One of the few things I enjoy more than writing my own stories is editing other people's work. In fact, if it were possible to beta-read for a living, I'd drop out of grad school and start working right now. :-P

If you send me your chapter as an email attachment, preferably in Word, I will return it with comments and corrections in less than three days.

I am willing to adjust my beta-reading style to your individual needs and preferences. Depending on the level of freedom you would like to allow me in making changes to your story, I might suggest rather large changes in regards to plot, pacing, or characterization, as needed. Or if you would rather be more independent in your writing process, let me know, and I can beta-read 'less aggressively,' meaning that I'll simply read your work from the perspective of an intelligent reader and give you my honest opinion.

Basically, feel free to take my advice anyway you want. If you accept all of my suggestions and changes, that's great. If you ignore some (or even most) of them completely, I'm fine with that too. Ultimately, the story is yours, so do with it what you want. And as long as you give me your best effort, I'll do the same.

Another thing I ask is that you let me know ahead of time where you hope to go with your story so I can help you stay on track. I'm not asking you to divulge every last plot detail. Just send me a more detailed summary than what you would normally post along with a new story.

I'm a first year grad student in public health, with a good eye for structure and organization. I am very nit-picky about spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Also, I've written award-winning poetry in the past, so I have a good feel for the flow and rhythm that needs to go into that form of writing. I'm fairly decent with dialogue and characterization, and if anything feels OOC, I'll let you know immediately.

One of my weaknesses as a beta-reader is forgetting that not everybody is a perfectionist. While I believe that every author should put his or her best effort into writing, sometimes it's easy for me to overlook the fact that some authors may simply not have the time or the desire to perfect every last detail of their latest chapter. And I should feel okay with that. But sometimes I don't. I can be a little picky. But if that happens, you can feel absolutely free to tell me I'm a perfectionist-nutcase and that you want me to ease up. (That, or you can just fire me. :-)

My other weakness is that my vocabulary isn't terribly large. I do know how to use a thesaurus, though, and I can usually tell if you're using a word incorrectly, or if a better one would work in its place.

Also, I'm not the strongest descriptive writer. Generally, I have a much better instinct for characterization or action. But one thing I can do is tell you whether I feel you have too much or too little description, or if a particular word or phrase is being overused.

I'm willing to beta one-shots, multi-chaptered stories of all lengths, and poems. But I would have to say that I enjoy reading and editing one-shots most of all.

I will not beta any story that includes slash or graphic sexual content. Sorry. Personally, I think such stories are a waste of time and brain cells. I try to stay open to different pairings, though, as long as they are within reason. Also, I try to stay away from self-insert stories.

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