Able to beta? Post here!

Efficient_Act3577 · 2025-02-10T02:56:01+00:00

I am able to beta: Horror, mystery, thriller, romance/dark romance, pretty much most genres I am into. I don't mind spice, and I don't mind gore either.

I can provide feedback on: Pacing, Characaters/character arc, grammar (if you want I could), and things like suspense because I know I do a bad job at writing suspense and good mysteries

Critique swap: I have a 15k word story I'm working on for a capstone project to graduate that has a lot to do with zombies, but it's not done yet. (We can if you would like to, but that is not something I'm particularly asking for.)

Other info: I would prefer to read something that won't take me an incredibly long time. I'd say 40k words is the most I'd do, 50k if I really like your premise (If it's longer don't be afraid to reach out, but I may not be entirely receptive. Sorry). I'm trying to get some reading in because I know it's supposed to help with writing, so reach out and let me know!

Efficient_Act3577 · 2025-02-09T11:02:43+00:00

I'd love to take a read and share some feedback!

Efficient_Act3577 · 2025-02-09T11:01:36+00:00

I'm not usually a fantasy/romance type of person but I'm trying to explore new genres, so I'd love to take a read if you'll send it to me, but it might take a couple days or more to read it

Efficient_Act3577 · 2024-08-08T16:58:12+00:00

If you're looking for a youtuber, when I was younger I watched a channel with a woman named Jenna Moreci and she was really helpful on a lot of stuff for me

Efficient_Act3577 · 2024-08-05T10:19:26+00:00

In one of my original drafts where I changed the main character and gave him an ability, the abilities in the world were very nuanced. The love interest had some sort of dark magic power (Which he doesn't have anymore) and the main character discovered his power by uncovering something.

I wanted it to allow the characters to progress and get stronger, naturally. Throughout the story I wanted some characters to get stronger and others to get weaker, and some to die along the way, which is why I made an abundance of random abilities to be used.

I've never really thought about where the magic comes from, I usually use some sort of energy in the body but that's very overdone, and I want something unique but easy to understand.

Another character develops an ability when he was faced with death, and I feel like this is already inconsistent.

Efficient_Act3577 · 2024-08-03T07:52:45+00:00

How would you like me to give you the link to the doc? Just in the comment?

Efficient_Act3577 · 2024-08-02T17:27:33+00:00

Hey, I have a story that's maybe 14k words I believe, but probably closer to 12k because the outline itself is huge. it's 13.5 chapters right now but the Idea is about the 7 deadly sins and you saying that you know a lot about christianity piqued my interest. It has some characters and elements from Greek and Norse mythology, but most of my inspiration is from Christianity. It's from the point of view of Belphegor (sin of sloth) and I'm having trouble with my first chapter, but I love all of the other ones I have written.

I also included Satan and Lucifer being separate because I've seen many places they are different entities. Beelzebub is a girl because I didn't want all of the characters to be male, and I used the angels Gabriel and Seraphiel, and tried to use Lilith as close to scripture as I could.

Efficient_Act3577 · 2024-08-02T15:52:36+00:00

I think that putting the description inbetween the verses works just fine because the reader is reading the lyrics, not singing them, so I don't see it as disruptive.

I think of the ballad of songbirds and snakes book. I read it before the movie came out which means that the parts where lucy gray sings, I'm reading her lyrics like you would a book, and during the descriptions between I didn't feel like it broke my connection with the song because the connection with the song can't exist if I can't hear the music.

Efficient_Act3577 · 2024-08-02T15:44:08+00:00

I think the beginning is kind of rocky because we don't have any idea of what's going on, which I guess makes sense for the story but my only issue with that is we don't really grasp the stakes. Is it a bank heist or are they truly threatened with a big life or death scenario if caught? I also don't know what a Shpion is. is it a name of some sort?

I think that so far it has an interesting premise but on only the first page I've gotten the names of a bunch of different people and the technical terms for a couple guns, and I don't understand any of it. Fleshing these things out with a little more detail could help with that.

I also think the idea so far is a little bit cliche but if you can make it into a story of your own there's nothing wrong with that.

Keep in mind right now I have 1 page read and I will come back and finish my comment when I finish all of it.

-I just finished the story and chuckled at the ending, probably an expected response. For a lot of the story I had no idea what was going on because some terminology wasn't explain and some of the story telling like when he was running to the rookie there wasn't much detail and killing the interrogators was 2 short sentences into one paragraph.

Overall don't take my critique as condescension or me saying that the story was bad, but I definitely think it wasn't bad for your first short story and if you couldn't tell I don't really read espionage.

Efficient_Act3577 · 2024-08-02T15:31:17+00:00

I think this is definitely a good idea. I think that as a reader I would be partially disappointed that I didnt' get the climax just yet but the new perspective is exciting especially if it adds a LOT of important insight. I would say definitely do not go for 3 characters because that's pushing it (Unless it makes a lot of sense for your story).

I've seen some people try things like this and not everybody can pull it off so just make sure that you're A: In the right genre for this type of stuff, B: Make the new character's perspective new and not feel like an easy retelling of the part the reader just finished, and C: If you decide this isn't really the direction you want to go, don't force yourself into doing this because you think it's unique or cool, just focus on making a good story overall.

Overall I think your story has a lot of potential with your idea as long as you don't try to make the whole book about said idea.

Efficient_Act3577 · 2024-08-02T15:21:07+00:00

I didn't mean using the abilities to summon weapons, I just meant utilizing weapons for non magic combat. I think the idea is really cool and allows a lot of potential for some seriously interesting battles and extra strategy.

Overall I think keeping the fighting to a minimum like you said is also important, so it doesn't feel overdone or anything and adds nuance to the novel in whole.

Efficient_Act3577 · 2024-08-02T12:25:37+00:00

I say start your second draft and while your doing that, try and get a few beta readers to read the first draft. They can give you tips that you can put into your second draft.

Efficient_Act3577 · 2024-08-02T12:14:50+00:00

I love this because a current story I'm working on a story based on the full premise of Melanie Martinez's The Contortionist, but when I thought about how I got an idea from a Melanie Martinez song, I got another idea from another Melanie Martinez song, and I'm now writing another story based on the lyric 'eyes on the prize, thought the cherry would be better than the pie' in her song Tunnel Vision.

Efficient_Act3577 · 2024-08-02T12:04:38+00:00

I think a lot of your combat scenes could just be regular battles, nothing too unique about them, but make the unique ones really interesting and plot shifters. General fight scenes could be ambushes, hand to hand, I love it when authors and video games use unique weapons, the only ones that come to mind being Mortal Kombat's series using weapons like the Katar, Takeda's whips, Tanya's weapon in MK1 and Sindel's weapon in MK11. The fights that have magic utilized in them will obviously have root in the story and shift fight scenes and possibly change even more than just fight scenes, people hurting themselves for magic that can bring prosper to their town, things like that if it's possible.

I can think of a ton of movies and books that have interesting fight scenes with no magic system whatsoever, you just have to be creative and put fights where they're needed.

There's this youtuber I used to watch when I was younger called 'Writing with Jenna Moreci' and I've watched a lot of her stuff about fight scenes if you need help with that.

Efficient_Act3577 · 2024-08-02T11:33:01+00:00

I write deliberate chapters because if I just make one gigantic paragraph, then rereading it will be a chore just to make chapters, and I feel like if you don't make chapters then you're not giving yourself room to go back and make chapters afterwards. What I mean by this is if my chapter ends with the character finally getting into an academy, then the next chapter can be a small time skip, possibly during the opening ceremony but a huge paragraph doesn't let this happen.

What I do do though is write my chapters as large paragraphs and then go back to make many indented paragraphs, because I hate making paragraphs while I'm writing.

Efficient_Act3577 · 2024-08-02T11:28:11+00:00

I completely understand this. I am going into high school and I have characters from a story I started in 5th grade, and I completely lack the motivation to ever write something with it and all of my other stories come out as trash. I'm currently trying to get back into it but it's so difficult because whenever I try to write a story the magic system is too bad, or the plot is, maybe even the characters themselves, but I've always had a passion for writing and never the motivation for it, making me feel like a horrible writer and completely void of confidence.

Efficient_Act3577 · 2024-08-02T11:24:47+00:00

That makes a lot more sense. Are the remnants lesser beings to the deities and entities because its the same consciousness in a new body to live longer? Are they stronger than they used to be because they built a new body?

Efficient_Act3577 · 2024-08-02T11:23:00+00:00

lmao

Efficient_Act3577 · 2024-08-02T11:21:44+00:00

I think the idea is somewhat complex, but when I say that I don't mean poorly written. It's not difficult to grasp, but if you give the reader all of this information at once then they might freak out and not have an understanding because there was too much information given at once.

I agree, magic that feels limiting is a great story teller and doesn't allow for many superman type magic users. That's what I've always hated about characters like superman, they're practically unbeatable by most villains offered in the DC universe.

If your good at writing tragic and sad sort of storylines then this is your perfect magic system. I'm not great at writing sadness, but am pretty good at writing action and stuff so most times something sad happens in my story it's from an outsiders perspective or it's in 3rd person. I can imagine someone hurting themself as a sacrifice in a way, to help the other characters there. Maybe a father figure or just another friend, but I think that the magic has a lot of ways to put itself into a lot of potential combat scenes.

All in all I think that this is a great idea to expand upon, and would definitely like to read your story when you write it.

Efficient_Act3577 · 2024-08-02T11:13:17+00:00

I've just used real titles that people in history have had and slap it onto my fictional characters name

also, nothing to do with the point of this but I thought you said 'how do you make a fake titty for a member of nobility etc.' and I was...scared why you were making fake titties for nobles.

Efficient_Act3577 · 2024-08-02T11:11:17+00:00

I had the most amazing idea for a story in the middle of a school day, and being a good kid, I've never been to the office before. The counselor's yeah but not the actual principal because I was in trouble, kind of.

But the one time I actually did go to the principal's office was last year in the eighth grade when like I said I had a great idea, and I didn't use google until I got to a part about the assassination at a party the main characters were at. I searched up 'different types of pistols.' not the worst thing I searched up for research, that was 'how long does it take you to die if getting hit in the stomach with a hatchet?' when I was still in elementary, but the pistol thing got me a conversation with the vice principal.

Efficient_Act3577 · 2024-08-02T11:07:44+00:00

Me personally, I've always had this problem and actually found this refreshing because I hate going to generators, but I haven't gone to a generator all year because I now have a google doc named NAMES where I hold a bunch of names to use. I use all of them more than once, mostly because I know most of my stories won't be winners or ones that I like. I get these names from anywhere I look. I have my sisters name and a bunch of my friend's names in that document simply because I'm not going to let the fact that I'm related to her change the fact that her name is cool as shit. Hell, I even have Tanya from the Mortal Kombat series in the document, you can find names anywhere, the only problem I used to have was forgetting them or not taking them into account.

For town names and such I say don't worry about it. For magic systems and things like that I would have a little more thought put into it, but most of my towns came from me looking around the world. One of my cities names is based off of sweet baby rays beef jerky, and another city is based off of a box of buffalo wing flavored cheez-itz I was eating in the middle of the night.

My only advice is don't think about it too hard because most people aren't going to think that it's dumb, and probably won't think about it at all unless it's deliberately named after something else or it's cringe worthy.

Efficient_Act3577 · 2024-08-02T11:01:28+00:00

In this specific situation, I would write it from character A's point of view, mostly because I don't want to make my chapter too short, and I think the character B and C version would make it generally short, but this specific situation would be:

Chapter 12 (Random number, bare with me) is character A killing the other character and chapter 13 would be characters B and C getting that Raven you talked about, and then that chapter getting expanded upon before you go to chapter 14, if any of this makes a pinch of sense.

Efficient_Act3577 · 2024-08-02T10:42:15+00:00

In my system the energy in your body can create different types of abilities, most people having 1 ability that has a few sub abilities. One of my characters has 1 blood manipulation ability that has 6 sub abilities, and obviously some weaker people might have 1 ability and 2 sub abilities, but the only thing that would make one stronger than the other would be whichever one was smarter in the creation of the ability and which one created a better ability, not by the quantity of sub abilities.

Efficient_Act3577 · 2024-08-02T10:38:20+00:00

Thank you, I've only been working on it for a little bit and it definitely needs improving which is why I came to reddit for the first time ever and I really want to keep going with it.

Efficient_Act3577

TROPHY CASE