I'm of the firm opinion that many things could be justified with enough plot. Sudden development too jarring on chapter 4? I think we may have to stick more backstory and tension building in chapter 1. There are complaints that so-and-so characters' action are really out of the blue? Well, let's stick more subtle changes in the preceding chapters. I don't really question much about how people pull their story towards one direction or the other as long as the build-up towards it makes sense. As may be obvious, I don't consider Character as something written in stone. A good character development can change that. Because of this, I'm the kind of beta-reader who enjoys engaging and discussing the story with the author a lot. I like doing a lot of back-and-forth discussions.

I will keep the time to any beta-reading appointment set beforehand, but please don't hand over any last-minute editing work and expect it to be done the next day. I do have a schedule to juggle around, like the time allocated to write things that is actually part of my real-life job.

Plot, plot and more plot. I live to make sure the plot hooks and developments make sense. I'm also a pretty avid watcher of a story's pacing-unless someone's deliberately making a novel with a Regency/Victorian pacing, I'll comment on it when a multi-chaptered story had been meandering without a clear sense of direction for more than one chapter. Of course, this is not one-shots we're talking about. Convoluted plots do not faze me in the least, anything with strategies and politics in them is something I will accept with a rather giddy open hand. Anything you can put into game theory is something I will give full attention to. I notice changes in the narrating perspective quite well and will point it out if it is inconsistent (I'm sorry, but it's a particular pet peeve of mine). Character consistency is an important thing for me, so I would ask that character growth/changes come after a believable development. I am also very, very sensitive to the presence of Mary Sue, Gary Stus, and almost everyone of the Sue family, and can detect a character morphing into a Sue even if the change was only halfway. As such, I will notice when a character's description stops being helpful to the reader and start being purple prose. I can see an infodump from ten paces away and will endeavour to integrate them into the story better or do away with it completely.

I don't mind editing some spelling/grammar, but if that's going to be my main occupation, I think I'll pass. I can't sustain my alertness too long for something that grinding. My preference for plot may also put-off some people who thinks that you can't pull character so-and-so this way and that because it's not canon. My personal creed is, I believe a good writer could pull off almost any character change (though if you change them all in the end, why not write an original story altogether?). I don't think I have the attention span for a slow-moving angst-ridden story either. No offence, but I might nod-off in the process of reading it. The same goes for stories with overly dramatic heroes and heroines (no, nothing Byronic for me, please). I also may be a bit tetchy with stories that pass off a lot of background research and sort of skews its canon materials because of that. I cannot ignore them at all and just focus on other parts of the stories. This includes unexplainably spunky young ladies living in the nineteenth century without enough information as to how come she was educated differently to acquire a different viewpoint than her average peers.

I also find it hard to keep my attention at stories that start with a good dose of 'oh-woe-is-me' from the main character; more showing and less telling, please; too much telling with that and the character comes across as a nag. I may be a bit slow in reading stories in the range of tens of thousands of words. I am also more rigorous with storytelling about yaoi/slash pairings that are not obviously canon because for me it takes skill to pull it off convincingly. I need to be convinced that they are not acting out of character in caring about each other, though otherwise I am fine with them. I will not pretend to know every little detail there is to know about any canon, and as such, if a detail is very important to you, don't hesitate to ask whether I know it well or not.

Adventure stories, definitely. Drama is still my cup of tea but anything else is fine as long as it's not in 'Not My Cup of Tea' part. I could appreciate a good horror, thriller, mystery or even romance. Harry Potter has been my first fandom and my tolerance for story variety in it is pretty high-as long as it's not romance that meanders without plot.

Deep tragedy/torture stories in which the characters gets stuck in a prison/concentration camp/gulag/whatever-you-name-it-hell-on-earth and tries to survive the dog-eat-dog world. It sucks my soul more than a little to read them, and if I'd wanted to read how messed up the world is, I'd pick up some Holocaust/Child soldier/Human-trafficking victim/activist memoir myself and brush up some facts while I'm at it and actually plan to do something about what I read.

Angst-ridden stories in which everyone suffers indeterminately from the beginning. Why not make them happy for the first few chapters? That way, the dramatic plunge in the end would be more felt by the readers.

Anime Cat Returns Book Dexter series Book Discworld Anime Fullmetal Alchemist

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