MM, love to beta if you need. Profile addy is good. Great stuff.
'Shindig'
The Great Write Way, Act Three: Where's the gun?
A place for Buffistas to discuss, beta and otherwise deal and dish on their non-fan fiction projects.
I'd buy it too. That's awesome.
Okay, so for a beta list I have: Anne W. Beverly Typo Boy Wolfram Deena
Anybody else? Anybody I name *not* want to beta?
Count me in if you need another reader. Lagarat at gmail.
MM, I don't know how much I can respond. I'm really behind with work right now, but I'll do my best.
If you're swamped, Deena, it's cool, I don't have to send you anything.
Could that *sound* more passive-aggressive? But that's not how I mean it, honestly.
Hee. No worries. I'd like to read it. I just don't want you sitting at your mailbox five minutes after you send it cursing me for my inability to respond.
edit: (or, reality, 10 days later.)
Mystery fans: Is getting your detective protagonist roughed up necessary, played-out, or somewhere in between?
It depends on whether it happens all the time or not. If our hero gets roughed up too frequently, I tend to start worrying about his judgment and his medical plan. Mainly, I get irritated if he or she gets roughed up because he did something really stupid.
I was just thinking about something similar after reading one book in which I never felt as if the protagonist was in jeopardy and another in which I thought the oft repeated jeopardy began to seem contrived. It's a fine line.
I think it depends on what the story demands, erika. If it's set up well and means something -- either in character development or moving the plot -- then go for it.
The danger is something like Giles getting knocked out all the time, I think. That was played as a running gag after a while, of course, but in a novel, unless your tone is pretty light, that's harder to pull off.