Well,,, hi Selena! unfortunately I don't have time right now to do a real in-depth beta for you, but if you click here, I'll put some comments inside.... (r) -- The Beta Board

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Date Posted: 19:50:26 11/05/01 Mon
Author: ~delle
Subject: Well,,, hi Selena! unfortunately I don't have time right now to do a real in-depth beta for you, but if you click here, I'll put some comments inside.... (r)
In reply to: Selena 's message, "Birthday" on 03:09:23 11/03/01 Sat

I don't do grammatical betas. Nestra and Shanola are so good at that, I leave it to them. I tend to concentrate on characterizations and plot. Please remember, this is YOUR story, you don't have to agree with me; you don't have to do anything just because I said so.

For me, I have a problem with the entire premise of your story. Missions are failing, operatives are dying, I'm assuming various terrorists are succeeding at their attempts and it's OK because everyone's planning Madeline's birthday? That's not the "mistakes are not an option - most covert anti-terrorist unit on the planet" Section One that *I* saw on the TV.

Perhaps you're going for something more humourous, more light-hearted? I would respectfully suggest that you find another way to accomplish that besides having missions fail; I simply can't wrap my mind around the idea that both Operations and George would simply "look the other way" because Madeline's birthday is coming up.

Now, I said I wasn't going to do a grammatical beta, but I'm going to point out a couple of things that might help you with English. Dialog should be in "parenthesis" not -off set by dashes. For example:

Madeline quietly got to Walter�s Area. Nobody was there, and then she walked deeper in the room. First Madeline wanted to call somebody, but heard somebody�s voices. People whispered to each other. Madeline decided to listen to them.
- Are we ready?
- Yes. I have brought all in and packed it too.
- Excellent! We have only one day. If everything would fail�
- Don�t worry it wouldn�t fail. Or SOMEONE will kill us.
- Oh! He wouldn�t forgive us. Did you order all we need?
- Yes. It�ll be deliver soon.
- OK. I think our plan would be successful.

Each of the dialog lines should be set off with "".

"Are we ready?"
"Yes. I have brought (it) all in and packed it too."

It would be helpful if you gave some kind of indication the speaker. Perhaps:

"Are we ready?" Walter's voice was a harsh whisper.

"Yes." Michael's response was typically soft.

If Madeline is unable to determine the speakers, that could be indicated to:

Madeline heard a jumble of voices, the whispers tumbling over each other, distorting the speakers' identification.

"Are we..."

"Yes. I had..."

You've also changed tense here and there, from past to present. Here's an example:

Madeline has never done it, but now she moved her hand to his cheek, caressing his skin tenderly

You've jumped from present (has) to past (moved).

A lot of my difficulties with your story are simply due to your unfamiliarity with English. It's a very difficult language *grin*, many native speakers don't get it right! I'm afraid I don't have time to be a beta for you to correct the sentences; perhaps you could ask on the Storyboards for someone to help you clean up the problems translating the story from Russian to English.

Welcome to the storyboards! It takes a great deal of courage to put a story up for beta-ing and I commend you for doing it!

~delle

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