Mike’s Comments (group member since Feb 18, 2013)

Mike’s comments from the First Readers (Beta Readers) group.

Oh, thanks! I'll be happy to reciprocate with works of similar wc (or total wc) whenever you're ready. I actually have the third short story complete now, so I'll send you that one too, if you don't mind.

They should be read in this order, since it's the order in which I plan to put them in the book:

Hookup
The End is Near
Gore


The genre categories, I think, that would probably shelve these best would be: Horror -- Psychological, Body, and Weird Fiction.

Anyway, thanks again. Post or pm me your email addie whenever you have a chance and I'll send them to you in pdf form -- unless you prefer another format?

Rebecca wrote: "I do not have any finished work. I have been researching on my first novel, but I have no written work to submit. I would be happy to be a beta reader though, unless this is a deal killer. :)"

Nope! I'll add that to the other thread -- thanks for mentioning this though. If you see anything that gets offered you might be interested in, please reply in the offers' thread.

Oh, and, thanks for joining. I look forward to beta reading any offer you might put out there! :)

In preparation for the coming release of Dr. Sleep (the sequel to The Shining), I've decided to go back and re-read The Shining. However, going to the library and checking out the book reminded me of another favorite piece of writing by Stephen King. It's a famous article named "Imagery and the Third Eye."

The first time I ever read it was in the late eighties in a freshman comp class. I've gone back to it over the years, to remind myself about the great advice I found there.

So I thought I'd share a link to the article with you, in case you've never read it before....

If I can say anything important to writers who are still learning the craft of fiction, it's this...."

In Inspirational Video #3, Kurt Vonnegut lists eight points that help make a good short story. Here they are:


1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel that time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things -- reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a sadist. (No matter how sweet and innocent your leading character, make awful things happen to them -- in order that the reader may see what they are made of.)
7. Write to please just one person. (If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.)
8. Give your readers as much information as possible, as soon as possible. (To heck with suspence. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where, and why, that they could finish the story themselves should cockroaches eat the last few pages.)

In an article I ran across today by Lee Lopez, she sums up the difference between critique partners/groups, editors, and beta readers:

---------------)*(---------------
Critique partners are for the actual journey of writing your story. Listen, but you don’t have do what they say.

The editor is for the middle, when you need a fresh eye. Interview them, make sure they’re on the same page as you and loves your genre. If they’ve edited any books out there, read it!!!

The beta reader, is the end, to make sure your baby is as good as it can get.
---------------)*(---------------

I thought this was a neat little summation of the general roles these characters might play in your life. Still, I think we should define some fundamental concepts for use in this group.


* Don't expect your beta reader to be an editor. They'll point out blunders or solecims they notice, sure, but don't get frazzled if they miss something. This is an informal group designed to facilitate authors helping each other. This isn't a professional service run for profit -- well, except for the profit the smart authors who use this service make by improving their product!
* Don't expect a critiquing partner. While I'm sure most folks will go above and beyond, don't expect them to engage in extended conversations about your work and become long-term collaborators. Most writers are happy to help other writers, but they're busy with their own work too! Please, always be considerate of others' time, and be patient if they don't respond to your communication right away.
* Completed work only, please. Again, this isn't a critiquing circle. This is a group for beta reading of completed work -- period.
* Obey the ethic of reciprocity. If you do your best, even though others may not seem to do theirs, you will get a reputation as a 'go to' beta reader. The more people who want you to beta read their work, the more beta readers you'll have to choose from, so, yeah, karma and all that.
* Be considerate of word count. If somebody offers a single short story 1,500 words long, please think twice before offering to beta read this short story in exchange for a beta read of your epic novel consisting of 17 volumes, each 275,000 words long. Come on. Get real.
* Thou shalt not plagiarize. This goes without saying, of course, but I don't want anyone saying they weren't warned. Get caught stealing from your beta reading partner, just once, and see how quickly your reputation can be ruined on teh interwebs. Seen writers stealing before ... getting caught online. Mmm. Not pretty.
* Declining Beta Readers Without Comment Sometimes, for whatever reason, we'll know if a beta reader isn't a good fit for our work. If this happens, just quote their response to your offer with a simple "TBNT" ("Thanks, But No Thanks") and leave it at that. Done. Move on.
* OMG! I got a TBNT! What do I do!? Nothing. Don't reply, don't question why. Just move on with your writing career. You'll live. :)
* I currently don't have a finished work to beta read. If you have no finished work to beta read, you can still beta read another writer's work. If you and that author agree, you can arrange a 'rain check' beta reading of your work when it's complete; however, reciprocity is not a requirement for participation in this group (unless agreed upon by the pair beta reading each other's work, of course).


That's it for now. If any other things come up, I'll modify this post.

Thanks!

I've appended "(Beta Readers)" to the group name. This is a phrase better known in the industry.

Thanks to Kathy for reminding me of that, btw.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_reader

lol You do n't sayyy?

I just finished reading O. Henry's story "The Missing Chord." It was okay. As usual with O., he went for the joke format, the punchline at the end, the traditional sequential telling of the tale, the moral heavy handedness, &c. No surprise there.

What did surprise me though was his use of separated contractions using the word "not." For instance, these occur in the story throughout:


could n't
would n't
should n't
has n't
was n't


This caught my eye. I don't remember ever having seen the root word of the contraction phrase separated by a space from the contracted form of "not."

It reminded me of the way words start out sometimes as hyphenated creatures, then, eventually, as they evolve over generations, lose their hyphen entirely. Of course, a lot of times this doesn't take generations. Maybe it only takes a few years. Take the word email, for instance. That started off as "e-mail" not generations ago but in 1982, according to the Online Etymology Dictionary. [On second thought, I guess 1982 may have been one generation ago -- but just one!]

So, once done with the story, I decided to look around a little online and found an interesting article on contractions at Grammar Girl's great site. Here's a short quote:

Unfortunately, the Coen brothers were misinformed. Mark Liberman of the linguistics blog Language Log found that the original True Grit novel by Charles Portis contained both contracted and uncontracted forms. For comparison, however, Liberman looked at two other novels, including Tom Sawyer, published in 1876, and found that those novels were more likely to include contractions than True Grit, so there really is some contraction avoidance in the novel True Grit. Maybe Portis wrote that way for purposes of characterization, Liberman suggests. He also quoted a paper in the Journal of English Linguistics on the history of contractions with “not.” It said that they first appeared in writing at the beginning of the 17th century, increased during the 18th, and were more or less accepted in the 19th.

In fact, there were even contractions before the 1600s, but at that time they usually weren’t indicated with an apostrophe, because the apostrophe was still a recent invention. Going back more than a thousand years, Old English had a class of contracted verbs. For example, the verb seon, “to see,” was a contraction of the earlier seohan. So contractions are not a recent development in English.

I started to look for Twain's famous book online but, before I did, I searched for a copy of O. Henry's short story online so you could see for yourself what I'm talking about. Of course, this is where I ran into the revisionist history of teh interwebs. Take a look at this and you'll see what I mean:

Teh Interweb's Version of O. Henry's They Missing Chord

So they're all gone. All the contractions are converted (in this version at least) to the modern type, sans the space.

Off to the library now to try and find an old copy of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Hopefully, I can find one that illustrates just how Twain's contractions appeared in the original -- and not how some new generation of typesetters decided they should look.

Welcome, Larry!

Please post your offers for poetry here in this folder. Just describe your work and what sort of feedback you're seeking.

If an author is interested, you'll find a reply to your post.

Thanks!

Please post your non-fiction offers in this folder. Just post a new message describing your work and include as much information as possible -- genre, word count, &c.

Also, don't forget to mention what you're expecting from a first-reader partner. Just looking for plot holes? Continuity blunders? Describe what you're after.

Thanks!

I do want it to be a relaxing place, with high-quality writers who are serious about the craft -- hence, our mascot, Jimmy. ;)

K.A. wrote: "Will do. Is .pdf okay?"

Yep. That works.

FYI: http://www.goodreads.com/help/show/42-how-do-groups-work

By the way, this is a Private group.

All this means is that while non-members can see the group's description in search results and listings, only members can see the actual forums.

Also, moderators have to approve new members.

That's fine. I'm not askeered of a an 85k novel.

Send to me at mikeduron[at]gmail.com when you get a chance.

Oh, hey. Thanks!

I'll email you the two stories I have ready in just a bit.

Do you have anything you'd like me to read in return?

-------------------
ETA: Actually, I'll have to send them in the morning. I don't have access to them where I am right now...

[Okay, I guess I'll set the example of how this is supposed to work.]

I have a collection of three short stories I'd like to put out within the next couple of weeks. I plan to self-publish via smashwords and Amazon.

The stories are psychological/horror themed, and would probably fit well on the same shelf as a typical Richard Matheson short story.

The two finished stories are around 6600 and 3500 words long. I'm working on finishing the last one right now, so it should be ready in about a week.

Looking for obvious grammatical blunders, continuity blunders, dialogue inconsistencies, &c. [Not professional proofreading, just easy catches. This should be fun -- not a chore!] :)

Please reply to this post if it sounds like something you might be interested in.

Thanks!

Welcome, Ann! Great to see you here. Thanks for stopping by. :)

Hey, K.A. -- great to see you here. Thanks!

Sure, beta readers. So, the first person with whom you share your finished work, be it a short story, poem, novel, or non-fiction piece.

Whether or not a pre-release review will result will be up to the pair. There are no requirements here, except those agreed upon by the pair.