amedia

I just feel it important to point out that, if it weren't for my beta-reader, Cain's nipples would not have made an appearance in Shivering.
( R-rated details )

[shamelessly stolen from blade_girl]

You remember those fics you wrote a loooong time ago, back when you were a mere budding artist instead of the accomplished unpaid professional you are today?

Well, I was wondering if we could sorta... borrow those charming fics of your yesteryear.

See, I'm working with several friends from the Tin Man fandom to create a beta community, and we want to be able to test prospective beta readers to ensure that we are choosing people with really top-notch skills. To accomplish this, we want to give beta candidates a test fic; they'll read and return their feedback to us. And we need as many stories as we can get our hands on for this purpose.

We'll be posting the fic to a separate testing community; the beta candidates will post their feedback in comments, which will be screened until such time as the candidate is accepted. We won't be actively promoting the test comm, but it's definitely going to be visible to anyone who cares to go look at it.

If you have some old stories, I urge you to consider letting us put them to this very worthwhile use. If you prefer, we would leave your name off the fic, but we kinda like the idea of keeping the names on - it demonstrates that everyone had to start raw and unpolished before they reached the heady heights of skilled wordsmithery.

I really hope some of you will be able to help me out! Any fandom is welcome, and the more the merrier; it's hard to find "old" fics in a fandom that's less than four months old. ;) Consider this a way of giving something back to fandom by helping others to raise the overall quality of fanfic writing.

And a thousand thanks for your help!

ETA: If you could see your way clear to pass this along in your own journal, we'd be very grateful. :)

Top Ten Signs you're reading a story by Amedia:

10. The story may contain arcane cultural references.
9. If it's more than two pages long, it's been edited to a fare-thee-well by The Live-In Beta Reader and probably rewritten multiple times.
8. The characters never, ever use the word "relationship," even in thoughts. Because, you know, they're guys.
7. All the sex is offscreen. Well, almost.
6. The tone of the story matches the original as closely as possible; when possible, so do the setting, dialogue, and even the plot.
5. The characters in the pairing do a lot of dancing around each other before they get to down to anything romantic.
4. Characters don't admit they love each other until the third or fourth story, even if they have sex in the first one.
3. It's in a teeny fandom with readership in the dozens, or a larger fandom where most people prefer another pairing.
2. If it's in Rat Patrol, you haven't seen it unless you read fanzines.

And the number one sign you're reading a story by Amedia:

1. It usually contains a Dietrich, but not always the *same* Dietrich.