Beta Bio: general description as a beta reader
Nothing vexes me me more than going to read a story that sounds promising, only to see it have so many grammatical errors I want to cry. All errors in any writing kills my soul (at least it feels like it). Whether it be huge, glaring mistakes to the most miniscule mistakes, I want to find them and fix them. I love editing because I think it is fun. It makes me happy knowing that I made a person's story so much better because they have correct grammar, spelling, usage of different words (such as your/you're, then/than, etc.), sentence structure, etc. I guess I could help with characterization for stories, if someone desires help in that area. I always double-check, and more often than not triple-check anything that I edit to make sure everything is grammatically correct. I'm very blunt and to the point, and if I think something is terrible, I will try to tell you in the nicest way possible, because I don't want to be mean, I want to help. I do give suggestions as to how you could change things to make it more understandable, so you won't be confused as to what I mean when I suggest something. I also help trade out common words, so that a story can be more descriptive and paint a picture in the reader's mind. But not so descriptive as to where one sentence is a paragraph long. Descriptive enough to paint an image, yet concise and to the point. When reading anything, I want a picture painted in my head, as if I'm watching a movie inside my mind-and that is my goal as a beta-reader: to help you create a movie inside your readers' heads. |
My Strengths: beta, writing, or reading strengths
I have exceptional spelling skills, and I look up anything I am unsure of. I am very good at varying sentence structure, and I know many rhetorical terms which help create those pictures in your mind (simile, metaphor, personification, alliteration, imagery etc.). I am very good at catching punctual errors, such as knowing when to uses dashes or commas or semicolons and others. I also know all the different usages of words that usually get mixed up with the wrong spelling, such as: your/you're, then/than, effect/affect, accept/except, etc. If there is anything that I'm unsure of, I have sources that I can use to help me (the Trivium, a guide to English Composition and Style, and many notes that I have taken in my English classes that I kept). :) My goal is to be a writer/editor, so I am very thorough in all parts of editing. |
My Weaknesses: beta, writing, or reading weaknesses
My weaknesses would probably be in time management. I tend to get distracted, which then leads to procrastination, and sometimes I completely forget about what I need to do. So if you want me to beta anything, give me a deadline so I know how long I have so that I can get down to business. That way I'll stay on task and get your work back to you as soon as possible. If there are any fight scenes in the story, I will probably not be very efficient at editing those parts of the story, because I know I am crap at writing fight scenes. There's a reason why there aren't any fight scenes in any of my stories. :) So it'd probably be better to have someone else beta anything pertaining to action scenes, and if it's a story filled with many action scenes, just get someone else entirely. |
Preferred: types of stories I prefer over others
Any fandoms that I know and read will have priority over anything I am unfamiliar with. I would prefer stories with an original plotline, and not an overused one. I would definately beta AU stories, because I don't think there are enough of those on this site, especially if the plotline is interesting. And I would rather beta something that has a plot, than something that is just going nowhere (I bore easily unless I'm interested-I know I'm picky). :) |
Would Rather Not: I do not beta for these stories
I will not beta any yuri or yaoi stories. Nor will I betaread any stories if a character is intentionally out of character without good reason. |
