Beta Bio

Author has written 14 stories for Twilight, Halo, As I Lay Dying, and Alex + Ada.
Husband. Father of two daughters

Gamester. Go-player. Algorist

Credo:

I write.
I do not write things that make me sad.
No. I am sad, and from that sadness, I write. I write to cope, and I write to hope.

Neither of which I do very well at all.

Yes. I have no reason to be sad, and no excuses, either. But I am. This is how I am. This is what I am. This is what I write.
I am an unreasonable man, and the world ... well, the world doesn't like unreasonable men, and it doesn't change just because a wish is begging it to.

So I write.

Readers

"An able reader often discovers in other people's writings perfections beyond those that the author put in or perceived, and lends them richer meanings and aspects." — Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)

(by way of Pandora.Writing)

Writers

A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people. — Thomas Mann

(by way of @HarryShannon via @itscomplicated)

The only end of writing is to enable the readers better to enjoy life, or better to endure it — Samuel Johnson

Women

I try to write parts for women that are as complicated and interesting as women actually are. – NORA EPHRON

My stories

• My Sister Rosalie, Book II: Lover 
• Chapter summary: 'Du' in German means 'you.' It just means 'you' ... unless you say it like somebody from the Old Country, when they are saying it to somebody they love, then it gets really embarrassing for everybody else, and you have to look away. But Rosalie didn't say it that way, did she. Twilight - Rated: M - English - Romance/Family - Chapters: 9 - Words: 31,838 - Reviews: 31 - Favs: 24 - Follows: 32 - Updated: Mar 5 - Published: Dec 26, 2015 - [Bella, Rosalie]
• My Sister Rosalie, Book I: Captor 
• Chapter 92: You know what's hard? Being with Rosalie. Fighting with her, all the time. You know what's worse? Being without Rosalie. That's really hard. I just didn't know hard it was... until now. And now I know, don't I. So, what am I going to do about this? More importantly, what are WE going to do about this? The end. Twilight - Rated: M - English - Drama/Family - Chapters: 92 - Words: 422,385 - Reviews: 747 - Favs: 217 - Follows: 212 - Updated: Oct 21, 2015 - Published: Dec 27, 2008 - [Bella, Rosalie] - Complete
• Sentience
• Supper. Food. Very simple concepts for humans: they eat, they work, they sleep. But for my new owner, Alex(ander Wahl), nothing is simple. So how do I serve and service him? That's my meaning. I'm Ada, a Tanaka X5 android, his birthday present. Author's note: No android models were harmed during the writing of this fluffy fanfic. Alex + Ada - Rated: T - English - Angst/Hurt/Comfort - Chapters: 1 - Words: 19,086 - Reviews: 1 - Published: May 17, 2014 - [Alex, Ada]
• An Interview with Dr Catherine Halsey 
• Lamentation: What greater love that this? That we lay down our lives for our friends? Or, ... that we go on, when they die. What am I going to do, when she's gone? I'm not up for this. Motherhood. It's what I always craved, wasn't it? So why am I terrified at the prospect of its eventuality? Crossover - Halo & Twilight - Rated: M - English - Mystery/Sci-Fi - Chapters: 4 - Words: 22,936 - Reviews: 10 - Favs: 4 - Follows: 1 - Updated: Jul 19, 2013 - Published: Jul 4, 2013 - Complete
• Hanuman Chalisa
• Maya. Rosalie told me that it's Illusion. Dream. Sadness. But sometimes a dream can be, yes, sad, but I wouldn't trade this dream, this sadness, for anything in the world. For she was in it. No, she was it: my dream, my all. And that was enough. One shot. Twilight - Rated: T - English - Hurt/Comfort/Spiritual - Chapters: 1 - Words: 2,866 - Reviews: 6 - Favs: 6 - Follows: 2 - Published: Mar 26, 2013 - Bella, Rosalie - Complete
• Pro Patria Mori
• A young man goes off to war for King and Country As I Lay Dying - Rated: T - English - Drama/Tragedy - Chapters: 1 - Words: 4,560 - Reviews: 2 - Favs: 2 - Published: Feb 15, 2013 - Complete
• Little Red Riding Hood
• Tra-la-la, fa-la-la, here I am, little red riding hood, skipping through the snowy forest to the little cabin in the woods to deliver a basket of brownies to Grandma. Except Grandma died almost a year ago. I wonder who lives there now? Dark. Twilight - Rated: M - English - Drama/Horror - Chapters: 1 - Words: 8,543 - Reviews: 8 - Favs: 3 - Follows: 7 - Published: Jan 20, 2013 - Victoria, Rosalie
• Soiled Doves
• When Rosalie takes interest in you to be her 'baby's plaything ...? Run. Run for your life. Dark. Chapter summary: 爸爸, 妈妈 this is America now! The 八仙 stayed back in 中国. Besides, what would the Immortal Lady Lotus Eater 何仙姑 want from a soiled dove like me? Twilight - Rated: M - English - Drama/Hurt/Comfort - Chapters: 1 - Words: 4,867 - Reviews: 4 - Favs: 3 - Follows: 1 - Published: Jan 13, 2013 - Rosalie, Victoria
• Remember Harvest
• We remember Thermopylae; we remember the Alamo, and now: we remember Reach. But before Reach was Arcadia, and before Arcadia was Harvest, and that's where I first encountered the Covenant and ... 'my' Spartan. Halo - Rated: M - English - Sci-Fi/Drama - Chapters: 1 - Words: 4,313 - Reviews: 1 - Favs: 8 - Follows: 3 - Published: Dec 7, 2010 - E. Anders, C. Halsey
• Her Transformation 
• Chapter 2 — Night: Something is very wrong. My transformation hadn't gone this badly. Is she fighting it so hard that she's killing herself before the venom changes her? Twilight - Rated: M - English - Tragedy/Hurt/Comfort - Chapters: 2 - Words: 7,345 - Reviews: 15 - Favs: 9 - Follows: 9 - Updated: Mar 14, 2010 - Published: Mar 13, 2010 - Esme, Rosalie
• Reminiscence
• Reminiscence: n. a story told about a past event remembered by the narrator. Follows “My Sister Rosalie,” ch 22 “Compulsion.” Twilight - Rated: T - English - Tragedy/Horror - Chapters: 1 - Words: 1,394 - Reviews: 12 - Favs: 19 - Follows: 3 - Published: Jan 15, 2010 - Rosalie, Bella - Complete
• Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird 
• Verse VI: I'm an easy going, adventurous bloke in the midst of a den of gorgeous, Slovakian female predators. Succubae. A bloody dream come true, right? Yeah…well…not so much. Twilight - Rated: T - English - Family/Drama - Chapters: 7 - Words: 18,882 - Reviews: 33 - Favs: 10 - Follows: 6 - Updated: Dec 18, 2009 - Published: Jun 5, 2009 - Garrett, Kate
• Rose by a Lemon Tree 
• I have a task to do. It is as simple as that. Bella Swan must die, and I will be the one to kill her. — Rosalie Lillian Hale. Companion piece to "My Sister Rosalie" Twilight - Rated: M - English - Tragedy/Hurt/Comfort - Chapters: 18 - Words: 65,310 - Reviews: 101 - Favs: 51 - Follows: 17 - Updated: Jul 25, 2009 - Published: Feb 3, 2009 - Rosalie, Bella - Complete
• Bella's One Fear
• It's not blood-thirsty vampires, nor rampaging werewolves, nor school gossip, nor even needles. But there is one thing that utterly terrifies Bella Swan, and she doesn't know how to handle this fear. Epigrammatic/Eclipse. Bella and Angela.

Beta Bio: general description as a beta reader
I am a hard man to work with. Demanding. Sullen. Persnickety. Perfectionist. Protectionist. Luddite. Grammar Nazi. Sort of like a male version of Rosalie Lillian Hale. Yes, I may feel complimented when you start calling me a 'biotch.'

I more than occasionally overstep bounds and put my foot in my mouth, but I am very grateful to receive a "STFU, geophf" or a "this is my tolerance line." When I do receive your warning, I back off very quickly. When I'm wrong, I apologize. I can work with people who can work with me and, much more importantly, work on improving themselves.

I want you to fight me. I want you to win. I severely doubt that you can, but I want you to try. And when you do win, and when I do lose, you've made my day. I'm the happiest man in the world when I lose a fight. Why? Because that means that there's something in your story worth fighting for, and that you've managed to convince me of its intrinsic worth.

Oh, and if you can't bother to use spell check, don't bother to talk to me, either, because I'm far more interested in story arc than I am at correcting word choice, spelling and usage. I am a person, not a human resource: use me, but don't you dare abuse me.

My Strengths: beta, writing, or reading strengths
Grammar. Full stop. Do you know the difference between the objective and nominative cases? You d-mn well better. Do you know when to use the subjunctive case? You will when I'm finished with your first chapter.

Punctuation. Full stop. You are missing commas. You are seriously missing commas, aren't you? After a couple of chapters, you'll get the hint ... or you can get lost.

My Weaknesses: beta, writing, or reading weaknesses
Impatience. Intolerance. Indiscretion.
If your story sucks, I will really, really try to break it to you gently.

I'm not very good at that.

If you want honesty, I'll give it to you in spades.

If you want someone to cry into your hefe weizen with, well, then, I'm good for that, too, but you had have better have shown me that you've earned the right to sit next to me and cry in yours as I cry in mine.

Preferred: types of stories I prefer over others
Preferences? You bet.

You had better have a story, not a "Oh, this is Bella IMing Edward drabble."

If it's cutesy, it had better have a really good raison d'être for being cutesy.

Is life random? Maybe. Are random fan-fiction pieces good? ... maybe not. Show me you and your story have a clue.

Show me your story is populated with people who think and feel and talk and breathe and need to go to the bathroom and bleed and cry and live and die.

Show me your story is set somewhere. In a house? What kind of house? In a town? Which town? When? What is the population? Ethnicities? Are they Indians? Which tribes? I'm Choctaw. Did you research the town? The state or province or country? Alaska IS NOT covered in snow (maybe Attu, Alaska, with it's national forest of 14 pine shrubs has a BIT more snow). I have lived there. Seattle is sunny ... often!

What is the reason for your story? Why are you telling it? What happens in the story, and why? And how does that happening develop the character or advance the plot? You have heard of plot, right? Show me your plot diagram. What is the climax? What is the dénouement? What are the visceral mise-en-scene in this chapter? Why?

Would Rather Not: I do not beta for these stories
Do you know what I hate?
Glad you asked.

I hate deus ex machinia. I see that, and you are in major trouble, particularly, multiple POVs in one chapter. I see that, and I say bye-bye. Sure this is fan-fiction, but just because (nearly) everybody else writes crap does not give you a license to present yours for my review.

You trade in archetype, and I'll show you the exit. You give me a hyperactive shopaholic named Alice who tells the story's conclusion whenever she is magically needed, then I'm giving your chapter a thumbs down.

Oh, Edward reads everybody's mind? Deus ex machina if not handled properly. Most fan-fiction DOESN'T handle it properly. Yours had better.

Jasper diffuses a tense situation? Then why have that standoff in the first place if Jasper was going to render it moot?

Sure, you are handling very, very powerful characters, so you had better handle them with respect.

You disrespect your characters, you disrespect your story. You disrespect your story, then I'll have to ask you to go elsewhere.

Beta Preferences
Language: English
Content Rating: Fiction K » M
Categories: categories in black are ones this beta has authored for
Book  Twilight
Genres: General, Romance, Humor, Drama, Angst, Tragedy, Western, Crime, Family