don’t tell me what it is, describe it for me and let my imagination come up with a picture on its own. I’ve read CSI fiction where the name of the digital camera Sara is using at the crime scene was written out! “She pointed her Nikon D80 Digital SLR in the direction of the blood splatter.” (I just made those up, by the way; it’s not my intent to use examples from actual stories.)

Again, when the story calls for it, it works. In an AU story where Nikki is a race car driver, it makes sense to identify what she is working on or driving. However, I’ve never quite understood the need to tag Nikki as a Porsche-driving, Armani-wearing, Sarah McLachlan fan. (And I’ve read various combinations of those three labels in over a dozen stories.) It takes me right out of the story.


**

4. Dialogue from episodes

This will not go over well, as a story has been recently posted using several lines from the show, but I’d like to stress again, these are personal peeves, and fingers aren’t pointed at one story; I see this on a regular basis, throughout many fandoms.

I understand the appeal of using show dialogue; it conjures up memories of the original scenes, and it’s tempting to see how they’d work in different scenarios. However, that’s exactly why it takes me out of the story. The reason I recognize those lines is because those scenes have stayed with me, for whatever reason, long after I’ve seen the episode. I remember the feeling of seeing that scene, and I can envision it quite clearly in my head. So to read those lines in a different scenario jars with the memory they immediately bring to mind.


**

5. Precocious children and 20-minute drives across London

Otherwise known as “research”. Yeah, it’s a bit boring, isn’t it? And if it’s a small thing, like how long it actually might take to get from one end of London to the other, what does it matter, right? Well, for some, it doesn’t. But as a show of respect to your reader, as well as a way of improving your story telling, even the small things matter. In fact, it’s the small things that matter most. You ever notice when you go to a movie, you can suspend your disbelief for a lot of crazy things, but it’s the little things that bug you? Explosions, time-travel, villains who get shot ten times but still manage to come back one more time to “shock” the audience… I can let myself not dwell on how fake it is. But improper CPR technique? That’s when I say, “Oh, for crying out loud!” Fan fiction has the same affect on me. So while something like creating brand new laws for gays might stretch my acceptance, a three-year old child saying, “I don’t want you to go, Nikki! Please come live with us!” is a bit much. (That being said, research on actual, current gay rights and the law would be nice, too.)


**

6. Who is this person??

Otherwise known as “out of character” or “OOC”. Please note, this is not to be confused with “alternate universe” or “AU”. Two very different things! AU is a story where it is the characters we know, but in alternate lives. Nikki as a race car driver and Helen as a lawyer, for instance. While we might not recognize their environment, if written true to the characteristics and personalities established on the show, they can still work wonderfully. It doesn’t matter where the story takes place in OOC fiction- if it’s OOC, it doesn’t work. Trish as a screeching harpy? When did we see that in the show? Sean as an abusive control freak? A bland pyromaniac, maybe, not much more.

Now I know, some people will say, “That’s why it’s called ‘fiction’- so the writer can interpret the characters in ways we never saw on the show.” To that, I have no real argument. It simply comes down to preference. I mean, I’m a stickler for canon. For me, it is the foundation given to us and we build on it. My adage is, “Thou shalt not burn down the house!” Meaning, it’s my duty as a writer to only build extra rooms on what the creators have given me; it’s not my place to burn down all that history and create my own just because I think I have the right to do so.


**

7. Nicknames

Mostly seen in the L&O:SVU fandom. Yes, Olivia is often called ‘Liv’ by those close to her; Elliot and Cragen in particular. I’ve never, ever heard her called ‘Livvy’. Ever. Cabot is called by her full first name, ‘Alexandra’, or the short version, ‘Alex’. Not ‘Al’ and definitely not ‘Allie’.


**

8. Ok versus Okay

No one can quite agree on the history of the abbreviation, “ok”, and no one can quite agree on whether it’s acceptable over “okay”. As with the rest of this list, it’s personal preference. However, I tend to lean towards “okay” and can’t quite explain why.


**

9. “It’s all I can say,” she said

Over-use of the word “said”. This one is frustrating for writers, I know, because sometimes “said” is really what fits best at that moment. However, try things like “replied”, “answered”, “stated”, “responded”, “volleyed back”, “sighed”, “groaned”, “declared”, “quipped”, etc.


**

10. “I know,” she said

“Me, too,” she said.
“I feel the same,” she said.
“We should try to mix up our dialogue tags,” she said.
“That’s an interesting thought,” she said.
“And maybe we should stop using ‘said’,” she said.
“That’s a great idea!” she exclaimed. “Let’s start right now.”
Nodding her approval, she beamed, “I agree!”



-coolbyrne

Hiya coolbyrne, great post, and you picked up all of my personal pet peeves, so very thorough job here! One thing I wanted to mention about this one point. If I am not mistaken, British English has different rules about punctuation and quotation marks than American English does, and in fact, it is considered acceptable to have the punctuation outside the quotations in British English. So some of the differences you see in fanfic might be because of where the writer is from.

Of course, American English is much stricter about grammar and punctuation rules than British English is, so I'm a loyal follower of the punctuation-within-quotations rule myself. :)

Great list, coolbyrne! I think it's really helpful - and if I ever get around to writing a fanfic, I'll be sure to have another look over this list.

I believe that's correct, and considering the birth place of this particular fandom, it would be normal to see that "punctuation outside the quotations" rule in a lot of stories. I think the larger problem, which has become more and more common, is not actually seeing any punctuation at all!

I completely agree with you product placement remark. I think that when you define something in a story, it says more about the writer than :D about the character using the product.

I made Sean an abusive control freak. I let my characters drink Stoli and Heineken and I doused them in CK1 or chanel no. 5 . Yes, I make gratuitous use of dialogue from the show (on purpose). I make spelling mistakes. Oh and god help us all i place the "quotation" marks in all the wrong places.

I have written 2 fanfics in my life, both in the last month. they will be my last two. Not because of the Head Prefects comments but for other reasons. I will not be completing the last one on this site. All the fun i got out of posting them here to share with others has been sapped. Fanfic for me was fantasy. I was imagining something and put it on 'paper' as i imagined it. I try to stick to grammar and spelling rules to make it understood, but i write high standard reports and academic papers on a daily basis, this was meant to be fun not work. Being dictated to by someone else about what is and is not acceptable has robbed me of all the pleasure i got from writing. Instead I now have to ponder and weigh every word. Having a day job makes it impossible for me to write to these standards.

They may be the Head Prefect's personal preferences, but even with a bag of salt, frankly its too much. I am happy to accept gentle guidance on grammar and spelling but this is pushing it. I prefer to post on boards where as long as people understand it, they enjoy it. I have read some drivel in my time and I still respect the effort others took to write it and unless my comments were positive, I kept them to myself. Fanfiction for most writers is not anything like the work of a regular author. It is about weaving fantasy, fiction and a bit of ourselves into something. Your comments may not be meant harshly but perhaps you could give more thought to how they are perceived. The boards are full of lurkers, some of them second language english speakers, who may be dabbling in fanfic. Having read some of your comments they may never post.

Well, irisblue, I don't know about those poor, frightened non-English speaking posters, but I know I appreciate coolbyrne's efforts to bring a little quality control to this particular fandom. Although, to be honest, I expected that her effort to help some of the writers here would be met with a response very similiar to yours.(The "Head Prefect" comment does surprise me, though. I thought most of us here were above childish name-calling.)

This particular reaction to constructive criticism just baffles me, especially from someone who says she works with the English language on a daily basis. Anything a person writes is an extension of themselves. To treat something that, by your own admission, contains a 'bit of yourself' within it with so little respect, as I said, baffles me. I'm sorry that you don't feel welcome to post your stories here, but when a creative piece is put on the net, for thousands to see, you're bound to encounter something besides blind praise.

And, I'm curious - why exactly should she have given more thought to how her comments were perceived when so many others on the internet seem bound & determined NOT to do the same? Are we only allowed to give our opinion when we're certain that others will agree?

Thanks for the guidelines with beta information.

However, from posts here, I wasn't sure what the situation being referred to was.

So I've looked and I would like to just try and clarify one thing about the fanfiction for the board.

While we appreciate all efforts to keep grammar and spelling as good as possible, we do agree with irisblue that the writing should be for fun.

We set the board up not to further your writing as there are already plenty of those boards and sites around, but as somewhere other writers and readers could continue the Helen and Nikki storylines in their own way and hopefully enjoy it.

It was never intended to be a place for open critique as has unfortunately tended to happen with some stories.

I would remind everyone of one of the rules we have and was set down very early on in the boards existance.

Unless a writer asks for critique all we ask is as a reader you accept not everyone is going to hit all the correct grammar or spelling - all we basically ask is the attempt is made from the writers.
Equally not all writers have English as their first language, and sometimes that can affect the way a story is written.

So while this kind of threads are great because they allow a writer to go in and make their own decision on how to improve their writing, we also believe it is up to the readers to decide whether they continue to read a story or not rather than others coming in with critique unless, as we've said, it really is nowhere near our guidelines we have in place or asked for by the writer..

Just as a reminder, I am also going to copy and paste the relevent aspects of this post into the forums for now.

Hi irisblue, it makes me sad that you would no longer write/post fanfic because of some suggestions that coolbyrne made. As you mentioned, different writers have different standards and abilities when it comes to spelling and grammar. It seems from your post that you felt personally attacked and criticized by coolbyrne's suggestions, but I truly don't see a reason you should be.

As you pointed out yourself, you write for fun, you don't have a whole lot of time to spend on it and so your priority is more on the storyline, the characters etc, and so you don't mind having grammatical mistakes or altering secondary characters to serve the story. Which sounds fine to me. And, in which case, coolbyrne's post isn't really meant for you at all. I read her post as geared for writers who are coming at fanfic from a different perspective, wanting to perfect it etc. Which as you pointed out, not all writers have the time, energy or interest to do.

So please don't let your creative juices get squashed by taking something personally which wasn't meant personally. I admire anyone who can create a fanfic from start to finish. No matter how much I can pontificate and analyze an episode or a character, I go completely blank if I have to actually invent a fictional story or bring the characters to life in writing.

PS I Love MJ Net, I understand your concern about readers posting public critiques of specific stories in specific fanfic threads, but is there a reason we can't have general discussions about how fanfic writers can improve their writing? That seems to me to be something that might interest some writers, and if they are interested, they can participate. If they're not interested, they don't have to. Isn't that what the "Help" part of "Guidelines, Information and Help" means?

In response, yes it is important that if wanted, guidelines and help are given. Which is why in my previous post here I do say

We also have this stated in the basic rules in this forum which we do hope all writers and readers alike do read.

We have no intention to squash any comments or ideas members might want to put down for others to use, or for writers to ask for help or advice should they wish so.

I thought about it for a long time before I posted this reply. Thought about it because my first reaction was to throw my hands up in the air and say, "Oh, for crying out loud!"

Never, ever has this been about one story. Ever. irisblue pointed out five things her stories had in common with the 20 points I made. TWENTY. Regardless of the tears being shed and the names being thrown around, this was never about one story. In fact, it's not even just about stories on THIS board. Are we honestly that self-absorbed? Take a look at the SVU section on Fanfiction.net. Take a look at a variety of sections on Passion and Perfection (ralst.com). Take a look at the hordes of fan fiction archives on the web. If I posted on all of those sites, would it make people feel better? Somehow, I doubt it, because for some, constructive criticism ends up being all about them... even when every other feedback they've been given is positive. It's as if one single criticism erases page upon page of "I love it! Keep going!" And if that's the case, perhaps a simple request in the author's notes of, "Please, no criticism" would be better. Or, something like, "I'm only in this for the fun." See, because some writers actually want to get better as writers and will take criticism -nay, request criticism- in order to improve. And when they don't, I would hope that they'd realize that posting something for public consumption opens up the possibility for criticism as well as praise.

But again, I'm going to stress, this was never about one story, regardless of what one person thinks. Or others, who have commented on this subject, or who are lurking in the background and thinking, "You've hurt my feelings by pointing the finger at me." Would it make people feel better if I DID include direct excerpts from fics? That way, perhaps I wouldn't post one of theirs and people could say, "Well, she's not talking about ME." Is it the assumption on this board that only praise is accepted? No, no one wants to be put through grammar school when doing something as hobby-ish as fan fiction writing. But does that negate direct criticism altogether? (Though to reiterate for the third time, there wasn't actually any direct criticism in the original post in the first place!) Certainly feedback such as, "Your story sucks!" is understandably not acceptable. But asking that writers put their story through a spell check is out of line as well? Asking writers to use punctuation is rude? Asking writers to capitalize names and proper nouns is harsh? (Ironically, that was one rule I didn't bother mentioning.)

Before I wrap this up, I'd also like to point out that non-English speaking writers are generally the first ones who make twice the effort to use proper spelling, etc. They are the ones who ask for help; they are the ones who seek out improvement. Let's not turn this into a "you're so mean" response, as if there is no room for exceptions or understanding or leeway, from either the reader OR the writer.

Hi Coolbryne,

To address your post quickly because unfortunately we are going to a family event. All I am trying to do is reiterate the position of this board. I can appreciate in your post, it was stated it is others who also get to you, however well intentioned your post was, it was only one writer who was actually picked up on by you.

As a board, we've had long discussions and debates about this issue over many years now, and the overwhelming opinion has always been:
1) Have a section like this area where advice can be offered and sought.
2) Allow writers to do what they wish to their story and long as it is legible, doesn't use text spelling and has reasonable grammar and that basic character situations and names are adhered to - again another reason we have a guideline in this forum.
3) That the vast majority of writers we've had for Helen and Nikki do it for fun and will never want to take what they have written any further and aren't bothered about exact need for grammar, spelling, punctuation or other aspects of writing. In fact, many have said to us that it would feel like being back at school for them.

The problem arose because your comments weren't invited specifically by this writer (although your intention was for it to be a general comment) and while you say why don't writers put this request in to stop someone coming and putting their critique forward, our rule boards already state it as I've posted to show.

Most writers in an environment like this one do tend to find that if someone comes in and "But asking that writers put their story through a spell check is out of line as well? Asking writers to use punctuation is rude? Asking writers to capitalize names and proper nouns is harsh? " do find it rude and often just nitpicking and in many cases because they have done it for fun, demoralising and they then won't write further, and possibly improve from that.

So again, we ask the board rules are applied and that no member goes into a story with critique unless specifically asked, but we encourage posts to try and help others improve their writing as well in this area of the board.

To ensure this thread doesn't go any further off topic I am now closing it, because I do happen to think the initial post does offer some good sound advice for anyone reading it.