Proofreading and editing, waterproof ideas?

With a relatively large part of my first draft finished, I was thinking of having others read it for me. Now the obvious problem with that is: who will read it for you? It's obvious that you yourself might be all passionate about your work but you might as well encounter many problems in the department of convincing others to read a work in progress. More precisely, a work in progress they must read attentively and scan for error and incoherency. So we've come on the terrain of proofreading and editing. Whereas these terms may seem relatively close in meaning, they are not the same.

Proofreading is the reading of a text to spot errors of a technical nature. Grammar mistakes, double words, wrong punctuation and so on.

Editing is the reading of the text on a more narrative basis. You try to find incoherency in dialogue, events, flaws in character build-up. All for the benefit of the quality of the story itself.

Prooffreading, finding the errors in other people's texts.

The problem, however, is where to find those people motivated enough to read your unfinished material. Obvious resource #1 friends and family

Friends and family will most likely comply to reading your story, unless they politely decline of course (be prepared for this). Understand as well that people might be a bit hesitant to tell you the full truth because they don't want to hurt you. An unfinished story is a very personal thing after all.

Source #2 professional companies
Professional proofreaders are abundant. http://www.proof-reading.com/ for example. It's not too expensive and you're assured of quality. A lot of universities have their own proofreading facilities as well.

Source #3 teachers and students of languages
Very close to #2 but if you have personal relationships with these people, things get easier. When you're still a school-goer you can simply ask your teacher to do it for you in his/her spare time. Just hope you're on good footing with that person though.

Source #4 writing communities
Examples such as http://www.nanowrimo.org/ and other writing communities are full of people writing, interested in writing and readers. You can try to find people here if you need a proofreader/editor. Be cautious about throwing your story out in the open though. Read up about copyright before spilling the beans.

Good kingdoms, evil empires...or was there more?

People who have read/played traditional fantasy or sci-fi know it. Kingdoms are good, empires are evil.
In this post I won't talk about the good/evil differences but more about why they're always kingdoms and  empires. There are a plethora of state structures out there and nowadays the classic kingdoms and empires have faded into history so I just want to point out this possibility to innovate on the classic concept.

Dictatorship being shared, very common in popular media it seems.

I'll simply explain some of the political systems used in my projects as used besides the traditional kingdoms and empires.
Firstly there's the mayoralty. Adhered by two of the nations in the worlds, they are a lot like democracy with one exception. The ruler of the nation is the ruler of the capital city. In one case this is because the capital city is one of the only notable cities of the nation left, in the other because the historical evolution demanded as such (including a rebellion, hanging of the previous ruling monarch and so on). The mayoralty can be democratic or not.

Secondly there's the stratocracy. While it may seem something fit for a dictatorship, there is a difference. The army is in charge, but a stratocracy is not necessarily a dictatorship. While the nation in my project is stratocratic, having evolved from a global war, they are very close to a democracy, electing their leaders every set amount of years. These then preside mostly over the nation from the central office in the capital.

Thirdly, the plutocracy. The wealthier a person, the greater his/her influence. Applied in the desert cities where treasure is everything and many go out to try their fortune. It can often be combined with almost any other state form (for example, wealthy people get more votes) but in my novel I kept it as pure as possible.

I have several other forms of government used in my writing and often they are slight variations of existing structures as well. I won't elaborate any further though to prevent a too lengthy posting as well as too much spoiling. For those who do wish to read up on the existing forms of government I recommend the cia factbook, which has a very complete list as well as a list of countries and their state form. Also useful when designing your nations, ethnic groups and history.

While good kingdoms and evil empires may seem an obvious thing in some video games, it is worthwhile to study the newest trends:

Though indeed I am our Emperor’s son, I am no prince. Archadia’s Emperor is freely chosen by Her people. I am but an elected official and nothing more. -Vayne Solidor, Final Fantasy XII, Square-Enix

Empire or democracy? Play the game itself and you might doubt your choice. Politics are becoming more and more prominent in the later games and who knows what the next trend might be?

Questlines: The Pilgrimage of Linh

The past few days I've been working on the so-called "Questlines" section of my story. I named them like that because of the existing rpg-project that can implement them very well. "Questlines" is the bundle of stories running simultaneously with the main story. The most important reason I made this bundle was to flesh out the worlds of my novel. It's highly unlikely for the main hero to be present in all the major events of his time, but nevertheless they can have their impact on his journey. The hero hears of the other questlines occurring, may see parts of them, but is not the main player in them. They're not sideplots in that they are not resolved or sometimes only mentioned or hinted to once.

Famous examples of authors who did this are mostly found in the fantasy literature. Tolkien (The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings) and Martin (A song of Ice and Fire). Especially in the case of Tolkien who is famous for his stacks of notes and border writings. He speaks of lands that are barely treated in his novels, but those who are familiar with his Legendarium (all the gathered work of Tolkien) will know there's a lot more to it than his major novels.

The entirety of Middle-Earth of which maybe a small part is treated in detail

An example of this in my own Questlines bundle is the 'pilgrimage of Linh' of the nomads on the smaller continent, looking for their sacred origin. They may seem oblivious to the greater turmoil in their world, but as a people they have different priorities. To them it doesn't matter if the world is destroyed, it is just something that happens. These nomads have a great relativity over them, a certain peace that is running out in the rest of the world. It frustrates the people who do think it's important to no end, but the nomads aren't moved by that. In my novel, these frustrations are dealt with, but not the entire sacred journey and the things that are dealt with on the way there. (though I might make a short-story from it some time)

As such I do want to show that I place a great deal of care into building up the background of my novel and I do hope other writers will do the same, because I always find it nice to find a sizeable background in the stories I read and write. Without compromising the main story with redundant information of course.