Website Review: YouWriteOn Website

 Put simply, YouWriteOn is an online community where writers can publish short stories or up to 5,000 words of the opening of their unpublished novel.

In order to gain critiques on their work, the writer must then give critiques on other works first. For every critique given, a reading credit is awarded. This reading credit can then be awarded to your novel extract, upon which it will  be sent off to a member for its own critique.

Upload A → Read someone's B → Add reading credit to A → Get A reviewed by someone else.

The more you critique, the more critiques you get back.

 Yes, it can be time consuming reading and critiquing other writers' work, but if you're serious about being a writer, you'll appreciate that they are, too, and you'll give them the benefit of your time and thoughts.

Critiquing the work of others is an invaluable skill. It teaches you objectivity and structure, teaches you to appreciate what is working and what isn't, to recognise good and bad description, dialogue, pacing, setting, structure, plot, character... And learning to recognise it in others' work means you'll be better able to spot it in your own.

Once you have reached five critiques, you are allowed, should you so wish, to remove a critique of your choice - perhaps someone rated it very poorly or someone just really didn't understand what you were to trying to say.

Once you have reached eight critiques - and only if they are of a sufficiently high standard - your work will enter the Top Ten.

If this happens, it will receive a critique from a professional editor, working for Random House (general fiction) or Orion (science-fiction, fantasy, slipstream etc).

People have received publishing contracts from editors who have critiqued their work on YouWriteOn.

It is not easy to get into the Top Ten. My first novel extract, written and put on the website a couple of years ago, blasted it's way into the Top Seventy and has remained there, number 69, ever since. And I'm not surprised - looking at it now, it's bloody awful!

The opening to my second novel did much better. I got fours and fives out five consistently across most of my critiques, and still entered the charts at number 19. So no, I didn't get Orion to read it, but think how much incentive it's given me. Number 19 tells me this novel has a great deal more about it than my first novel. Number 19 makes me try harder.

 The website has set up a self-publishing facility. For £49.99 you can have your novel professionally created and available at major bookstores (in a print on demand capacity only).

Many writers have differing opinions on self-publishing, and this is not the place to discuss them. Suffice it to say that YouWriteOn have cornered a niche in the market where real writers can get real feedback and the tantalising glimmer of a professional editorial and, just possibly, that elusive publishing contract.

Well worth a look.