Beta Readers needed: Slenderman Novel.

As far as I know this will be the first full slenderman novel and I was wanting to gather some beta readers to give me their opinions on what I have so far, this is a sesond draft that I am about halfway through, I've been following the slenderman rules for the most part with some significant changes to keep things fresh.
For the critique I'm mainly looking to find people that wouldn't mind reading it once or twice. Checking on tone, areas of interest/bordom, times when slendy works and times, major errrors and plot holes. Drop my a PM here if you are interested.


UPDATE: Not sure if this update will trigger a notification so... I hope people see the update. But it seems that posting updates in seperate posts is frowned upon. So Part 7 is up, Chapters 17 to 19 are the new chapters. I've been experimenting with the compile options but haven't really found the settings I like. And PDFs and Docs look way different. Thats disconcerting. Onto the penultimate Part! (haha I got to use that word for once.)
And I'll be putting updates here from now on.

Updated to part 7 http://aliengeometries.com/ChildOfDoors/
Enjoy.

UPDATE 31 Oct 2012: Well I had hoped to get the book done by halloween but my schedule just got overwhelmed, on the plus side I'm about 2 chapters from being done, on the minus side its over 105,000 words now.. jesus this is going to be a beast of a book.

UPDATE 25 Nov 2012: So... its done. I'm working on editing right now and hopefully will have that done by Friday, 40,000 words since the last update. I'll try to send a PM to all the people that have been following this slog. Hope people enjoy it.

i would be very interested in reading and critiquing it

You wouldn't, by any chance, happen to be the person who e-mailed me about this at the start of NaNo?

Sure, I wouldn't mind helping you out.

Like an idiot I didn't think to check back into this thread until now.

You wouldn't, by any chance, happen to be the person who e-mailed me about this at the start of NaNo?

Uh I don't think so, I put out a thing on Nano for readers for the first draft. The terrible first draft. I don't think I emailed anyone about it though, except through Nano.

Well I'm about 1/5 the way through the second draft and I have a 'part 1' I guess you could call it. Its about 14,000 words right now, anyone that wants to take a look just PM me and I can send the link to download it. Everyone thats responded in this thread so far I'll PM them a link to the second draft, trust me, so far its a lot more readable.

I do think I should put in here that I don't really follow any of the blogs so I'm not really sure how my stuff would compare in tone, it starts off slow (in fact part 1 ends right after the first really weird thing happens) and doesn't have any core theory stuff or anything like that. Most of my exposure to slenderman has been through Marble Hornets, EverymanHYBRID, MLanderson, and TJ and Amy. So if you want something with revenants and killing proxies by the truckload, you might want to skip it.

I'll abuse it with my supervision. But a good canon plot is always appreciated. Bung it in my direction and I'll do what I can.

This is an interesting opportunity...

I have a question: What are you planning to do with this novel?

Right now the main plan is to do the self publishing thing once it gets finished.

I'd be happy to read! Sounds interesting

About half-way through, doing an editing pass before I put up the next part. hopefully get that done by tonight.

EDIT: Ok, finally have the next part done. Anyone who read the first part, you should start at the Healing chapter. It has return to the Library at the first part but I reworked some of it. I also am just going to put the link in here for simplicities sake.

Based on the first draft I think I am about up to the 1/3 mark, 25,000 words. I kept it in the pdf format mainly because the formating looked better. I still need to better at typesetting. I know some people like using word docs since you can embed critiques but that breaks some formatting. If anyone wants to have the doc version to do critiqueing I can put that up.

If you read part one remember, the new stuff starts in the 'Healing' chapter.

http://www.aliengeometries.com/test/Child_Of_Doors_Part_1+2.pdf

Thanks.

eudaemon wrote:Right now the main plan is to do the self publishing thing once it gets finished.

While I would love to read a (good) Slenderman novel I think I should point out that Victor Surge does in fact own Slenderman which may make publication for profit dificult. You may wish to contact him and get permision before seeking publication.

Edit: Downloaded the chapters you have up so far and I'll try to give it a read soon.

Hrm, well a few things, in the slender nation podcast surge basically said he didnt give permissions and wouldn't bless any slenderman related projects. ANd like a lot of slender projects the monster plays by a few different rules and has motivations different than the original. and isn't really even called slenderman. Did the Marble Hornets DVD require a contract of some sort?

I can try to get ahold of surge and ask

EDIT: Ok I sent a note to Surge, Looking at everything I think the main thing that is borrowed is the idea of being tall, skiny, and in a suit at times. There's nothing from the original slendy thread in my monster, as far as I know. I haven't actually read the original thread yet. From the interview with Surge, he liked the tulpa idea and I really don't. I like a more Cosmic Horror type of thing. The monster isn't called slenderman, since its not, and its story is an original creation as is the rest of the 'mythos' in the story. I guess I should have named the thread 'Slenderman-esque Novel' instead of what I used. So yea, guess it should be more 'Hey heres a story of something thats scary, like slenderman, but doesn't have a lot to do with the original slenderman as envisioned by Surge.' Hopefully thats more clear.

Ok, didn't get a lot done this week so I'm just releasing the next chapter :
http://www.aliengeometries.com/test/Child_Of_Doors_Chapter_6.pdf

If anyone has had a chance drop me a line about what you think so far. We're about halfway through.

I've just completely read all-the-way through parts #1 & #2. I've also, for theatrical reasons, scanned back through them and tried connecting their foregrounds with part #6.

As of far, the story's extremely interesting and moderately unrevealing... In fact, the reason why it intrigues me so much is the fact it possesses multiple hidden aspects of an unkown genre to people.

You've created your own... Combining mixed elements such as fear, suspicion, wonder, incident, puzzlement, perplexity and unusuality that hasn't been played within any novels field that I've personally read myself...

All there's to say. Simply enamored!

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As for constructive criticism...

I've noticed a few playful remarks and spotted-editing, nothing too significant to your story's flow and whatnot. I'd presume the fact that you've yet to attain appropriate editing before you're finished with anything (yet to come)... Other than those minor nuisances, you're all clean. Collaborative writing's unrecognisable, which is a good thing, and safety away from proof-reading's more then etifiable. Which is aslo a plus.

Love & Rockets,

nINTH##sIXTh##

I have a few more chapters done, I guess its just part of being a new writer as I'm learning what needs to be in a story and how flow works and picking the right words I keep getting to 'Oh, wait, I know how I can make that stuff better.' then I go back and edit a bit.
Due to other circumstances, I had a bit of a freakout and skipped a few days of writing. Then I read Stephen King's On Writing and was like, well hell, I didn't get hit by a van so I don't have much of an excuse.
Also I was reading through Mark Reads Twilight which is a great primer on what not to do.

So yes, the editing still needs work in places, lots in some places, but the writing is back on track and I just wish I could type as fast as I think. The next release will be in about a week, and should have 3 more chapters.

There will be cats! And secrets! And unfathomable and barely conceivable shenanigans! And things that sound better in my head then I delete the whole chapter because I now find the ideas mind-blisteringly retarded!