Refusing to fix SPAG errors?

[doranwen]

I just had a conversation with a few friends where I was venting about this and I just had to type up my thoughts. I've run across multiple people on AO3 at this point who actually refuse to fix any SPAG errors in their fics. And I don't understand that at all!

See, it's a matter of pride in one's writing. If something's worth doing, it's worth doing well, and their attitude towards their own fics says something about what they think the fics are worth. Not fixing an error - particularly a simple one to fix - says "I don't care about my fics, they're not worth anything". Why would you even bother posting then? I don't get it. It lessens my perception of them, I must admit. Apathy toward the quality of the things one does/creates is not an attractive trait in people, and stubborn refusal to fix a mistake when they could is worse. (Genuinely missing something is not at all the same - lots of people, including myself, do that! That's why I'm happy when someone spots a SPAG error in one of my fics, because then I have the opportunity to fix it and polish the fic up a bit more that way.)

Those of us who can't not proofread everywhere we go find some errors particularly painful to read; everyone has their own set of pet peeves. I find "rouge" for "rogue" (a common error in X-Men fandom, lol) particularly painful, and lose/loose and its/it's make me just cringe, for instance. And since I actually do re-read fics sometimes… it means re-reading the same wince-worthy errors.

I'm also far less likely to recommend a fic to a friend if it's got a major typo/SPAG error in it. If the story's really good otherwise, I might - but I'd have to qualify it with "well, there are some noticeable SPAG mistakes in it, but…". But there are very few I can think of that I've read that were that good despite it all.

That's why if I see a SPAG error in a fic, I'll (after telling the author what I liked about the fic) gently let them know about the error. 99% of the time, they're thankful that I caught it for them, and they fix it quickly - and then future readers will never see the mistake and their fics will read better to them. It's that 1% of people who are apathetic or stubbornly resistant to editing anything that completely baffle me. Do they really want future readers to keep noticing the same error that 1 minute's worth of editing time would've fixed?

Comments

[xriverxjoix]

i actually kind of get it, because when i write something, i feel like it becomes fixed in stone. changing something, even to improve it, feels unfaithful to the moment in which i wrote it. also, some people may feel too overwhelmed to go back and fix things, if writing it was hard and posting it was scary.

[doranwen]

The way I look at it is, that's what a good beta is for. If one can't bear to change things themselves, they can always dump it into a Google doc, give a beta editing privileges, and let them fix the obvious errors. I don't use a beta reader for that myself because I generally catch all my own mistakes, and the few times I don't, I usually find them upon a re-read after posting (the different formatting look can help me see errors I missed before) and then I fix them because leaving errors in would give my readers a bad impression of my writing. Rarely do I ever have an error that lingers long enough for someone to point it out (and usually when that happens, it's a beta I asked to read the story for characterization, who catches a duplicated word or wrong tense or something). But I know I'm in the minority there (which is totally fine, everyone's got things they're good at, that just happens to be one of mine), so that's why most good writers use a beta.

Also, typos/SPAG errors are totally different than writing errors, like poor word choices or sentence structure or whatever. There's nothing sacred about a typo or misspelling! (Particularly since no one intends that. A writer chooses the words they used, but they didn't choose to make a typo or misspell a word!) Reading one feels like a really bad itch to me and quite a few other people - it can be uncomfortable to come across some of them. I know some people are like "I write how I want to write" (notably one writer with that attitude I've seen on AO3 deliberately never puts a single capital into even long fics - a stylistic choice that can work in short passages but is more difficult on the eyes to read in longer passages - and even had paragraphs all clumped together making it really hard to read) and yeah, of course you can do what you want… but when you post it publicly (particularly on a site such as AO3 or ff.n, where it's not just your own journal/website) for people to read you're entering into a social activity where there are expectations on both sides. It's a give-and-take. You're asking others to read your work, to appreciate it, in many cases expecting/hoping for comments/kudos… In return they expect that you'll have at least tried to make it easy for them to read, and fixing what SPAG errors you can (either by oneself or via a beta) is part of that. (The standard "writing process" as taught in school might be a bit contrived, but writing really is a process, and good writing can be edited all over the place. Fixing a few SPAG errors is not even close to real editing - just a mere bit of polish that makes the fic far more attractive and readable for all.)

I've volunteered to beta a lot of people's stuff, and I can either just fix everything or write explanations (so people can learn why I'm choosing to change it this way or that), but it's like… if you know you struggle with that area, that's where you reach out to someone who can support you there. (Like I know I struggle with characterization and sometimes plotting, so I'm always hunting alpha readers to help me with those areas.) There are lots of places to find friendly betas who can take care of those issues. :)