R.W. Ridley's Blog, page 11

The Actuals – Official word count (day 6)

Almost 6,000 words in and Oz has yet to make an appearance.

The Actuals – Official word count (day 5)

I was going to write a little more, but then I noticed I had written exactly 1000 words for the day, and it felt right to walk away for the day.

The Actuals – Official word count (day 4)

Had some freelance assignments today, so I got to it late.

The Actuals – Official word count (day 3)

Sunshine Carter was a little chattier today.

Support the guy who named a villain after me

From The Distance to Dust

Okay, I don’t know that author Jeremy Robinson named a villain after me, but there is a super genius villain in his Chess Team books that is named Richard Ridley. I kind of like being the super evil bad guy.  I met Jeremy via email way back in the day when we both just had a couple of books on the market. Since then he’s authored and co-authored around 50 titles.

Jeremy has started a Kickstarter campaign to raise money for a short film called Dust.  The film is based on an upcoming book titled The Distance written by Jeremy and his wife Hilaree Robinson.  It’s a post-apocalyptic love story that will scare the pants off you.

I’m particularly interested in seeing Jeremy succeed with this for a couple of reasons.  One, if this movie is a success, maybe he’ll bring one of his Richard Ridley books to the big screen, and two, I’ve been thinking about pursuing a Kickstarter campaign for a short film myself for quite awhile now, but I’ve always been too terrified to do it.  If Jeremy can pull it off, I might have the courage to give the idea serious consideration.

So, checkout, Jeremy’s project and help an author out.  He’s teamed up with a very talented director by the name of Kenneth Dodge.  I was blown away by his samples on the Kickstarter page – DUST – A Sci-Fi / Horror Short Film

The Actuals – official word count update (Day 2)

Slow day.

The Actuals (Book 7) word count tracker

Okay, the thinking phase is over.  I believe I’ve finally found the formula to make this a standalone story while still being an effective and satisfying conclusion to the series.  I’m more than a little excited because I’ve hooked into a new voice for this installment that is really eager to be heard.  I’ve had many stops and starts to this point because none of it felt fresh.  Once I found The Actuals, a fog was lifted.  Let’s hope it doesn’t return.

In keeping with what I’ve done in the past, I will put up a daily word count to keep me honest and accountable.  I have some travel on the horizon, but I don’t plan on letting that stop me.  I’ll keep you updated on story elements as much as I can without giving too much away.  What I will tell you today is that my best imaginary friend in the weeks and months to come is a kid named Sunshine Carter.

Here we go!

The working title of Book Seven of the Oz Chronicles is….

Tada!

This is not the official cover design. I was just toying around with fonts and ideas. The book isn’t close to being finished, but believe it or not, seeing the title in my mind’s eye is a huge help.

A big thank you to Chloe Madigan

1991 Graduate

I got so wrapped up in completing The Closeout Kings I totally neglected to give a shout out to Middle Tennessee State University student Chloe Madigan.  She interviewed me for the Collage, a student run magazine of creative arts. It’s for the Spring 2014 edition.  I don’t think it’s available to read yet, but she did send me two advance copies, and I’m happy to say she did an exceptional job.  The toughest part of the interview was finding a picture of me that wouldn’t frighten readers.

Thanks, Chloe!  I loved the article.

The partial results of the survey

The survey says…

Not all the results are in, but I have enough feedback to move ahead with final rewrites and publish The Closeout Kings. If you haven’t finished reading or you have and you haven’t taken the survey, it’s not too late to stand up and be heard. I’ll still keep checking the survey site for more results until I actually publish. I may even use some of the comments in the survey for marketing copy. Here’s the link to the survey in case you’ve misplaced it. http://WP3628306.polldaddy.com/s/the-closeout-kings-beta-reader-survey

You may not want to read beyond this point if you haven’t taken the survey yet because I’m going to discuss the results… now!

I’m not terribly adept at math, so I tried to make calculating the survey as simple as possible. For starters, 10 out of 22 people filled out the survey. Based on that, I assigned a participation score of 3.2 to the book. That’s the only thing that really had any kind of guess work in it at all. If you’ve taken the survey, you know that participants were asked to rank various aspects of the story with a 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 – 5 being the best score. This is how the participation ranking worked out on that 1-5 ranking scale.

5: 19-22 (Completed surveys)

4: 14-18 (Completed surveys)

3: 9-13 (Completed surveys)

2: 4-8 (Completed surveys)

1: 0-3 (Completed surveys)

You can see that gives The Closeout Kings a ranking of a little over three. Participation denotes interest. Interest denotes readability. Readability denotes salability. That’s why I included it in my final scoring. Now, I am aware that other factors are involved when it comes to a volunteer beta reader’s participation. Life does get in the way, and they may not have anticipated that it required as much of their free time as it did. I would have been thrilled if five people took the time to read the book and fill out the survey, so I am not complaining or upset in the least. On the contrary, I count it as a victory.

So here are the rest of the rankings. Keep in mind; all scores are an average of the 10 respondents’ rankings.

1. Characters: 4.6

2. Plot: 4.7

3. Humor: 4.4

4. Balance: 4.6

5. Setting: 4.5

6. Page-turner factor: 4.8

7. Step: 4.5

8. Kenny: 4.4

9. Dani: 4.4

10. Boss: 4.3

11. Final Conflict: 4.9

12. Ending: 4.6

If we add in the participation score of 3.1, we have an overall ranking of 4.5 for the book. How can I not be pleased with that score? I made the survey anonymous to relieve some of the unease people may have had about being critical, so I trust that no one spared my feelings. Some folks let me know they filled out the survey, but other than that I don’t know which of the 22 people in the beta reader group completed the survey.

What does this tell me? It tells me at the very least that a major rewrite is not in order. I may look at Boss’ character and see if there’s anything I can do to improve him, but they won’t be huge changes. Had I seen scores below 4, major changes would be called for, and if more people fill out the surveys before I finish the final rewrites that might be the case. As of right now, I don’t anticipate that will happen.

Thanks to the comments I got more in-depth feedback than the ratings. I’ve addressed some of those made about Kenny, and I’ve heard from a couple of people that I need to make some changes to the firearms used and other details like that. All of this is super helpful, and it is much appreciated. I owe all of you a debt of gratitude for the time and attention you donated to this process. THANK YOU!!!

BTW: The recommend question wasn’t a comparable ranking (4.4), so I didn’t include it in the overall ranking of the book. Most would have recommended it to people who like thrillers, and the others would have recommended it to anyone who likes to read.