EntAllat wrote:Length to post here? I would think a chapter at a time would work. After all, the first chapter should lay down the bones of the story and get your readers interested, and then if you're building from there... it won't let readers see the story as a whole, but chapter-by-chapter should be enough to digest and be able to say something. Alternatively, you could post a link to the entire thing and ask for feedback/responses from those willing to read the entire thing.
I wasn't sure if this worked the same way as the workshop, ie, post X amount and that's it. I can do a chapter-by-chapter at least up to the ones I hadn't edited yet so long ago. I'd like another crack at the ones following because I know my beta had valid points (and there are changes I see immediately myself now) before moving on to post those. If I can figure out where to post it in its entirety I may do just that to simplify.
EntAllat wrote:Also, something that might help you outside of this thread: if it's novel length, you could approach it the same way as you might when editing the first draft of a novel. There are certain things you can ignore, of course, since it's fanfic. (I.e. long detailed descriptions of character's physical appearances and backgrounds, etc.) But other stuff applies, and there's a lot of "how to edit the first draft of your novel" practical tips that are out there might help you tackle a second look at it yourself. I liked one tip that suggested printing the whole thing out and sitting down with a spiral notebook and a list of questions - away from the computer - to read through it and jot down notes and answers to those questions as I read through the draft. You end up with a decent plan for revising and editing after that.
This is the longest thing I've ever written by myself (in a month, no less, really intense), and I hardly ever read novels or even fanfic this length (smirnoffsmule should know just how good his story was to grab me as it did), so the whole do-it-myself approach is just way too daunting. I've looked at this for years off and on, it's too familiar to me.
Aquarius wrote:There's no limit, really. Again, the assumption going into this was that we'd be working with things that were already posted somewhere, like Warp 5 or ff.n -- we didn't even *have* an archive yet at the Expanse when the thread was started, so that's why we didn't address how to post.
If you want, you can start a separate thread for it and post it. I'm not really sure of how long of a story you're talking about. How many chapters is it? How many pages (in what font and what size)? Sorry -- 80k doesn't really tell me anything, it's not how I roll.
It's 19 chapters as it stands. First chapter is 3300 words. I had it posted to my Geocities site but with no public access... and that's the way I have it saved on my computer (my ONLY copy, oy). So while I did print it out ages ago, I have no idea how many pages it is until I cut and paste all 19 chapters into something else. Which is extra work. I'll guess at it, though: assuming 250 words a page, 10 point TR double spaced (isn't that how it works for papers?), a single-spaced version of this would be around... 160 pages? Total guess.
ETA: Single-spaced 10 pt TR in googledocs, the first chapter is 7.5 pages (3300 words).I'm concerned, though, that this is overall too rough for what you wanted No Crying. Like I said, half of it is edited as it stands, and none of it was posted as a finished product anywhere. So while the story itself is *complete* with nothing hanging... well, it's just a special snowflake, isn't it.
And my other challenge in all this is my OFC. I had bits and pieces of this reviewed by Taryn Eve back on the Enterprise Write Brigade list, and if this smacked of a Mary Sue all the way through she (and my beta back then) would have told me. I think I've struck a balance with her... she's really really flawed lol. But as much as I love her, I'm open to all kinds of review of her as well as my other OCs. The majority of the story takes place somewhere other than on ship, so the focus is Archer and OCs, and Trip. Back on board, though, everyone has Stuff, even though some need More Stuff.
TL;DR: I'm not meaning to turn this into a giant beta job.