Seeking beta(s)

[Moniquill]

Greetings,

My name is Monique and I'm a writer of original fiction, primarily novel length. I'm seeking a specific breed of beta reader for a position that I call pre-production beta. Someone who reads a story-in-progress as each new chapter is teased out. It is an admittedly horribly frustrating position, but also a rewarding one. You would get to be a sounding board for any and all idea that come flying out of my head, have input on how characters develop and how they relate to each other. You'd get a level of backstory detail that won't make it to the finished product.

The integral nature of this position does mean that I prefer someone who can contact me in real-time, via AIM or ICQ or another chat program. My active online hours tend to be between 4:00am and 12:00pm GMT, though I can and do adjust around other schedules. I'm also open to contact via e-mail or in Livejournal comments.

My biggest weakness as a writer is a tendency to not finish what I start. I've got one complete novel sitting on my hard drive and one first-of-a-trilogy that I've set aside because I feel the structure needs major work. I've got dozens of stories that I've started and put aside as shiny new ideas grab me. I'm working on a project right now that's separate from either of them and is intended to be a stand-alone novel. My resolution for this year is not to start any other project (other than flash/short fiction that just spurts fully-grown from my forehead like Athena…) until this one is finished.

The setting is pre-industrial fantasy in an primarily jungle environment. Most of the action takes place somewhere analogous to the Amazon river basin – it's not, geographically speaking, an AU South America. My fantasyland geography is as shifty as I need it to be in the first draft. I am a huge stickler for ecologically sound environments up to and including tracking which species are native to a milieu I'm recreating and which are invasive (I.E. South America didn't have bananas until Portuguese colonists brought them from West Africa in the 15th century. Yes, I'm THAT nerdy and detail oriented.)

The story concerns the cultural ramifications of a post-epic-fantasy-war generation coming of age. There are four viewpoint characters, whose sections are well delineated – usually by chapter, always with clarity that there's been a shift. I fully intend for two of these characters to have romantic subplots, though both will do so with characters who are not of the four viewpoint positions. I haven't yet decided what 'rating' my story will achieve, though probably not beyond Restricted 'onscreen' as sex isn't the focus of the work. At this point, though, many things are still subject to change based on how well they work.

I've got five chapters written and I'm working on the sixth, which introduces the final viewpoint character. They're posted at http://moniquillwrites.livejournal.com/ if you're interested – only the first chapter is public, for further chapters comment to be friended. Yes, I am willing to provide formatted .RTF and .DOC files in the event that this project is accepted. The above link is provided as a writing sample.

Thank you in advance for consideration, even if this isn't something you'd like to pick up at this time.

- Moniquill