Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related do you need a beta reader

i'm kinda new to the message boards, but i have been reading all your stuff on lcfanfic.com for about 9 months now...

I know wow... i didnt think it was that long untill i thought about it just now.

just wanted to say that if you guys wern't so good, I definitely would not have stayed tuned for so long.

anyway (except for this post), one of my bigest pet peeves is badly edited work. so I am volunteering to do some beta reading and editing if anyone out there would like some help.

so a little about myself:
I am in my final year of a Bachelor of Science degree at Sydney university. I hope to double major in pharmacology and Neuroscience (but neuro is debatable with the faculty as i need to take up an extra subject on top of my full load, which I can't be bothered with so otherwise it will be PHARM and physiology... complicated university plitics just ist worth the fuss).

Next year I hope to enter the postgraduate medical program at sydney (four years in length). If i dont get in straight away (200 places and 3500 applicants, but odds are a little better than it looks) I will undertake an honnors project (one big science experiment over 1 yr, which then gets published in a journal). Medicine will be followed by two years of internship/residency, followed by 5 years of specialty training in psychiatry (not psychology) and then hopefully be admitted to the Royal Australian, & NZ Colledg of Psychiatrists.

So I have a long road to go... and it looks like I will be at least 33 before I am fully qualified (I am 21 now)

This means I need lots of practice in edditing work, which would improve my own writings by reducing grammatical errors etc. And getting me in better practice of thinking and writing in correct structures, reducing time spent edditing my own work.

although I dont have time to write fanfic myself, I would really enjoy being a part of the creative process. I get stuck on story lines, but am fascinated by the finer details including chosing the right words, fannatical about the placement of punctuation etc.

I fell in love with LNC in 97 or 98 (can't remember), when season 4 aired here down under. Then I was 13/14 and developed a huge crush on superman for the same reason lois did... he was perfect and nothing could fail if i found a love who could also be my best friend for life

Then in 2002, I fell in love again when series 3 and 4 were shown on cable...
Since then I have been dreaming of finding my superman, only to be disapointed time and time again. Then wehn I started reading LnCFanfic.com, I found an outlet for my increadible frustrations with the male population as a whole... Particularly a rather interesting story where my life resembled Lois' in ep#3.04, innocent Catholic girl that I am, fell for the Patrick (hey in reality his name was Patrick) from a good Irish catholic background, who happened to be a witch . And one or 2 lex luthors who have tried to edge their ways into my life,


Anyway, hopefully if you do send me stuff it would encourage me to write my own stories, if no at least I would feel like i am participating and not leeching off your genious, and if i do gain something educational from this experience.... my lecturers may not know why... but my marks would improve through improved writing of essays/scientific reports etc.

Helena Beethoven

ps I guess I am a little skittish over putting any details over the web, so you can emal me at my hotmail adress

sendit2helena@hotmail.com

that gets checked about once a week, it's just that if i post my other email accounts pple can trace them back to me via Uni, or other means

I don't need a BR right now, but... hey, I did a BSc at Usyd! Finished last year, double major in Physiology/Immunobiology. Small world!

(Am tempted to ask if you giggled when you had Prof. Mayson, or if it was just me who's that silly... <g>)

I don't know how much help BRing will be for report writing, since they're completely different formats, but my grammar has improved by leaps and bounds since I've wandered into this fandom. <g>

Anyway, good luck getting into Med. It's tough, but it's not impossible. All it takes is some hard work.

small world indeed...

Mayson??? Rebecca Mayson... (the bald woman)

yeah I laughed... she was soo cute

I am a bit ticked at the physiology department for screwing up the whole Neuroscience major thingy... they kept telling us we needed different units to gain the major (under the new credit point system) and now no-one knows what they are going to do or what they need or even if what we will get at the end of the year (in majors)

Mayson is cute but clueless as she told me something completely wrong... and afterall that she is the head of the department....


neways i dont know about BR and med... but at least it will keep me busy (not that im not busy now)


for the BR stuff
I am not really into parallel universe theories nor MXYPLX nor time travel... too unscientific fo my tastes

I love HEART THROUGH THE MINCE GRINDER tear jerking stuff, lots of ethical dilemas, and I could do a mean immitation of Dr Klein's techno-babble

Welcome Helena! Although I guess you've actually been around longer then I have. I discovered this place about 3 months ago, and have been posting and writing ever since.

I'm not looking for a BR right at this second, however, I will be soon. I've already written my very first fanfic. It was just a fluff piece entitled "A Cut Above The Rest". It is currently waiting for a general editor to look at it before it can go to the archive. But it has been posted under the Fanfic section on the boards. It is just a cute, fairly short story about why Lois changed her hairstyle in Season 3.

The fanfic I'm working on right now is based on the Seasons 5 and 6 continuation of the series, and takes place after Season 6. It will be much longer (maybe a 2 parter), I'm not even halfway done yet and have 30 pages. I don't have a title or a "blurb" for it yet, I've come up with several and don't like any of them.

Anyway, if you are interested, it doesn't involve anything sci-fi like time travel or the mxyman. When I get it done, I'll give you a shout.

Thanks!

hey id love to BR it

post s4 are my favs

i dont really nead any klein's tm technobabble to be interested but if you need it i am happy to do it an d even make it scientifically correct.

i remember one fanic i read when i first started reading this stuff which was scientifically a mess (not including sci-fi but only stuff where there are now real, valid, scientific proofs behind whatever problem it was)

if you need help, or want to brain stom... i am ready and willing to help


that email only gets checked once a week though, if you do send me stuff i will then forward you my other email adress which gets checked far more regularly

oh yeah

i read a cut above the rest...

it was good...

small, insight into LL's babbling brook mode, which wwas really cute ....

keep up the good work

Actually I may need some help with Dr. Klein *speak* when I get to that point. He is going to be in my story at some point. Like I said, I may be leaning towards doing a 2 part story. If I do, he won't be in there until the second part.

Oh, by the way, I forgot to mention, I'm not doing Mxyman or time travel, but my story does involve sublimination based on, but different from, the *John Doe* series. I hope that's not too sci fi for you and maybe you can give me some help with the more technical aspects of describing that.

Would you prefer that I forward the story to you in pieces? Instead of the whole big mess all at once? If so, then I'll do a little quick editing back at the beginning and read a few things over and send part of it to you.

Thanks again!

P.S. - The problem with me is that I tend to go back and add stuff back at the beginning of a story if I decide I need it in there for something that happens later.

Yep, that's the one. Prof Mayson was awesome, BUT I think I giggled through most of her lectures. <g>

It sounds like your subjects are all over the place now - so glad I finished last year before they changed the system. You're studying Neuro? Did you have Prof Balcar? I didn't like Neuro (neuroanatomy stuffed me right up!), but he was cool.

*is getting nostalgic*

whatever suits your writing style is fine

i know when i write a report i never go straight from beginning to end, but always look at my writing as a whole entity, so that if ther is a particular problem which comes up i dont hesitate to change it in order to better fit my general line of thought... something like working on: abacbad... in paragraph form ....

think of real life, you change your plans a million times a day, each time this is done to accomodate the new information which you aquire... scientific models can change, just as religious models can change, so why not your story

also sometimes if there is a point where you get stuck in the flow, it can help to have constructive feedback during the middle of the creative process... sort of like after running the 400m hurdles, if you hit and miss a few then your coach comes in and shows you at what angle to bend your leg (I tried but i am just not good at sports metaphores)


don't worry about the sublimination thingy... there are valid psychological reasons behind that, with empiricle data proving the theory... when brad pit drove his astin martin in mr and mrs smith, he was paid to, when homer simpson drinks a coke or pepsi... "he" is paid to.... that way coke can sell us their product even if we do go to the bathroom in the comercials, or grab a drink from the fridge... even if tempus is there just don't expect me to klein babble my way through the space time continuum , however i can handle anything else
dont worry ill leave the rest of my lecture for the story... i can get carried away

Problem? That's not a bug, that's a feature! That's how writing is supposed to work, and it's one of the drawbacks of posting in installments... you remind me of Chris Mulder; she'd never release a story until it was all the way done, because she'd constantly be going back and tweaking the beginning and middle bits... but the end result was usually worth it

PJ

Dang right! That's always been my main problem with posting in installments, too. I usually just have to stop reading the dang thing. Because otherwise, every time I go over it I see something else to add. :p

LabRat

Ooooo! Me too me too! When I finally get to a point where I'm ready to take a break from actually writing the story, then I decide to go back through and re-read it. But then, when I do that, I start finding things to change. I think "ooo, I could do this here, yeah, I like that. Or what if this happened? I think I need some more WAFF here." And then I end up having to re-read a bunch of stuff to make sure it all lines up again.

I did that just last night. I took a break and went back and was reading some stuff at the beginning and ended up making some more changes.

Thanks guys! Glad to know I'm not the only one.


Helena, I should be ready to send you the first 10-12 pages tonight. I'm sure I'll end up still changing something on them later, but I have to start somewhere I'm up to 35 pages now.

Okay Helena, I sent the first section of my story to you, about 12 pages I think. I thought I would post here and let you know to watch for it since you said you don't always check that e-mail address often: sendit2helena@hotmail.com


Thank you so much! Hope you like it. - DJ

Oh heavens! Going back to the beginning or middle and adding stuff that you decide needs to be there is the order of the day when writing. If I'm posting in installments and decide that's what I need to do, I just go back and edit the earlier installment, and usually make a small remark about it at the beginning of the next installment so people will know I did it. After all, one of the main things I use the Message Boards for is to work out the bugs in a story, so I can produce a superior product.

Nan

Oh thanks Nan! That's a good idea - posting and then if I make revisions to something I posted, just mention the revision in my next post. I'm afraid Pam is right, I think I might be a little like Chris. I hate to post it until I think I'm done with it. I waited until my other story was finished before I posted it.

So I'll keep that in mind. By the way, I would have asked you to BR this story for me, but it is going to end up being much longer than "A Cut Above The Rest". I know you don't have a lot of time right now, and didn't think begging and pleading would have been very dignified.

I soooooo appreciate you having done BR for me on the other story. Thank you!