Thoughts while reading

[macklingirl]

Did you ever have the feeling of betrayal while reading a Pros-story? I mean the feeling you have when you realise that the summary of the very long story has unfortunately been the best part of the story.

The story has more than 43000 words and the summary says "A man from Bodie's past seeks revenge, he wants Bodie dead but first he wants him to suffer like he as. Can CI5 save him before John Morgan get his wish and kills him",  so I thought "Wonderful. That could be a good h/c Bodie story." And I wanted to know why this John Morgan wants to kill Bodie. So I started reading.

But after the second chapter I had to stop for a while. I couldn't find out if the author is a native speaker or not, but I really, really wish she would have had a beta reader for her story. It seems as if the whole story was translated via google translator. There are never-ending sentences without any comma, some seem like three sentences in one. And there are lots and lots of missing letters and sometimes, for me, the whole sentence doesn't make sense.

And then I've read the reviews and they all say "Wow, what a great story." or "Very well written" and so on. So I think, maybe it is only me who has the problems and maybe it is because I'm not a native speaker. Or am I too spoiled by our authors? I mean, we have really very good authors writing the Big Bang stories or stories for the DIALJ challenges.

I'm curious how the story will end (at the moment Bodie is alive and six feet under in a coffin), but I must admit I'm happy when I reach the end and can read something better written.

For all who are interested, the link is under the cut.


For all who are interested: R-for-Revenge

Comments

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

But they have 12600 beta reader at Fanfiction.net. And all of them tell you in their beta-bio what strength they have and for which fandom they'll beta. So I think if one would seek help she or he could find it there.
I've just been to have a look at this, and I have no idea how someone would find a beta for Pros from the massive list of people who come up - it looks like you have to go into each person's profile to see what they beta for. I couldn't see a filter by fandom (maybe I just didn't see it).

The other thing is that if you don't know you need a beta (or know what a beta is — and I didn't when I started writing for Pros) then you wouldn't go looking for someone. You'd think your story was fine. I mean, if you wrote a story in German, and had never heard of beta readers, would you think of getting someone to correct it for you before posting? Or would you assume that your German writing was fine? *g*

I don't think it looks quite like writing-as-someone-speaks, I think it's just not having internalised various "rules" for writing, and so not applying them. And we learn English differently to the way non-native speakers learn it too, so you probably have a better knowledge of English rules etc. than alot of us (this is something I noticed when I was teaching English as a second language years ago. And the way English is taught is different in the UK and US as well, quite apart from the differences between those languages themselves! It's all very tricksy and interesting... *g*

And then you get into the difference between not just written and spoken English, and all the various dialects, but the little twists of phraseology that make a real difference to the way we read something as fiction rather than non-fiction etc... *g*

It's not just fanfiction.net though — there are Pros stories on A03 and in the older archives that are written in ways I just can't read (and as Gilda says, sometimes there's all sorts of fabulous feedback for these stories too, when I want to cringe at the sentence structure, or dialogue, or punctuation... and that's not even starting on the characterisation... *vbg*

[macklingirl.livejournal.com]

This is one of the sentences which lead me to the idea that it might be a non-native-English writer. That sounds like something that happens when you use google translator. It can't work with the name Bodie as a name.

>Once down on the other side Mike gathered their bags while Morgan retied the Bodie's hands together, this time they were behind his back.<

Or would you assume that your German writing was fine?
No, of course I wouldn't assume that. It was a terrible thing. But I really didn't know anyone who wrote stories. I could write poems at that time (and I still can) and they are good. So it doesn't feel too wrong for me. And there aren't so many German stories to tell the difference.

...so you probably have a better knowledge of English rules etc. than a lot of us

My old English teacher would laugh himself sick if he could read this. I was the worst pupil ever in English. I didn't understand it and I never thought about reading anything in English again after I finished school. But today I'm sure that it was only because I didn't have the right thing to read. *g*