Review swap site.

YouWriteOn

I haven't blogged since January because I've been a little on the busy. My absence began because of a poor book review which got me thinking. Is my novel as good as I think it is? In an attempt to find out I joined YouWriteOn.

http://www.youwriteon.com

YouWriteOn was established, with Arts Council funding, to assist new writers to develop their writing. The premise is simple: members upload opening chapters, or short stories, and the YouWriteOn system randomly assigns these to another member for review. For every subsequent review you receive, you must review another member's story excerpt assigned to you at random. Feedback can be diverse. I tend to ignore a person's feedback if it contradicts the popular viewpoint, but feedback from a range of reviewers helps to get a collective viewpoint of what works well and what needs developing.
Reviewers are asked to give a ratings breakdown in various categories to highlight strengths and weaknesses. Unfortunately one unimpressed reader can drastically reduce your star rating. Hey that's life. After 5 reviews a story enters the chart system, and the highest rated writers receive feedback from editors of publishing houses, Orion and Random House. So far I've managed to reach number twenty in the charts, which isn't bad considering that thousands of Indie books are available for review. This chart tells me that pace and structure are my weakest disciplines, in consequence I have removed the first three chapters of my novel completely to get to the point much quicker. I've also added more dialogue, as a consequence of the rating system, and re-written the narrative in the first person in an attempt to reach the top 10 and receive a review from one of the major publishers. It isn't unknown for a publisher to decide to publish a top 10 story from this group, but even if that never happens I have discovered how other people view my writing.