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Beta Wanted For Gritty Heroic Fantasy (Just Three Chapters)

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Dreity

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I'm applying for a writing workshop that requires I send in about 10,000 words of fiction, in addition to a personal essay and a few recommendation letters. My English teacher aunt is looking over my essay, but I'd like someone more genre savvy and less related to give me a quick critique of my work.

This is rather time sensitive. The deadline for submission is January 15th, so I need someone who can get back to me in time for me to implement any changes before I inflict my prose on a professional.

I am happy to return the favor either immediately or sometime in the future. Because I know I'm not giving much time, I'll even agree to do a full novel beta, not just 10k's worth.

Bear in mind that I'm not up to agent submission standards (that's why I want to go to this workshop!) but here is the pitch I've been using so far:

Two elven siblings - one devoted to a god of healing, the other a god of war - are sold into a pit fighting circuit by a merchant lord who sees their divine gifts as an opportunity for profit.
 

Kewii

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It's too bad you didn't post this a week ago, I would have done it since I was on break. Unfortunately, school starts again tomorrow.

Have you thought about posting the first 1500-2000 words in SYW to at least get some input?
 

Kerosene

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10K is quite large, and not recommended for the SYW section, but then there are several difficulties.
One, a beta LBL for that volume *might* be able to finish by your deadline, but no one is going to be able to hit on the deepest flaws of the writing during that time (something like a deep LBL in the SYW could do). A simple read and comments afterward might still take some time too, but will be possible.

I'm with Kewii about posting the first 2500words in the SYW section. You'll have 4-5 critiques by the end of the day. And you can carry the things that were pointed out throughout the story.

Then again, you're writing that sample to show your writing level (good or bad for the workshop, I don't understand why), but it might be best to just hand it in as is--to the best of your abilities.
 

KateJJ

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I've offered to beta the whole section as best I can. I think I'm going to the same workshop and I can see why Dreity would want to polish the work before submitting.

SYW is a great suggestion, Dreity. In fact if you do that and you still want me to beta, I'll skim the first section and concentrate on the remaining 7500 or so words that you won't be posting in SYW.
 

Dreity

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Thank you for the responses and suggestions, everyone. :)

2500 seems like a big chunk to me personally, I know I tend to avoid reading anything in SYW that's longer than 1k or so. Then again, I do have the attention span of a goldfish with head trauma. Ah, what the heck, I'll do it. It's something I've been needing to do for a while anyway.

Kate, I sent you a PM. :)

ETA: First chapter is up in SYW.
 
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