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 samples to another member for review. For every review 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, or Troll, 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 the publishing houses, Orion and Random House. This chart tells me that pace and structure are my weakest disciplines, in consequence I've removed the first three chapters completely to get to the point. 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 publish a top 10 story from this group, but even if that never happens I have discovered how people view my writing.
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