Um...so it's basically what the title says! I am seeking a couple betas for my YA sci-fi romance. It's a Romeo & Juliet type thing except they are both dudes and there are aliens. It's 84,000 words and a second draft.
As far as feedback goes, I am looking for broad brush strokes on the overall story/plot/characters/feeling of completeness/if you would want your money back if you found this in a bookstore. I always appreciate nit-picking but do not expect it. I would be down for a swap with a work of similar length (I would prefer YA, and I read mostly sci-fi, fantasy, and contemporary). Generally I trade whole manuscripts and mark them up in the sidelines, and then make overall comments at the end. Trading the first couple chapters as a test run is totally cool with me, and I'm flexible if you feel strongly about doing any of this differently.
The query’s not up to snuff yet (ie would probably make you NOT want to read it), so at the risk of boring you here’s a more basic summary of the premise: The aliens are former humans who moved to a new planet and have engineered themselves to be physiological superhumans. They now regularly abduct humans and use them as lab rats to further their medical advances. There are two POV characters—one is a human who was abducted and one is the alien scientist who is supposed to run experiments on him. The story begins when the human convinces the alien to help him escape the lab. But then they both get kidnapped by the human mafia, which is an elaborate organization of humans who fly their own spaceships to the alien planet and run around trying to stick it to the aliens. In order to get a free ride back to Earth (or not get killed, in the alien’s case, because he’s pretending to be human), the two are forced to help the mafia, who have big plans to break all the humans out of the biggest lab on the alien planet. But as it turns out, the two main characters both have strong family ties to opposite sides of the conflict and then they fall in love and DUN DUN DUN etc. I hope this didn’t kill all the suspense.
aaand just in case you couldn't already tell, I feel compelled to say that it's a little silly (there's a space mafia and a ship run by uber feminists and idk it’s just kind of weird but hopefully in a good way?).
Here is the first 1000 words: http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=256580
Please PM me or post here if interested! Thanks!
As far as feedback goes, I am looking for broad brush strokes on the overall story/plot/characters/feeling of completeness/if you would want your money back if you found this in a bookstore. I always appreciate nit-picking but do not expect it. I would be down for a swap with a work of similar length (I would prefer YA, and I read mostly sci-fi, fantasy, and contemporary). Generally I trade whole manuscripts and mark them up in the sidelines, and then make overall comments at the end. Trading the first couple chapters as a test run is totally cool with me, and I'm flexible if you feel strongly about doing any of this differently.
The query’s not up to snuff yet (ie would probably make you NOT want to read it), so at the risk of boring you here’s a more basic summary of the premise: The aliens are former humans who moved to a new planet and have engineered themselves to be physiological superhumans. They now regularly abduct humans and use them as lab rats to further their medical advances. There are two POV characters—one is a human who was abducted and one is the alien scientist who is supposed to run experiments on him. The story begins when the human convinces the alien to help him escape the lab. But then they both get kidnapped by the human mafia, which is an elaborate organization of humans who fly their own spaceships to the alien planet and run around trying to stick it to the aliens. In order to get a free ride back to Earth (or not get killed, in the alien’s case, because he’s pretending to be human), the two are forced to help the mafia, who have big plans to break all the humans out of the biggest lab on the alien planet. But as it turns out, the two main characters both have strong family ties to opposite sides of the conflict and then they fall in love and DUN DUN DUN etc. I hope this didn’t kill all the suspense.
aaand just in case you couldn't already tell, I feel compelled to say that it's a little silly (there's a space mafia and a ship run by uber feminists and idk it’s just kind of weird but hopefully in a good way?).
Here is the first 1000 words: http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=256580
Please PM me or post here if interested! Thanks!
