Hello All!
It’s that time again. I’ve drafted, edited, agonized and bled over six stories I intend to publish as the next collection in The Veiled Sagas. The working title; Wild Things.
A beta reader is; “a person who reads a work of fiction before it is published in order to mark errors and suggest improvements, typically without receiving payment.” Accordingly to google.
I require a cohort of interested readers, no prior experience is needed, to read through these stories and give honest feedback on the content. If I could, I would give everyone money, gifts and free food for beta reading my words. If you are nearby, then I likely will, but it is largely difficult enough self-publishing a book. The beta reading process is easily the most difficult and most rewarding part of the editing phase. I finally get to show off the weird worlds and dark adventures I’ve been scribbling at for months and sometimes years. This is the heavy lifting of the substantive edit, where I’m less concerned with grammar or voice, and narrowly focused on making good stories.
If you are interested in beta reading this collection, please continue reading.
Those who had read Bloodied and Black as Night will be familiar with several characters and concepts and I hope your enthusiasm for what comes next will help me make an even better follow up.
This is a pulp adventure collection, but where Bloodied was about gory sacrifices and bloody adventures, and Black as Night is about the darkest corners and deepest shadows; Wild Things is about the beasts, barbarians, and monsters that fill the frontiers of the Wrong Side. These are stories filled with heightened thrills and wonder, rather than horror and terror.
These are stories of titanic monsters, prehistoric demons and the brutal desire to survive in dire circumstances. I’ve fallen further towards Conan the Barbarian adventure, epic battles and the sublime awe of the natural world. There is a heavy influence from Jaws, Godzilla, Jurassic Park, Westerns and monster movies from across cinema.
The six stories that need help are as follows;
- The Golden Pelt – A young frost giant questions his life choices as he hunts a saber-tooth lion through wilds of Jotunheim.
- Pilgrimage to Anowara – The Stranger (from the previous two collections) faces both physical and spiritual challenges as she follows a trio of monks to a mountain high in the Appalachians
- Taskmaster – An orc tribe, The BlackDragons, attack a lord’s fortress when offered a chance to save themselves from extinction.
- Trail to Iron Ridge – A recently Exposed mother and son join a wagon train to cross ‘carnivore territory’ to a possible safe future.
- Challenge – a young orc duels his chieftain over the right to lead their clan.
- This story was adapted once by TalltaleTV and now it is time to clean it up and get it into print.
- Shadow of Terror – We rejoin the stranger (from the previous two collections) as she concludes she must leave NeoAnglia, when she comes to the town of Brightfall, recently ravaged by a monster. She must team up with a scientist, a kraken hunter and an orphaned girl to hunt down this monster. Headliner and cover. Conclusion of ‘The Attack of the Terror’ and ‘The Fleet’s Revenge’ from the previous two collections.
Long time followers of my work have visited several of these places, met some of these characters and even seen what will happen to them after, but those are secrets for them to find.
If you are willing, I will bring you into the google-drive which I use to share stories where you can read them at your leisure. This is how I’ve found the best way to give everyone the freedom to add, comment and critique as best works for them. Some people add notes within the documents, sometimes even reacting to other comments, others send me their revised copy and I work through it.
The aim of this process is not for clean line or copy editing, this is story. I also offer several links and guides to help beta readers. More details, such as story length, editing and other information, will all be given to beta readers.
The goal is to finish by the end of July, with some wiggle room into August. If this timing does not work for you. no hard feelings. If this interests you, please shoot me a direct message either here or through my various social media handles found on the side bar.
Thank you for your time and consideration! I hope to here from old friends and new ones soon!
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Thank you!
ZFSigurdson 