the_rck | Entries tagged with beta readers

Scott thought Ready Player One was disappointing. He says it wasn't actively bad; it just wasn't that great.

After he got home from the movie, we went to Barnes & Noble. Cordelia got two books. Then we went downtown and got dinner at Totoro. We were done and home by about 4:30.

Some time a bit later, Scott managed to reach his parents via Facetime. They're in Florida until the end of the month, but Easter's a very big deal for them, so they try to check in with everyone.

I've got a bunch of library things due today. Most of them are things I've just barely started. I need to decide which are going back unfinished and which I want to renew. I'm pretty sure that I can finish the last movie in time to get it back today. I've also got two novels that have waitlists. Neither is due until the 22nd, but I need to give them priority. One is something I'm almost sure I'll finish. The other is only a 50-50 thing.

Today's to-do list:
Laundry
Beta reading
Exchange fic
Find beta readers for three different stories
Library DVDs
Various organizational things on my laptop

The above are more or less in order by priority. I can do the DVDs while I write or beta. The laundry and the attempt to find beta readers won't take all that much time. I'm not optimistic about my chances on the beta readers, but asking takes very little time.

Speaking of that, I'm still looking for a beta reader for a 1100 word Phineas and Ferb: Across the 2nd Dimension story.

I need a beta reader for a sequel to a story I wrote back in 2011. The original story, "To the Victor", is a Phineas and Ferb: Across the 2nd Dimension story that I wrote for Yuletide, back when Phineas and Ferb was still small enough to qualify. That story is G rated.

This one is probably more T than G in terms of rating, but that's mostly because I started writing it and realized that, if the 2nd Dimension kids were human beings instead of characters in a comedy, they'd all be kind of messed up. It's Candace and Jeremy at the beach, but it's also Candace thinking about the past and the future and the dangers of both. Neither Candace nor Jeremy get their childhoods back, but they don't seem to mind that much.

I'm mostly looking for a second set of eyes to help find my SPaG errors.

This is what I wrote today when I was looking for something I could write comfortably with Cordelia in the room. I managed to pass my word count goal, so I went over 50K words in March. I'll add up the numbers and post the official count tomorrow.

ETA: Forgot to say-- 1100 words, plus or minus.

I woke with a migraine this morning. I slept badly. I'm blaming both on yesterday's vast levels of stress. I'm hoping that I can nap this morning, but who knows? I don't generally have luck with that. Fortunately, Amerge helped the headache.

I'm considering signing up for the Worldbuilding Exchange 2018 (

worldbuildingex). I think that, if I only offer things I'm enthusiastic about writing, I could do it as part of my current flow of writing. I've pulled out the fandoms that I might consider offering and will narrow things down later when I'm actually awake.

One of my WIP has gone into territory that requires really major world building. So now I have two stories that require me to build worlds only hinted at in canon. Well, the latest one isn't even vaguely hinted at in canon because canon is a movie aimed at kids that's meant to be in the real world taken a step sideways. I kind of knew this was coming a few days ago, but I was hoping to avoid it. I'm still hoping that I can sidestep most of it for this one. The other one will be Peter Pevensie in Charn, well before Jadis's time.

I still need a beta for that Smallville/more general Superman story that I posted about a few days ago. I've asked Scott, but he's been too tired and busy to even open the Gdoc.

I've got four different House of Sulfur and Mercury stories that I've worked on in the last several weeks. I don't know when I'll finish any of them. There're another several stories in that series that I've started but not worked on in a while or haven't yet started. I've got three other WIP that are new-ish-- a crossover, a Rurouni Kenshin thing, and an original fic.

I'm in need of a beta reader for a 3200 word fic set in the same world as The Very Self of the Storm.

It's DC comics adjacent with a large helping of early Smallville in the backstory, Clark/Lex, post-apocalyptic. I'm pretty sure that it doesn't need a lot of detailed knowledge of any particular bit of the DC related fandoms. Mostly because I don't have that detailed knowledge myself because that network is vast and convoluted and contradictory.

My first concern is the overwhelmingly large heaps of handwavium involved in the worldbuilding. This is set up for a time travel fix-it that I am not going to write. (Because saying I won't always works, right?) The handwavium is mostly there to explain why they haven't discussed it as a possibility sooner.

I suspect, too, that there are bits where I need more description because that's a perpetual problem for me. I'm also not sure that I've got the balance of things between the two characters right yet.

It's Lex alone in the Fortress of Solitude and talking to the Jor-El based AI there. I'm not sure that AI is plausible as any version of Jor-El, but 'any version of Jor-El' takes in such a broad swathe of characterization that I figure I can assume some version of him would be like that.

My main content warning is that Lex consistently refers to the AI as 'it' in his thoughts. Within the story, it's not clear how the AI might identify, but I'm pretty sure that this is Lex dehumanizing the AI to make himself feel better. I'm not sure that Lex actually knows (or has ever asked) what pronouns the AI would prefer.

So I kind of lost track of things today. I lay down and almost napped for a couple of hours this morning and then kind of freaked out over the fact that all three of us have appointments to see the dentist on Monday but that the office didn't call to remind any of us about those appointments (they're closed on Friday, so they call on Thursdays for Monday day before reminders). If I hadn't remembered that I was expecting those calls I might actually have fallen asleep. Or not.

I had promised to do a beta read today and forgot about it until early afternoon. I finished it maybe an hour ago and have been trying to catch up on other things since then. I completely forgot about the two business hours only calls I needed to make.

I made Scott buy a new bottle of naproxen yesterday because I noticed that the one we had expired in May. The new stuff killed the cramps, but I didn't get it until about 5:00, so I wasn't up to going out when Scott and Cordelia did.

I think it's possible that, apart from things like taking out the trash, I haven't left the house since we had lunch with my parents on the 3rd. That seems like it can't possibly be right, but I think it might actually be.

I cooked some fish tonight. It was whiting which none of us had ever had before. I found it overwhelmingly fishy in a way that I really want to cover up with something else. That makes it not a dinner food because most of the possibilities for covering the flavor are bad for me after lunchtime.

I think I finished a fic yesterday. That is, I need to look it over and decide whether or not it needs expansion. I think it may need more description, but I really don't want to deal with that and likely won't without prodding. I asked Scott to take a look at it because it's Star Wars (episode 4), gen, 1400 words, canon divergent AU which should be right in his wheelhouse. I think he's already forgotten about it, though, because I linked him to it last night and haven't heard a peep.

At the very least, I need someone to help me bridge the difficulties of parts of episode 4 making zero sense with the prequels or needing decisions made about who knows what and why certain people don't know things. I'm hoping Scott can help me with those things since he's in the same house with me, but...

And I just reminded him, and he nodded and went, "Uh-huh," and has not either opened the Gdoc or asked me to send him the link again.

No time to fuss about that-- It's time to brush my teeth and turn into a pumpkin.

I'm looking for a beta reader for two more Sky High fics that follow on from the one I posted recently and the one I wrote last year for Fandom Stocking. The series is here on AO3. I'd say T all the way through. The first new story is Will's POV and about 4000 words in two parts. The second is Will's mother's POV, about 2000 words, and set several years later.

The first two, already posted, stories add up to slightly more than 2000 words and are necessary for the new ones to make sense.

I'd like to post both at once because the first leaves open a major question that's answered in the second. I don't think they should be chapters in the same story, especially not when the other two are separate.

I need a beta reader for a T rated Sky High story. It's a sequel to the one I wrote last January, With Bitter Herbs and Rue. That's on AO3, but I'm on my phone and so can't easily link. It's kind of Warren/Will/Layla shippy but has nothing definitely sexual. About 1000 words and in the same style as the previous story, just from a different point of view.

I started a new story yesterday. I'm not sure if it will go anywhere or not, though, because it's definitely getting into characterization/backstory/world building rather than the smut requested in the prompt. I made a list of the prompts that I'd saved and ideas I have that I thought might be quick to get done. That gave me a list of 106 options. I'm beyond boggling at that. It's too many for me to easily pick one-- or even a handful-- to focus on without resorting to randomization.

At any rate, I'm almost 1000 words into this one, and it's all set up. I still have the two stories that need rewriting, but I have no real idea where to start with them. (They're both Weiss Kreuz, 8K-10K words, explicit, and potentially squicky. I don't think that canon knowledge is required for either, though, and I'd adore help.)

We're supposed to take mashed potatoes and a vegetable to Thanksgiving dinner at Scott's parents' place. The pressure cooker makes mashed potatoes fairly easy, as long as we're not wanting to remove the skin (and I like the skin left in). Scott picked up some bok choy yesterday since that's on the list of things that are probably safe for me to eat. Cordelia hasn't tried it in years, so maybe she'll be willing to eat it now.

My uncle has been transferred to yet another hospital. He's now waiting either to die or to get a lung transplant. My assumption is that the doctors must think his chances with a transplant are good because I don't see them suggesting it otherwise. I have no idea how long the waiting list is for lung transplants or how hard it is to match well enough to make it worthwhile.

Scott still doesn't know his work schedule for the weekend. Most years, he has Thursday off and then works Friday. Some years, he also works Saturday; some years, he doesn't. Usually, he'll have Sunday off. The schedule simply hasn't been set yet, and there's a rumor going around that they might get both Thursday and Friday off but then be required to work Saturday and Sunday to compensate. Scott and I just want to know so that we can plan.

Leaf raking has been canceled for today, due to freezing rain, and it's too late in the year to reschedule. The choir teacher is a little upset about losing the money they would have made. Apparently this is the most lucrative fundraiser they do every year.

My main reaction is that it means I'm not getting any time to myself today. Well, also, Cordelia and I need not have gotten up at 8:00 a.m. I had a lot of trouble getting back to sleep after Scott got up at 5:00. I fell back asleep around 7:30 and started vivid dreams immediately. At this point, I don't think there's any chance I could sleep again. I didn't know the fundraiser had been canceled until after I had caffeine and had taken my morning meds. One of those means I need to eat thirty minutes later.

So I guess it'll be a day of watching episodes of Full House until Scott gets home and we have to rush to the library. I can't work on my current stories with Cordelia sitting next to me.

I finished a draft of a story last night. It was rough enough that I decided not to post it to

weissvsaiyuki even though last night was the amnesty deadline. I'd really like someone to look at the emotional throughline for the characters, but I can't think who to ask because I need someone comfortable with explicit noncon who also knows the canon. Well, more the former than the latter because the canon is actually, in spite of its convolutions, pretty simple.

And that's on top of the draft story I posted to

weissvsaiyuki last weekend. I keep thinking about trying to edit it and failing my morale check. I really want to post it to AO3 and be able to call it done.

Posting these two stories will give me 93 stories on AO3. Part of me would love to hit 100 stories by the end of the year, but I'm not willing to kill myself to do it, and I'm terrible at writing short and/or quick things, generally speaking. Sometimes it happens, but usually it doesn't.

I did that AO3 meme that was going around and then misplaced it, but I didn't actually find the results all that interesting, even as navel gazing. Mainly I was surprised by the ratings count because I struggle more with the explicit stories and therefore keep thinking I have more of them than I do. Actually a third of my stories are G rated and almost as many are T rated.

I think that the cramps are gone now. I hope so, anyway.

I'm looking for brainstorming and revision help with some Weiss Kreuz fics for

weissvsaiyuki. I'm not sure how much canon knowledge is necessary for any of these. They're all Schwarz-centric, so there's less canon to work with (I don't even try to be consistent with the drama CDs and manga, just the anime).

One is either T or M rated and complete, but I think the ending is weak and possibly too rapid. I'd like a second opinion on it. The story is dark. I'm trying to end with a glimmer of hope, but that's one of the things I'm not sure even vaguely works.

The second is somewhere between one third and three quarters done. I'm at a point where I have to make a story decision and can't get myself to because none of the options quite work for me. I'm pretty sure I'm missing something. I'm not sure where to put the rating on this one-- Probably T for now with the possibility of it going upward depending on where it goes from here. Right now, it's gen (but could be read as Crawford and Schuldig being involved off screen. Or not), and I'm not planning to change that, but...

The third is E rated and potentially squicky due to noncon. I think it's half done. At about 2000 words in (out of about 3400 currently), it took a sudden left turn from PWP into character development that I think is not consistent with the first part of the story. I'm just too close to the story to be able to tell for sure, and I want a second opinion on that and on whether I should axe the character development to go back to the PWP or rewrite the first part to support the character development.

I am looking for a beta reader for my Small Fandom Big Bang story. It’s 10200 words, M rated, Chronicles of Amber, Merlin POV, Luke/Merlin, canon divergent AU (from when Merlin was imprisoned in the blue cave), and comes with a wall of warnings: gender fluid Merlin (due to shapeshifting); dubious consent (Merlin sets out to seduce Luke, but Merlin is Luke’s prisoner); threat of forced pregnancy; discussion of death and torture; angst; cousin/cousin sex; bondage; captivity; open ending; first person POV; unreliable narrator; technically adultery (Luke is married to someone he hasn’t seen since they were both children, an arranged marriage of alliance).

I am mostly looking for SPaG at this point, but I wouldn’t mind someone who’s willing to point out plot bobbles/contradictions. Canon knowledge would be a bonus but isn’t required. Scott (who does know the canon) has looked it over, and his only comment was that he thought Merlin was too uncertain about what his plans were.

I’m comfortable enough with what I’ve got that I’ll go forward with only Scott’s beta, but if this is a story that might appeal to anyone, I would appreciate a hand.

Crossposts: http://therck.livejournal.com/1048204.html

I need someone to bounce ideas off of for a WIP. The bit I need help with is a descriptive passage in a Weiss Kreuz story. I don’t think that canon knowledge is necessary because I’m pretty definite on the starting choices for the house I need to describe. The things I need to figure out are tiny things that would look wrong because the house’s appearance is drawn from a particular character’s mind. I want hints that he’s holding things together less well than might be expected by my POV character. I don’t want to beat readers over the head with it, though.

But I’m really, really terrible at this sort of description, and the story’s been stalled out for months on this section. I will likely put [insert description here] in and come back to it later, but the problem will still be there, so I thought I’d ask if anyone feels up to helping.

I’m pretty sure that the starting setting for furnishings was Danish New Modern and that the house used to be bigger than it is now and had rustic cabin retreat as the setting for the exterior and layout. The things the occupant uses regularly will still be in good shape; it’s everything around the edges that should be iffy.

Crossposts: http://therck.livejournal.com/1023834.html

I’m looking for someone who’s willing to act as a sounding board while I’m planning the Amber diceless scenario I’m going to run at the local game convention in November. I need to make some plot decisions before I go forward, but I’ve been feeling mentally paralyzed over it.

I don’t think I need someone who knows the game system so much as I need someone who knows Zelazny’s novels and who has experience with GMing short games. I’ve tried talking to Scott, but he just kind of looks at me blankly.

Anybody willing?

Crossposts: http://therck.livejournal.com/976493.html

Anyone willing to beta read 2800 words of Chronicles of Amber fic with Merlin/Jasra dubcon (Jasra captured Merlin) looming in the background? There's no violence or overt nastiness beyond the background situation. It's just conversation, kind of tense conversation but nevertheless. Oh, and there are babies. I know that's a dealbreaker for some people.

I'm not quite done, but I don't expect more than another two or three paragraphs.

I'm going to bed now, so I won't get back to anyone until morning.

I have a full draft of my remix story. I need to find someone who can beta in the fandom and then rewrite the dratted thing. I know one of the transitions needs work, and I suspect there are other pieces of the story that aren't right. I'd like to finish it up and get it out by the end of this weekend, before family stuff starts ramping up.

I'm not sure where to start on the beta reader front. This is a fandom I don't normally write (a challenge, yea!), so I don't know who's into it. Anybody willing to volunteer to beta read without knowing the fandom? I expect to rate the fic PG-13 for various reasons which I'll discuss with anybody who's willing to beta read.

I'm looking mostly for help in the flow of the story rather than for proof reading. I need the latter, too, but I know that the story isn't working as well as it could but can't tell where the problems are.