Looking for Paid Beta Readers

mark@marktreble.com

I need paid beta readers for two completed drafts. E-mail me if interested.

 A beta reader is a non-professional reader who reads a written work, generally fiction, with the intent of looking over the material to make suggestions to improve the story, its characters, or its setting. Beta reading is typically done before the story is released for public consumption. Beta readers are not explicitly proofreaders or editors.

Elements highlighted by beta readers encompass things such as plot holes, problems with continuity, characterisation or believability; in fiction and non-fiction.

Finding Each Other, Volume Two of the Finding Series. 62K words, 166 pages. Bromance.

Straight Mike and gay Luke explore what they want from their relationship, and why. Luke has reason to avoid commitment, while Mike has reason to want it. The casual attitude toward sex of many in the gay community – including some of Luke’s friends – causes panic for Mike. He wants someone close to whom he can demonstrate affection, pure and simple. It’s OK to hug and hold hands. What about kissing? What about the petrifying potential for more? Sex is rarely far from the surface, but can’t be allowed to break through. Mike wants a friend, a close friend, maybe even a boyfriend. Luke would be thrilled to have a boyfriend, if he just weren’t so scared – and scared with good reason.

This story overlaps with Life Struggles and the characters and actions move between the two stories. We get glimpses of the Decadence festival in New Orleans and see a few of the events from the perspective of on-lookers, and occasionally of participants. The sexual energy of Decadence interferes with the more important needs for love and affection.

Some things are simply not meant to be understood easily, if ever. In the immortal words of Luke’s nephew, Alex, “Explain it? I can’t explain television.”

Finding Closure, Volume Three of the Findig Series. 85K words, 232 pages. Bromance.

This story overlaps with both Taunting and Life Continues. The characters and actions move between and among the stories. We see flashes of a dysfunctional relationship, snippets of a complex murder investigation, and realize that life itself makes a mess of any attempt to find and keep love.

The men take their relationship on the road to the South Pacific where Mike is advising a small island nation on infrastructure and job development, while Luke finds inspiration for his art. They struggle with the meaning of love, sex, relationships, life and many other things that each finds strange in his own way.

Mike’s need for affection meets Luke’s unwillingness to accept it. Both struggle with norms and expectations, grappling with the issues separately and together. Finding love is never easy. Do they?