To My Writing Friends - Imposing upon our acquaintanceship.

My apologies if you've seen this elsewhere. Do not feel that you are obliged to answer more than once - indeed, if you prefer, you may completely ignore this.

Dear glorious, wonderful and terribly-talented writing friends,

I am working on a university assignment on the use of editing in writing. I had some assumptions before I started, so I realised I had better check with the rest of you to see if my assumptions are correct or a total crock.

So - you've slaved, laboured and wept over your piece of work (fiction, report, whatever). Before you post it online, you know¹ that you need to edit the work. You sit down and go through it, catching the mistakes you've made, the words you've forgotten, and tightening up the writing generally.

Then you pass it to your Beta. They might be a friend, someone you know through LJ, an anonymous name thrown at you. Whoever. And a day later they hand it back - and they've suggested major changes. Removing whole paragraphs. Rewriting the part you thought you had *just* right.

Please tell me in the comments how you feel. And I've made them screened, because sometimes your Beta might see it.

1. Because even the very best writing knows that they make mistakes, and it's very hard to pick up all of your own.