Matt
The Last Pen Fighter
Greetings. 
This thread is meant to initiate a discussion concerning the official addition of a Circle of Review (Reviewer's Circle; Reviewing Circle) to the site. For those of you familiar with the concept, please share your past experience. For those of you new to the idea, you are in for an interesting forum mechanism that ensures everyone gets constructive feedback, honors they are due, and help if they need it. What's more, participation is entirely voluntary.
When I was nothing more than a thirteen year old boy, I dreamed of writing books. Thousands of books, scripts, comics, tabletop campaigns...the list went on and on. After discovering the treasure trove of internet roleplaying, I also discovered this odd little writing site call the Reviewer's Circle. The site as I knew it is now gone, but I've seen similar systems in place in no fewer than eleven writing boards across the web.
Essentially, it is a thread where a writer can post a link to a story (new or old) that has been posted in the appropriate forum and ask for a review. A peer from the community will then review that story and then post a link to their story for review.
The reviews themselves haves scores (so many out of 100) and are ranked alongside their peers according to this score. Beside each score is a link to each respective story, which doubles as a ranking of the best stories and an index of stories for anyone to use to find something to read should they be inclined. Scores would be separate for fiction and fan-fiction and would include points for things like grammar, knowledge of the material (fanfic), originality, characters, plot, et cetera.
For the best results, I would encourage writer's to ask for a review of the same story multiple times, so that they can get at least three scores to average out their total for any given story (honestly, you don't want a fan boy of yours to rate your story 98 out of 100 and then it be disappointing to someone else, just like you don't want one bad review to sink your story). Even better is to apply the criticism to the work and then ask for a review, perhaps bettering your score.
Everyone wins in this system. Writers are encouraged to write more so that there are fresh parts for review, reviewers learn more about their own craft through studying others', and the forum might possibly receive a boost of activity because of these two reasons and a third; new writers find this system approachable, as they know they will receive fair feedback and won't worry about the story falling on "deaf ears".
Here are some proposed rules:
> A writer must post a scored review, then request a review, effectively "buying" a full review of their work with a review of someone else's.
> A writer may request multiple reviews of the same work (especially after edits or subsequent additions) with the knowledge that enough is enough at a certain point. Stopping somewhere between 3 and 5 depending on the number of edits is a good notion.
> You cannot review the story of someone who has not requested a review. Some may not want to participate, so an unsolicited review will not be ranked.
> It should go without saying, but you must take your review seriously. If someone is requesting one, then their story means a lot to them. Be honest, but be respectful as well. Try and help if you see errors, rather than judge or belittle.
> Reviews of individual chapters should be labeled as such, since the scores will be a bit different based on having less to go on. I recommend that a writer only ask for a review of a single chapter if it is a recent addition to an already reviewed story. Then normal rules apply concerning averaging things together.
> There should be at least two Stewards or some such title to maintain the thread and ensure quality control. Individuals should not be allowed to skate by with half-baked reviews and writers should not be requesting reviews of their one story over and over because they have no new material and wish to continue getting recognition. The world of literature is a "What have you done lately?" environment, as should this thread.
> Have fun! This forum in particular has a great time writing for fun. This should not preclude improving one's skill however. There should be no reason why we cannot continue to approach this as a fun way to advance our skill whilst entertaining our readers.
-----
What does everyone here think about this? I have not been at this forum for too long, so I have no knowledge of this ever being tried here. Either way, is anyone interested?
In closing, I recommended this because of my past history with forum fan-fiction and fiction writing. I've noticed that here, along with other places that featured "forum serials", sometimes writers lose their head of steam and stop a story part way through. A Circle of Review can be a tool to reengage a writer or to encourage a new ones.
This thread is meant to initiate a discussion concerning the official addition of a Circle of Review (Reviewer's Circle; Reviewing Circle) to the site. For those of you familiar with the concept, please share your past experience. For those of you new to the idea, you are in for an interesting forum mechanism that ensures everyone gets constructive feedback, honors they are due, and help if they need it. What's more, participation is entirely voluntary.
When I was nothing more than a thirteen year old boy, I dreamed of writing books. Thousands of books, scripts, comics, tabletop campaigns...the list went on and on. After discovering the treasure trove of internet roleplaying, I also discovered this odd little writing site call the Reviewer's Circle. The site as I knew it is now gone, but I've seen similar systems in place in no fewer than eleven writing boards across the web.
Essentially, it is a thread where a writer can post a link to a story (new or old) that has been posted in the appropriate forum and ask for a review. A peer from the community will then review that story and then post a link to their story for review.
The reviews themselves haves scores (so many out of 100) and are ranked alongside their peers according to this score. Beside each score is a link to each respective story, which doubles as a ranking of the best stories and an index of stories for anyone to use to find something to read should they be inclined. Scores would be separate for fiction and fan-fiction and would include points for things like grammar, knowledge of the material (fanfic), originality, characters, plot, et cetera.
For the best results, I would encourage writer's to ask for a review of the same story multiple times, so that they can get at least three scores to average out their total for any given story (honestly, you don't want a fan boy of yours to rate your story 98 out of 100 and then it be disappointing to someone else, just like you don't want one bad review to sink your story). Even better is to apply the criticism to the work and then ask for a review, perhaps bettering your score.
Everyone wins in this system. Writers are encouraged to write more so that there are fresh parts for review, reviewers learn more about their own craft through studying others', and the forum might possibly receive a boost of activity because of these two reasons and a third; new writers find this system approachable, as they know they will receive fair feedback and won't worry about the story falling on "deaf ears".
Here are some proposed rules:
> A writer must post a scored review, then request a review, effectively "buying" a full review of their work with a review of someone else's.
> A writer may request multiple reviews of the same work (especially after edits or subsequent additions) with the knowledge that enough is enough at a certain point. Stopping somewhere between 3 and 5 depending on the number of edits is a good notion.
> You cannot review the story of someone who has not requested a review. Some may not want to participate, so an unsolicited review will not be ranked.
> It should go without saying, but you must take your review seriously. If someone is requesting one, then their story means a lot to them. Be honest, but be respectful as well. Try and help if you see errors, rather than judge or belittle.
> Reviews of individual chapters should be labeled as such, since the scores will be a bit different based on having less to go on. I recommend that a writer only ask for a review of a single chapter if it is a recent addition to an already reviewed story. Then normal rules apply concerning averaging things together.
> There should be at least two Stewards or some such title to maintain the thread and ensure quality control. Individuals should not be allowed to skate by with half-baked reviews and writers should not be requesting reviews of their one story over and over because they have no new material and wish to continue getting recognition. The world of literature is a "What have you done lately?" environment, as should this thread.
> Have fun! This forum in particular has a great time writing for fun. This should not preclude improving one's skill however. There should be no reason why we cannot continue to approach this as a fun way to advance our skill whilst entertaining our readers.
-----
What does everyone here think about this? I have not been at this forum for too long, so I have no knowledge of this ever being tried here. Either way, is anyone interested?
In closing, I recommended this because of my past history with forum fan-fiction and fiction writing. I've noticed that here, along with other places that featured "forum serials", sometimes writers lose their head of steam and stop a story part way through. A Circle of Review can be a tool to reengage a writer or to encourage a new ones.
