Most of you know that I’m an aspiring author of fiction and an occasional poet; background essays on the characters and world of my planned fantasy series appear in this space on Mondays, and my poems on Fridays.
Over a year ago I wrote a post explaining why I want feedback from my readers: I am my own worst critic. Since then I’ve had quite a bit of helpful encouragement from a few readers, and after requesting help preparing for WEbook’s PageToFame contest I’ve received some very helpful criticism.
But if my writing is to become any good, or in any case to improve, I need more than a little criticism, no matter how excellent, here and there. And anything that I want to get published shouldn’t be posted here, so it’s rather unlikely to get any criticism at present.
This is why I’m looking for a “first reader,” known in some circles as a “beta.” Someone I can send my work to and get back something more substantial than “I like it” from. (And preferably more than one.)
If you’re a writer (particularly of Christian or otherwise mythopoeic speculative fiction or fantasy) or poet yourself, I would most likely be delighted to be one of your first readers too.
(And if you’d be willing or interested but are worried you wouldn’t be any good, that can be remedied: there are various resources available to help improve critique. For instance, Patricia Wrede (of the worldbuilding questions, which I’ve been working my way through off and on for a couple of years now) recently had a few posts on her blog about critique, and I also finally found the list of questions for a “revising conference” from tenth grade, which I’ve been looking for to critique my own work for a while now.)
If you think you might be willing to become one of my “first readers,” please contact me. Thank you!
Shine Cycle Online 