Thank God for the Brave Betas

[ficwize]

I am not going to link to the J2 racefail that is going on at the moment, because if it's not on your flist, just click on mine and you'll see it everywhere. What I'm going to do instead is talk about an experience I as a writer had with a wonderful, talented and damned brave beta reader. (She will probably read this, and should know who she is. If she permits me to name names, I will, otherwise, consider her as just Awesome Beta.)

I've written precisely one big bang fic in my life. It was written to a requester's SPN/X-men crossover prompt with the specific setting of New Orleans and a time frame that would have fallen before Katrina.

I wrote a ghost story that involved the Vaudun (or VooDoo) religion. When I sent it to my beta, she replied in approximately 2.6 seconds and said, "I am uncomfortable with the setting and subject matter in this fic."

I'll confess. It brought me up cold and I went and read what I'd written, wondering if I'd blindly crossed all sorts of lines. I caught a few things; I fixed a few things; but, I also decided to ask Awesome Beta to read a little bit of it and let me know her thoughts.

And she did. Other than the fact that it came back to me with red pen of death on it, she also clearly marked a few place that she still thought failed in terms of racism, sexism and cultural appropriation.

Again, I felt a little rocked. I mean, here I had deliberately chosen to include a cast of POCs because, having been to New Orleans, I damn well know that the city is multi-racial. I live in a similarly multi-racial city. I'd done my research on the ghost story, on the religious aspects, and on the racial politics of the city at the time. I included what I'd learned in my fic.

And I still got called out for Doing It Wrong.

It stung. But not as much as the realization that came a few days later of how badly I could have fucked it up.

I see a lot of flak (well deserved, too) being aimed at the beta readers for the fic that is at the center of the storm here. It makes me, as a writer, grateful that Awesome Beta spoke up and told me about my mistakes when I could still fix them. It made me grateful, because there isn't a single word I've written since where I don't watch myself for a repeat of my own fail.

This is not an attempt to pat myself on the back, because God knows I failed hard a few places in that first few drafts and in other things I've written. This is an attempt to say how grateful I am that Awesome Beta risked alienating me and hurting my feelings to point out where I needed to do better.

She taught me a lot, not just about being careful of my own work and the blinders that I still have in place to things that I still get wrong, but about having the sort of conviction and bravery that it takes to be the ONE voice in the ethos saying, "Do this better."

I've not read the J2 fic that caused this round of fail, but I've read others where I simply hit the back button and left because the fic made me uncomfortable. I've wondered before how certain things got past beta readers (and I'm not talking about grammar here). Someone commented somewhere (I've read a lot of links today) about the fact that most of the time our beta readers are our friends and may avoid saying something, because they don't want to hurt us.

I would just like to say to any friend of mine, that if I fail at something, please tell me so I can attempt to fix it. Please. I'd go so far as to beg you to do it.

At some point in time, we will all fail. We will ALL fail at something. We will ALL say something that is hurtful because of our ignorance about racism, sexism, ableism, LGBT issues, and any other number of things.

To me, I think the best lesson to be learned from this mess is that if we see our friends doing it, we should tell them. If a friend tells us that we are doing it, we should listen. That we all need to be more aware of what, exactly, we are doing.

And that Awesome Betas deserve all the praise in the world for being Awesome.

Comments

[crevanfox.livejournal.com]

I like this approach. Every single meta I've read about the J2 fic thing has just been rehashing the same thing ad nauseum. This was an interesting, personal, and non combative approach to the issue of writing races other than our own.

Thank you.

[shane-mayhem.livejournal.com]

Gotta admit, I'm totally nervous to write races other than my own. Which sucks, because that ALSO makes me look racist. But I'm afraid of exactly what's happened with the J2 fic (which I haven't read, as I'm not in that fandom)...which is, that I'll write some background that will come across as racist, priveleged, et al.

I suspect that the book I'm writing is going to catch shit for just that sort of thing, even though it doesn't really involve many races other than white, because of setting.

[fourzoas.livejournal.com]

Thanks for sharing your own experience with this. I haven't beta read for a while now (no time, alas), but I know that I've had to find the strength within to challenge authors to step away from what they think is a great idea and assess it from other viewpoints. It's an uncomfortable place to be, but, as this most recent kerfuffle shows, a necessary place nonetheless.

[milleniumrex.livejournal.com]

Well said. I don't use betas too often, because I tend to write shorter fic and it usually sort of comes in spurts - I write a lot and I like to get it out there. But I remember one time I did feel like I should probably get it to someone before I was posting. It was a fic involving disability issues, and while I didn't know any beta with great expertise in the area, I at least showed it to the person who wrote the fic it was based on, which was fantastic. She essentially passed it, I breathed a sigh of relief, and posted it. So I get what you're saying here - it's always best to have another pair of eyes, especially when it involves sensitive issues.

I've been staying out of most of the drama. Not my fandom (I love Supernatural, don't really read fic, and can't stand RPS), but I've picked up on most of it. It's all pretty crazy.

[smirnoffmule.livejournal.com]

Great post. I must admit, this whole shebang has made me a little nervous* about the fic I'm writing at the moment, which, while a Trek fic, and so features aliens and not real life disasters, does involve colonial attitudes at work, and while I do know that and am consciously trying to deal with it and address it- there's still lots of room for unconscious fail. Especially since I want to show consequences without leaning too hard on the this-character-is-an-obvious-jerk button because that feels too heavy-handed in the other direction to me. I feel like I could be a bit like your situation - I *think* I know what I'm doing and I've done the research, but that doesn't necessarily mean I do! Fortunately I have an awesome beta too, and I do trust her to belt me with a clue stick if need be. Still.

And I think your point is great; talking about it is such an important thing, and fostering the kind of environment where this kind of thing can be talked about without people becoming too defensive to listen could catch a lot of fail before it starts.

* Rereading this post; "nervous" sounds like such a negative thing to take away, because if this makes me double-check myself and catch something, then that's a very good thing and I should stfu whining.

[lilacsigil.livejournal.com]

A good, smart, tough beta is a treasure beyond words. I feel sorry for the author in question that she was surrounded by people that thought exactly the same way as her, instead of being clear-eyed and thoughtful.

[xenokattz.livejournal.com]

Your beta is awesome. I firmly believe that a good story is about half the beta/editor's work because they pour over it, make suggestions, point out plot-holes-- they Do Work on a story as much as writers do.

[51stcenturyfox.livejournal.com]

Great post.

This is what's bothered me since this story broke; the fact that the issues were missed by so many people besides the author. And yes, a beta might have noticed and said something and wasn't taken seriously, but it's quite likely that nobody realized there were issues with the story. (A lot of people read the story, thought it was great, and left favorable comments, too.)

So I agree with you, but the betas and sounding-boards writers work with have to be looking out for more than spelling and grammar mistakes, and that's not always the case either.

[emmademarais.livejournal.com]

I'm all for awesome betas and wish there were more easy to find resource for specific issues (like OHAI I"m a Catholic who is an expert on The Vatican! Ask me how not to screw up papal related fic!).

Like you I wrote SPN taking place in NO and worried about how I did it, not having anyone knowledgeable to guide me. I think what saved me was that not many people bothered to read my big bang and the NO bit was brief and at the end. Still, I will take trying and failing over not trying any day of the week. I'd rather season my fic with different races and cultures and genders and disabilities and risk getting them wrong than write safe all white WASPy stories that don't reflect the world I live in.

In short, I'd rather be wrong and real than contribute to yet another decade of white male dominance where everyone is too scared about political correctness to attempt to show the world as they know it really is.

[st-aurafina.livejournal.com]

I think this is a really important post - thanks for sharing it. It's important to not be afraid of making mistakes (even in the development of an idea), just as it's important to be able to hear and acknowledge where you've gone wrong. I hope, when it happens to me, that I can do it with grace, as you have here.

(It was an awesome fic, that one. Kudos to you and to your beta for working on it so hard.)

[escritoireazul.livejournal.com]

You can use my name if you'd like. I was going to say leave it anonymous, but putting a name on it made me feel like I was trying to earn kudos, which I'm not, but I'm about to (at least briefly) post about how I felt doing it, after our email exchange (which I will reply to soon, stupid not having enough time for everything), because I do think this is an important discussion too.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't think it's right to assign blame to the betas ... for the very fact that (correct me if I'm wrong) we don't know anything about the context of the interaction between beta and author.

It's possible that the betas did speak up. It's possible that the author disregarded their comments. It's possible that the published story was a major improvement on the first draft, who knows. Even if they didn't intervene the way we think they should have, the choices were still authorial choices.

I'm an instructor of writing. Basically, I serve as a beta reader for all of my students. They bring me drafts, I offer feedback. I do the best I can. My feedback doesn't ensure that the student will turn a poorly written piece of whatever and turn it into a sensitive, original, well-written, brilliant piece of work. In fact, this pretty much never happens. More likely: students bring me "in progress" or "borderline" work, and by their final draft, they have made very marginal improvements so that their work is now slightly better than borderline. Sometimes they disregard my advice altogether. Sometimes they struggle all semester with it and only get it about half way there.

The ability to incorporate advice into a piece of writing is both a talent and a learned skill. The author of the story in question just might not have that kind of talent. (Based on what I've read, I wouldn't be all that surprised.) So ... it's possible that the betas did they best they could with what they were given. Or it's possible that their advice was disregarded. Or it's possible that their advice was misinterpreted. Or it's possible that, as everyone has alleged, they were simply asleep at the wheel here. But I'm not passing judgment against them for mistakes that were ultimately the author's--just as I don't hold myself responsible for my students' ill-thought and sloppy writing after I've discussed it with them multiple times. Even if I haven't discussed it with them multiple times, the mistakes are still ultimately theirs.

The responsibility rests on the author. Always, and in every situation. A beta reader might "intervene," but the work that comes out is still a product of the author's mind and her own choices to incorporate feedback or disregard it or misinterpret it. I certainly would hope that people wouldn't hold my own betas responsible for my mistakes--after all, I allow them to read my work only once to ensure that my work remains completely my own. Good betas are worth their weight in gold, and rare, but I'm not comfortable tossing such aspersions at "bad" betas when I don't know the context, and interactions between writers and betas are often confidential and sort of sensitive (as you pointed out by not outing your own).