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Wanted: Beta Reader for high/epic fantasy (160k)

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zegota

zegota

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I've got some close acquaintances looking over it, but I'd like to get an outside opinion. Any comments about pace, readability, consistency, etc. would be much appreciated. Of course, it's fairly long for a first novel, but not all that long for epic fantasy (and has already been trimmed substantially, I promise!) so if you see any good candidates for cutting, I'd be all ears.

Here's the blurb/query:

No one returns from the wastelands.

Royal knight Victoria has reminded herself of that axiom every day since her mentor and lover, Xavier, disappeared. But when she begins to hear his voice in her head, she hopes he’s the exception. Victoria follows the voice through the kingdom only to find Xavier’s body has been commandeered by a self-professed god. Now he wants to get home, and he claims to need Victoria’s help.

Victoria wants revenge for the desecration of Xavier's body, but she feigns cooperation, repugnant though it may be, and uncovers the god’s true goal: to drain the magic from her world and turn its people into slaves. To discover the extent of the gods' interference, and to stop them, Victoria must travel to their home: the wastelands. And no one returns from the wastelands.

Thanks for taking a look, and let me know if you're interested!
 
thothguard51

thothguard51

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Story sounds interesting, but 160,000 words is a bit much for most beta readers, especially from a new writer.

Have you posted a chapter or two in SYW yet? The reason I ask is because any problems you have in the first 2 or 3 chapters is more than likely going to repeat them self through the story.

Let me give you an example; the word THAT. We use it a lot in our everyday speech, but in writing, 99% of the time, THAT can be eliminated without any affect on the writing. As a matter of fact, it helps to smooth out the writing by eliminating unnecessary verbiage.

If you use THAT 5 times per page, (250 words per page), in a 160,000 word novel that is 640 pages long, you eliminate 3,250 words, or 13 pages. And that is only one word. But of course, there are times where THAT works perfectly fine, such as in dialogue or narrative, but still if you weed a lot of unnecessary verbiage from you work, I bet you could get the word count down by another 20,000.

Hope this makes sense, and I hope it helps. Who knows though, maybe someone will offer to beta read...
 
zegota

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thothguard51 said:
Story sounds interesting, but 160,000 words is a bit much for most beta readers, especially from a new writer.

Have you posted a chapter or two in SYW yet? The reason I ask is because any problems you have in the first 2 or 3 chapters is more than likely going to repeat them self through the story.
Click to expand...

Yup yup. Posted the first chapter, which garnered a lot of helpful commentary. To be fair, this is my first novel, but I have been published elsewhere. So I feel comfortable saying it's at least readable :D

if you weed a lot of unnecessary verbiage from you work, I bet you could get the word count down by another 20,000.
Click to expand...

Oh how I wish :-/ I've been pretty ruthless on extra words, and yes, I did cut around 15-20k. Unfortunately, I feel like I've pretty much hit my limit. I'm considering chopping out a 'subplot,' but it would do some pretty severe damage on the themes. Plus, nothing I do is going to get this down to 100k -- it's just not -- so any agent who says ">100k, NOPE," even for epic fantasy, isn't for me anyway.

I totally understand if the length is offputting - I won't blame anyone if they don't have the time/faith.
 
Tex_Maam

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How dee!

So I am pretty new to the neighborhood; feel free to take that into account. However, I am sitting on a similar kind of promising monstrosity: it's a fantasy Western, about 148,000 words, which has been pretty thoroughly worked-over already, and now (I dare to believe) is maybe about one good revision away from being ready to submit.

Would you like to maybe make a swap with me? I was thinking we might could trade off the first chapter or two for a start, just to see how we get on. Let me know what you think!
 
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