Ryk E. Spoor Beta Reading Blog

... officially into novel territory with Stuff of Legend. Well over 40,000 words now.

We've had a few new people join the beta list in the past few weeks, so welcome to you all. There's a lot of stuff that's been previously posted here -- the beta list goes back several years. Feel free to read and comment on any of it.

The only requirement of being a beta reader here is that you *are* expected to comment to some extent on at least some reasonable number of the posted chapters and such; that's the utility and reason for my posting this stuff as I write it, to get reactions from readers before things get set in stone. I periodically go through and prune people who are inactive from the list, and the last time the pruning was something like 3/4 of those who had signed up originally.

... of which I know there's at least one and maybe more, you okay?

For those who don't follow my regular LJ, I am currently in the hospital with diverticulitis. Here until tomorrow at least.

Now that a couple of months have gone by since I asked all those who were in the list to post or be dropped, I have now actually performed the pruning. I cut out everyone who did not post to that thread, with a couple of exceptions for people I knew were active on the list.

YOU CAN ALWAYS GET BACK ON THE LIST by emailing me. I will probably prune the list of inactive people every couple of years.

This pruning cut me down from about 160-200 people to less than 40, just FYI. So of people who initially volunteered to be part of this beta-reading activity, about 1 in 4 or 5 stuck with it. This may be a useful datum for those looking for beta readers of their own.

And again as a reminder to both those still on, and anyone interested in being on it, my requirements aren't very onerous; just comment on what you're reading at some reasonable frequency. You don't have to respond to every posted snippet, or even to every second or third. And many of the comments don't have to say much; you can say "I had no problems" or "I agree with XXXXX's comments", and that's it. For me, the value comes from knowing people are reading it, and from getting some idea of whether what I'm writing is having the effect I want -- which means that sometimes it IS a good thing for you to repeat the same comments others have made, because it reinforces that reaction.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/55
The Marvelous Land of Oz http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/54
Ozma of Oz http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/486
Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/420
The Road to Oz http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/485
The Emerald City of Oz http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/517
The Patchwork Girl of Oz http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/955
Tik-Tok of Oz http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/956
The Scarecrow of Oz http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/957
Rinkitink in Oz http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/25581
The Lost Princess of Oz http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/24459
The Tin Woodman of Oz http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/960
The Magic of Oz http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/419
Glinda of Oz http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/961

In case anyone wants background for Polychrome.

[Edited to correct URL for The Lost Princess of Oz.]

... since Saturday, in Florida. This has meant spotty internet access and, despite my best intentions, very little writing for various reasons.

So, alas, I think I'm going to have to go with Poplock for PSTPW day. I may start working on the Jason Wood story off and on, though, as I'd like to accumulate enough for a book.

Hi, all --

As the point of this community is the beta-reading, noodling, critiquing, etc., of my material which is not yet released or in a finished state, it is fairly important to me that the majority of the members are at least somewhat participatory.

Currently, I have listed over 130 members of rykspoor_beta, and of those I think that a large number have NEVER commented at all, and perhaps 20, total, have posted with reasonable frequency.

So IF YOU WANT TO STAY IN THIS COMMUNITY, you MUST RESPOND TO THIS POST!

Yes, there are several people out there who respond so regularly that I wouldn't delete them even if, somehow, they failed to respond to this. Most of those probably know who they are without even asking. But it's probably wisest to respond in case I have a brainfart when I go through the list and start jumpin' up an' down a-yellin' kill... kill...KILL...

I really don't require, or even ask, that you respond to every single post. But when I have 130+ people in what is a private, invite-only list, and the average post gets between 3 and 5 people responding, this indicates that MOST of the people simply aren't participating. And as I said whenever I let people join, the fee for being here and seeing the process of my working things out is to participate to some extent.

...4,000 words written today!

Responding to Ryk's post about the mysterious goings on in his neighborhood reminded me of an old RPG. One that would likely get an "ineresting" reaction from Marc and the other survivors.

Anybody else here ever play Paranoia?

... Everyone in the house came down with some kind of flu. :(

I have received a contract for Grand Central Arena!

IT'S GOING TO BE PUBLISHED!!!

Not that you're a trained monkey existing only to amuse us. :) I just miss getting regular updates about Our Heroes.

http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/index.html

It's full of win. I think every scifi author who wants to write realistic hard scifi should check this site out... I knew a lot of this stuff already, but some of it was a surprise... such as what kind of detection ranges you can see a spaceship at, and how decoys don't work, etc.

There's hours worth of good stuff there.

Seriously. I've got a story I'd like to tell, where some shipwrecked explorers have to use their replicator nanites to fix their lander and get back to orbit.

The only problem is that if they've got replictor technology, that means it must be pretty ubbiquitous... it'd be very hard to keep the genie in the bottle, and there's some pretty AWFUL things that could happen if everybody has access to nanotech.

In a world where there are AIwishes, how do you keep the terrorists, lunatics, and bored teenagers from turning the world into soup?

to Ryk!

Questions on tags:
1) When tagging posts, am I using too many? (Are some too broad?)
2) Has anyone actually used any of the tags?
3) Would you folks welcome a "database" post (deleted and repopped every 50 posts so it stays on the main page) that points to the right tags?
4) I'm pretty sure I've tagged everything now. Where did I make mistakes?

Well folks -- in an effort to let the computers do what they're good at, I've changed the style of this community.
Notice, if you will a link on the right titled tags.

As time becomes available, all of the stories on the blog will be indexed by tags. And easily searchable and readable thereby.

Questions, style suggestions, and complaints below.

For example. If one clicks on the Trancendance tag, you'll get all posts related to that short story.

I've got 200 or so to do, so stuff will be added catch as catch can. I also didn't go to sleep last night to try to even out my sleep schedule, so the tags may be slightly odd. If you think some tags shouln't be there, let me know. If you like a different theme better, let me know.

1. His life is fairly boring -- most of the time.

2. The local cops are his friends. And they will stop and question
strangers. Whenever things are otherwise slow.

3. Morgantown has been making good money from fines for loitering and
trespassing. As good as a speed trap. And the locals have no reason to go
easy on foreigners.

4. After hanging around for hours, getting several hundred dollars worth
of fines and no pictures of any interest, most of them decide it isn't
worth it and go find someone else to stalk.

5. Some of them were eaten.

I was looking at where in Tanzania the Blast could have happened, and ran into a problem -- there are no suitable areas of rainforest there. Savannah just doesn't work for plot purposes.

Does anyone have any suggestion as to where in Africa one could have a blast that would take out a hundred miles of rainforest without hitting many people? [The fact that endangered species are destroyed is irrelevant.]

If you want to see the good stuff, you have to be a member, not just a watcher, as all the beta stuff in friends locked.

If you haven't joined the group, you won't see the snippets.

Per several suggestions, what I'm going to do in order to get better assistance on the orbital question is lay out the exact physical and plot requirements.

THIS MEANS THAT THE PART AFTER THE CUT WILL BE MEGASPOILERY! If you don't want to know the basic plot outline for Threshold (and parts of the sequel), DO NOT READ AFTER THE CUT! Just move along, nothing to see here.

( I mean it, don't do it unless you want spoilers! )

I'll put up a couple more pieces here before I trot off on my vacation (I may or may not be able to do some stuff while on vacation).

Should I continue posting pieces of Threshold? It's clear I'm going to be doing a big rewrite on it for both technical and story reasons, so the stuff that currently remains to post, while probably remaining in there in general broad outline, won't be the same when I'm done.

(yes, I know this post is publicly available)

I notice that some of you are not members of the group.

All the good stuff -- the story samples and their discussion -- is locked. To see it, you need to be a member of the group.

To join, go to the info page and click on the link to join the group. After you have done this, Ryk will add you to the group and you can see the good stuff.

Otherwise, you will find watching this group rather dull. :)

If you are watching this list without being a member, you are missing all the nifty stuff Ryk is posting.

If you are signed up, comment! Ryk wants feedback!

... I plan to post the beta material here as a message. Discussion, I would expect, will follow in the comments on each section. Sound reasonable?

or in email, or both or what?

... just to see if it works.