Announcing the Launch of the Storyfix Peer Review Page
Or just maybe… get discovered.
There are many ways to grow as a writer. On my journey, one of the most enlightening, empowering and affirming of all the available learning modes has been to read and critique the work of unpublished authors.
That's right — unpublished authors.
Unless you belong to a critique group, pretty much anything you read has already been published. Which means it's been through the grind of agents and editors at several levels. If there was a mistake or a weakness in the original version, chances are it's been found and fixed.
Which, in turn means, you really don't learn much as a reader.
At that point, it either works for you or it doesn't.
This truism is softened somewhat by the proliferation of self-published work via Kindle and the other digital venues. but even then, chances are the work has been vetted to some degree.
Why This Is An Important Opportunity For You
Sometimes the infrastructure of a story is invisible to the unschooled eye of the reader. Unless, of course, they've been exposed to the nuts and bolts of story architecture, in which case uneven and poorly structured work virtually screams out at you.
It's like wine tasting. Some people say they know the good stuff when they taste it… but how many really do? And how many can describe what's missing?
Same with writing. As writers, we need to strive to become practicing sommeliers of our craft. What we pour out needs to be as vetted, polished and finely aged as what we read. And for that to happen, we need to practice taste-testing as much as possible, something we can't objectively do on our own work.
As writers we need to know what to look for. We need to recognize it in what we read before we can execute it in our own work.
That's the mission of this website. Then, when we see it — either executed well, or not — we affirm our own grasp of these concepts. The more you study story architecture (all six core competencies that comprise it), the more quickly and easily you'll spot it — or notice that it's off the mark — on the page.
Published work rarely affords us that opportunity.
But that is about to change… right here, right now.
Because now you can read the serious work of your peers — unpublished — to test your eye for story architecture and solid writing in general. And, you can add value to these courageous writers by providing them direct feedback right on the page from which you've read it.
Or, you can become one of those courageous writers yourself by posting your work here and exposing it to the feedback of your peers.
The Storyfix Peer Review Page is up and running.
There are a handful of high-quality manuscripts already posted.
CLICK HERE to read them and, if you choose, add your feedback (select from a menu of available postings, then click-through to the Author page to read the submission; all rights remain with the author, including Copyright; this posting does not constitute publication, per se, but rather, a private-venue sharing of work for feedback purposes).
No charge for reading and commenting by the way. Duh.
If you'd like to learn more about this opportunity, CLICK HERE to go to the Peer Review Welcome page.
If you'd like to submit your work, CLICK HERE to see how.
There is a nominal one-time charge for my admin time (a whopping $25), since formatting and page linking is required.
I encourage you to participate at both ends of this opportunity. And, to share it with your fellow writers.
Who knows… one of the readers here may be an agent, editor or producer… because I'm going to announce and promote this page to them with great urgency and enthusiasm. There's already some stellar work on display here, and more is certainly on the way.
Announcing the Launch of the Storyfix Peer Review Page is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com
