Aquiver, Aglow: Beta Call Post
After being one of the biggest parts of my life for some years now, I'm very very happy to announce 'quiv is ready for its beta stage. I'm gonna echo my previous post: writing this story has been a soothing experience for me, and I'd love for this to apply to everyone. Never heard of 'quiv? No problem, new eyes are often wise. Old acquaintance? No pressure on you. Take a cup of steaming tea, or maybe not since it's summer, lean back and just tell me whatever crosses your mind. Believe me, it will help me enormously. And the stress is all with me, not you. So while I'm asking for help, I truly wish whoever gives me a hand to have a pleasant experience🥰
Sign-up period: till July? I might be more flexible, depending on the applicants, and there won't be any selection (a maximum of 7 people), which means you can start on the day you sign up
Deadline: October (SOFT deadline, since ideally I want to do another round of line edits then proofreading in November), with the possibility of extending until December (and don't sweat it if you need more)
Long story short: a human child restores faith to an angel, who in turn restores faith to Heaven.
Long story long: There's a place beneath Heaven where, in a shoddy little cottage, a mother and her child live. They are to wait for her promised day, when angels shall descend and devour their souls. For faith has been broken. Memories of kindness and warmth remain mere whispers, cracked under two centuries of prayers answered with bloodied chapels and trails of corpses, and callous wings plucking souls out of their once faithfuls' chests.
Tyrone knows his Mother is just waiting for the day the angels will come. She wishes to sacrifice herself to see her child out of the Promised Lands, so she fills his childhood with horrible stories meant to make him afraid and get him used to the inevitable. She succeeds. Tyrone is afraid, but of everything. Most of all, of the loneliness that keeps him company, and disperses only at night. Because, under the stars, he sees an angel on the rims of Heaven, taking care of her field of clouds, a mirror to how he toils over his wheatfield. That’s when he first feels they are the same. So when she falls one day, he asks not that she spare him, but that she stay.
And, slowly, the nights turn so very warm.
It’s been two centuries since the angels knew where they wished to go. They live suspended in time, caught between memory and hatred. Anne, their Angel of Lies, has only ever cared for Heaven. For them, she’d draw their anger onto herself, if only they acknowledged they were still hung up on humanity. She’s tired. She’s old. Even the stars have closed their path off to the angels, and she doesn’t know what to do. So when she is met with sincerity for the first time in centuries, she wonders if she’s found a way. If nothing else, anger would reanimate Heaven, and for a little while stop the angels’ slow fall towards death. She listens to a child’s quiet wish, and agrees.
Curiosity, she calls it.
They begin by using each other. With time, this no longer holds true, and they learn something. It was a thin line between that and caring about one another. And warmth, as it were, comes with sorrows shared.
GENRE: character-driven dark fantasy with humans, angels and stars interspersed with peaceful moments
WORD COUNT: 195k (standalone)
WARNINGS: violence, gore, suicidal thoughts, abusive relationships, terminal illness
Content criticism, as in character arcs, plot development, your fav and least fav parts, and mainly if you think there are too many feathers in the story
The sky's your limit actually. Every thought counts 🙌
Typically you can ignore typos, but if any of them really pisses you off, feel free to shout at me
Same with line edits. The style is meant to be experimental at times, but not at the cost of intelligibility. So if I went overboard somewhere, please do shout but otherwise it's due a line edit
Return betas! No time limit; and of course no word count limit
To save Private Jan (my penname lol) because there's no way I can afford editing prices, so we're pulling off an Atlas here no matter how many drafts I'll have to go through
You can just contact me in the DMs, but I'll put up a Google Forms as well for whoever would prefer that. Also, you can request a sample (the first/first few chapters) to see if it's your thing.
And that's it! Hope to see volunteers, and thanks so much for your interest! Have a lovely day🥰
