Beta Bio: general description as a beta reader
I'm not a particularly nice person, to be perfectly honest, but I am good at what I do and pretty much always polite. I'm an English major - linguistics, to be more precise - and I read more often than I breathe. As far as beta reading: I will only work with stories that I like, I work quickly but only when I'm in the mood, and I have very little tolerance for people who annoy me, rush me, or attempt to correct my spelling or grammar. I speak four languages other than English, with varying levels of skill. Japanese is my best, but I'm still not fluent and I refuse to beta just to correct the random Japanese you've thrown into a story. I know more Japanese than most anime freaks who fill their stories with it, and I very rarely use it in my writing. Take a lesson from that. If your stories are full of it, I will suggest that you cut back. Just saying.
I said that I'm not a nice person, but that doesn't mean I'm rude or frightening either. If you're not sure if I'd want to beta for you, just ask, I won't mind - but make sure that you tell me exactly what the story consists of. If I come across one of my no-nos while reading and you didn't forewarn me, I'm dropping you like a hot potato and I will NOT be happy. |
My Strengths: beta, writing, or reading strengths
My grammar and spelling are perfect. I'm also very good at spotting and swapping overused words or phrases and working with sentence length and structure (i.e. combining several fragments or breaking up run-on sentences). Basically, anything having to do with the language of the story, I'm good for. |
My Weaknesses: beta, writing, or reading weaknesses
My major weakness is formatting. I'm sure that I was taught the rules of paragraph breaks and so forth at one point or another, but it never really stuck. I just break my paragraphs up wherever it seems natural, although I tend to keep them short to make it easier to read. |
Preferred: types of entries I prefer over others
My preferred literature is lesbian - yes, that means that this is all I will beta unless I'm in a really good mood. Genre doesn't matter as much, since I like most things except horror and even then I'll consider it if it's not too grotesque. I prefer - and this preference is not for my own sake - to only beta stories from series or games that I am familiar with. If I don't know the story, I can't make suggestions about characterization or, more importantly, notice if the name of a person or place is misspelled. I've listed all the series/games/books/etc that I'm very familiar with in my preferences. I can still beta outside of those, but I won't be as good. |
Would Rather Not: types of entries I do not want to beta for
Stories I would prefer not to beta would mostly be anything not covered under stories I prefer to beta. Stories I absolutely will not beta for you, no questions asked, are anything with racist, sexist, or homophobic tones and anything with gay male or heterosexual sex in it. The more explicit the more likely I am to laugh in your face. Sorry, but I wouldn't even skim that for fun and I certainly won't read it in depth for anything short of money. |
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