Beta Ready? #IWSG

Happy March! It’s the first Wednesday and I’ll be slow to visit people, as I’m off to a career fair with my daughter most of the day.

I’ve made significant progress on book 2, and I think I’m to the point of asking for beta readers! I did decide yesterday I needed to tweak one chapter because it didn’t quite sit well with me, but I’ve been listening to the whole story text-to-speech to catch those pesky missing words and I’m almost done. I like to leave out the word “the” apparently, and my eyes gloss right over it. But my ears are better at picking up on things. I think it’s almost ready, probably within the next couple of weeks, and so, I’m asking… Anybody want to beta read for me?

Before you jump up and volunteer, I should probably throw down some warnings:
* This is the second book in a multi-POV epic fantasy series. I’m hoping people will be able to jump in without reading the first book, but if you did, well, I changed history a bit. I’m planning to rewrite book 1 and I’m going to make a few tweaks when I do. Please don’t hold these changes against me.
* This is a BIG book. The total is 212K. I’ve cut what I feel I can, but it’s still a hefty size.
* People die in this book, and there are topics relating to the loss of a child, infertility, magical rape (there’s no sex, though), cannibalism, bigotry, racism, and violence.

Here’s the blurb:

She’s the ruler of the broken. He’s the breaker of the rules.
   Derek stole the power of the deities to return MaTisha to life. Now, they want it back and they’ll render her a corpse to get it.
   He scrambles for a solution to save his wife, but a fight with an immortal predator knocks him into the unknown. Stranded in a land of gods and magic, he must find a way home before he loses everyone he loves.
   Meanwhile, MaTisha faces trouble of her own. Monsters are literally sucking the life out of her subjects, and her powers died with her in the war. But impotence isn’t resurrection’s only side effect. An insatiable thirst plagues her, and her closest companions are looking…tasty.
   She’s determined to protect her people, but who will save them from her?

That sound like something you’re interested in? (It’s fine if you’re not. Massive epics aren’t everyone’s thing.)

I don’t have any deadlines. I’m hoping to rewrite book 1 before I publish book 2.

IWSG Question of the Month – Have you “played” with AI to write those nasty synopses, or do you refuse to go that route? How do you feel about AI’s impact on creative writing?

I haven’t tried doing a synopses or anything, but I have pinged AI to get some ideas about how a character might learn to use their power. I didn’t like the sample text it gave me. It was pretty darn terrible, in my opinion, and I didn’t pursue any sort of AI writing experimentation after that. I’m particular about how my writing sounds, and a computer can’t cut it for me.

Are you interested in beta reading? What kind of books do you typically enjoy? What are your feelings about AI?

About Insecure Writer’s Support Group

You can find the sign up for the IWSG here. We owe Alex J Cavanaugh a huge thank you for thinking this blog hop up.