Check-in post, days 12 & 13 + Weekly beta-seeking/snippet-posting/general chatter

[lola_mento]

Long time no seeing you. (Yesterday was one of Those Days when nothing gets ever done, including posts.)

Making any progress lately? Feeling like murdering someone already? Got completely distracted from whatever you were doing? Wait, that's me.

Today's discussion subject: are you more of a plotter (someone who has to know beforehand how the story goes) or a pantser (someone who makes it up as they go)? Plotter or pantser? describes some different types of each. I've seen these terms mostly from pro-writing novelists, where it's used as a thing of outline-or-no-outline, but for fannish writing, a more general planning-or-no-planning works better, I think.

And! This is also the weekly post where you can:

-Make a request for a beta reader/someone to bounce ideas from/something else you may need

-Post a snippet of your WIP

-Chat about anything else

Comments

Beta request -- White Collar

[dragonfly]

So currently, I owe:

An Odyssey 5 fic for Queensland flood relief (begun but not finished)
A Blood Ties fic for Help-Japan
A Highlander long!fic for Help-Japan
Oh, and my writers' group have all agreed we would each write an original short story by the end of the month to submit to Glimmer Train (!)

So, of course, I'm working on a White Collar story. ::eyeroll:: Muse, why so perverse?

I could use a beta for the White Collar story. I've used flashbacks heavily, not to anything we saw in the show, but to earlier events relevant to the story, so what I really need is someone to tell me where it gets confusing. Because I'm sure it does.

Here's a snippet from my Odyssey 5 WIP. It's a bodyswapping fic.

Sarah thought she must have found her seat while the kleig lights blinded her, but when her eyes adjusted the lights inexplicably faded and it was not the newsdesk she was seated at. Her hands gripped the yoke of an aircraft. She froze in pure terror. Her gaze darted around; instruments, a man in astronaut uniform seated on her left, switches above her. There could be no doubt – she was flying the space shuttle. Her breathing came in swift pants as her body threw itself into overdrive; adrenaline, perspiration, pounding heart, but despite all of it she remained locked in position, unable to move. The astronaut to her left spoke. “Burn complete.”

Sarah’s eyes would move. She looked at the man at the corner of her vision. Her thoughts raced. She’d covered space and aviation news for years now (well, not now, actually. In the previous three years that hadn’t happened yet.) and she knew some things. She knew she was not sitting in the commander’s seat –- he was. Which meant he was the pilot in command and if he was deferring to her, she must be in training somehow. Also, she’d flown now on a space shuttle, and something here wasn’t right. It didn’t feel right, it didn’t –- smell right. “Angela?” he asked, his own gaze darting over the instruments with increasing urgency, “The burn is complete. The checklist?” Sure enough there was a checklist strapped to her thigh, but it wasn’t going to do her a bit of good. She was still reeling from the name he’d called her. Belatedly she realized that her hands squeezing the yoke in a deathgrip were white. White hands. Holy shit. Her vision began to gray at the edges. Hyperventilating, she realized. Oddly, her thoughts still worked rapidly. She’d seen pilots –- Chuck and Angela included –- speak a ritual that insured no one was ever uncertain about which pilot was flying. She swallowed, opened her mouth, and managed to say, “You have the aircraft.”

Re: Beta request -- White Collar

[raletha]

I can't offer beta services, but did want to send sympathy for the perverse muse problems. I am starting to think the only way to write the fic I want to write is to convince myself I'm actually trying to work on six different fics instead.

Odyssey 5 is in my Netflix queue! Your snippet is very visceral and frightening. I got a little breathless myself with the second paragraph. Nice work! Good luck with all the projects. ^_^

Re: Beta request -- White Collar

[dragonfly]

Excellent! Thank you.

If you become an O5 fan, that might make a dozen of us. :^

Re: Beta request -- White Collar

[crystal]

I know nothing about Odyssey 5, but that was well-written =)

Re: Beta request -- White Collar

[dragonfly]

Thanks! It's a long-canceled show with a tiny fandom, but is still worth looking into, imo. It and Hitchihiker's Guide are the only shows I know with the balls to destroy the Earth in the first episode. *g*

Re: Beta request -- White Collar

[crystal]

*laugh* Sounds like something fun to watch.

Re: Beta request -- White Collar

[jagnikjen]

Thanks for sharing your snippet, quite interesting!

Re: Beta request -- White Collar

[dragonfly]

Thanks!

Re: Beta request -- White Collar

[dchan]

I would be up for doing a White Collar beta! White Collar is one of my main fandoms right now, so I'm very familiar with the characters. I'm also pretty decent grammar/spelling beta too, if I say so myself. (Despite my tenses being all over the place in my excepts, I do promise I can spot and fix all of that stuff in revision. :)) I'm also pretty good at confusing plot lines and I'm writing a fic where 1/3 of it happens pre-show so I should be able to help you out in pointing out places where you might be starting to lose people.

My email is protonsinthedark [at] gmail [dot] com and the best formats for me to beta in are either MS Word or Google Docs if you want to send what you've got over to me. :) I'll try to get back to it ASAP although it may take a couple days since my brain is still a bit fried from the car crash I was in yesterday (I'm not injured, thankfully, but the car is a complete loss.). Just let me know if you need it by a specific date and I do my best to make sure I can get you feedback by then even if I'm not able to pick through everything with a fine-toothed comb like I usually do.

Re: Beta request -- White Collar

[dragonfly]

Cool, thanks! I'll email you shortly.