Review Fuse is building a community active writers who have the ability and desire to teach each other how to improve their writing. For centuries writers have found the best way to improve their writing is by participating in peer reviewed writing groups, like Review Fuse.

Review Fuse is a perfect fit for active writers because you can submit an unlimited number of stories for review an unlimited number of times. Everything you submit for review is guaranteed to get three peer reviews, generally within a week. You will improve your writing the most by submitting your stories for review then incorporating the feedback several times for each story.

For each peer review you receive, you are required to perform a peer review of another authors work. Teaching others how to improve their works by providing thorough peer reviews, will enable you to improve your work just as much as getting it reviewed. This may seem a bit strange at first, but most of our members find just as many ways to improve their stories by copiously providing peer reviews as they do by getting reviewed.  This should not be surprising. A good teacher often learns more by planning and presenting a lesson than the students learn from the lesson. As you carefully review other members’ work, you will discover many ways to improve your own stories because it is easier to see your own writing weaknesses in others works than it is to see them in your creations.

If you are an active writer, with the ability and desire to teach others how to improve their writing please join our community by signing up, uploading your work and performing your assigned reviews. Please feel free to post on questions or suggestions about Review Fuse on this blog.

Jacob

In the Americas, writing groups originated during the 1700’s, during which time the majority of the population did not complete elementary education and less than 1% of Americans attended college. These early Americans where not content to wallow in self pity, lamenting their educational plight. Instead they found way to help themselves, by forming mutual improvement groups. Writing groups formed primarily to educate, but also to entertain. Mixing these two elements together formed groups that where remarkably effective at helping each other achieved new heights in writing, reading and other scholarly pursuits because the people enjoyed the educational process.

Benjamin Franklin was amongst the first to initiate literary groups.  With only two years of formal education Mr. Franklin knew he needed more. After evaluating his educational options he formed a reading and writing group called Franklin’s Junto. The Junto met frequently to review original works composed by the members by sharing ideas, criticisms, observations and corrections about the works. The ideas and education gained in Franklin’s Junto significantly helped shape him into the great man he would become.

In the mid 1700’s writing groups became popular on university campuses. A significant portion of the student’s educational experience came from reading and writing together in small groups outside of the university setting. During the 1700’s underclassmen where banned from the library making these groups their major access point for literature. Writing groups helped the students learn as they helped each other discover what constituted great literature and how to produce it in their own writing.

Since the 1700’s writing groups have been the primary method authors have used to improve their skills. A writing group needs dedicated members with a passion for learning and improving to succeed. Unlike traditional writing groups the Review Fuse community is always in session ready to help meet your writing group needs.

Jacob

A Review Fuse member recently asked me, “What should I do when I get a bad review?” I have thought of three steps you should take if this happens.

1. Ask yourself why you consider the review to be “bad.” Is it because the review does not contain any comments, or do the comments included simply praise or berate your work without offering suggestions for improvement? Alternatively, is the reason you don’t like the review because the reviewer did not abundantly praise your work, but instead offered suggestions for improvements throughout.  Before you make the decision about whether your review is actually “bad,” carefully read through it again to ensure that it does not, in fact, offer insights about how to improve your work. A good review is one which thoughtfully evaluates your work, pointing out both areas you wrote well in addition to areas that could use improvement, with suggestions for improvement.
2. Respond to the reviewer by rating his or her review, just like you would with a good review. Critique the review the way you wish they would have critiqued your work—by offering examples of comments that were helpful and suggestions for how to improve unhelpful comments.
3. Report the bad review to the Review Fuse Team using the contact us page, so that we can take action. Every bad review report is inspected by our team. If we find the review lacks insights about how to improve your work we will revoke the review. This will remove the bad review from the story while simultaneously qualifying the story for another review. It also assigns the person who gave the bad review another review assignment. If a review you perform is revoked the Review Fuse Team will email you and explain why. Our system matches people with their peers, members who consistently give good reviews will be matched with other members who give good reviews.

Review Fuse is building a community of members who are committed to improving their work by giving and receiving high-quality reviews.  As members of this community, we urge all of you to assist us in enforcing these high standards to ensure that those who are truly interested in improving their writing have the opportunity to do so.

As a young company developing a new service, we expected to eventually experience some growing pains as we worked to develop Review Fuse. Unfortunately, we have experienced some of these growing pains sooner than expected. As several of you have noticed our current web hosting provider has not been able to resolve networking issues that have adversely affected Review Fuse. To remedy this problem, we have decided to migrate to a new web hosting company. Fortunately, you should not notice any changes to or interruptions in our service as this happens. This switch will allow us to provide you with optimal reliability when using Review Fuse. Please feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns.

Jacob

Perfection and excellence take considerable amounts of time and effort to achieve. Review Fuse provides many of the key elements you will need to become a successful writer including writing tools, honest critiques, and encouragement. But it is up to you to find the fortitude to keep working for months and years to achieve the literary genius we assume comes so easily to others. It’s not easy to pick the right words to form the flowing sentences that compose the intriguing paragraphs to result in a great story. Hard work, taking the time to master your craft, and continually trying to improve your writing ability are the only ways to succeed in writing.

To illustrate the hard work it takes to achieve this kind of perfection, consider the Broadway play I saw last night: The Phantom of the Opera. This three-hour play is the result of hundreds of thousands of man hours by a variety of people including:

• Gaston Leroux writing the original Le Fantôme de L’Opéra novel,
• Andrew Lloyd Weber composing the music,
• Charles Hart devising the lyrics,
• Fifty performers training their singing, dancing and acting abilities,
• Orchestra members perfecting the use of their instruments,
• Set designers managing the construction of the stage,
• Lighting engineers setting the visual tone of the performance,
• Sound designers compiling a system that can send the music straight to your soul,
• Directors and choreographers directing the performers’ words, songs, and actions,
• Conductors leading the orchestra and
• Costume designers ensuring everyone looks consistent and proper for their role.

All of these professionals spent vast amounts of time honing their skills to near perfection. They didn’t just meet at a bar one night and decide to put on a world class performance after having a few beers. They had to commit to understanding the complexities and intricacies of theatrical performances to ensure every note played, word sung, light flicker and gesture made added to the beauty and mystic of the performance.

So it is with writing. I remember trying to write the first chapter of a book during my commute to work. I spent an hour writing this first chapter, after which I discovered–to my horror–that I had produced an anemic and poorly structured blob of gibberish that captured none of the vision from my head. For several weeks I was too depressed by how my story turned out to continue working with it. I mistakenly thought my undiscovered literary genius would make it easy for me to write something great on my first try. My next attempt at authoring turned out somewhat better because I spent several hours thinking about, revising, and adding details to the chapter. This chapter still needs months of reviewing, reworking and editing before it will even approach “good.” Mastering the use and intricacies of a language is difficult. Writing vividly enough to bring your world to life in your reader’s mind is even harder. The novels we read, enjoy, and take for granted took great authors years to write, not hours or days. Why should we expect it to be any easier for us?

Jacob

Part 2 : Giving Reviews

View Part 1

First and foremost, be honest. If you like something, say so. If you hate something, say so. If you are impartial, say so. If you are not honest in your review of a piece, you are wasting your time and the author’s. Honesty adds more value to a review than any other aspect. Honesty can sometimes seem brutal, so try to mix in a good dose of kindness with your honesty. There is no need to morph into a jerk when telling someone how you think they could improve their work. While reviewing another’s work, think of yourself as a teacher: although you may have to give bad grades sometimes, you can do so gently. Students tend to be more willing to learn and accept suggestions for improvement when encouraged with gentle kindness than barraged with a brow-beating. If honesty demands you to call the author’s story terrible, do so in a way that focuses the criticism on specific examples of items needing improvement. It’s more useful to those being reviewed to have specific examples of areas in which their work is lacking and specific examples for improving those particular sections, rather than a general, overall statement that the entire piece needs improvement. Above all, apply the golden rule liberally: Review unto others as you would have them review unto you.

Second, be encouraging. Take time in your review to point out things the author did well and to offer sincere encouragement to the author with respect to his writing talent or his story. Encourage the author to achieve his best. Part of being encouraging is being friendly. Take time to get to know the people you are reviewing by conversing with them in person or on the phone if you now them, or on their private Review Fuse message board if you don’t. Understanding the author will help you understand their work better and will also help you understand how to better help them.

Third, be prompt. When you submit something for critique, you probably feel like a kid on Christmas morning, just dying to know what others think. Remember, the people waiting for you to review their work feel the same way about their material. So be courteous and try to get back to them as soon as possible.

Fourth, the review process should take place 1,000 feet in the sky, not at ground level. In other words look at the big picture as you review someone’s work. Helping writers develop stronger characters and a better plot is much more useful in the initial phases of writing than pointing out missing commas and nit-picking small details. The latter suggestions should be reserved for reviews of final drafts.

Most importantly, remember to enjoy and learn from the review experience.

Jacob

Part 1 : Getting Reviewed

The process of receiving and performing reviews is exciting, invigorating and educational. From my experience with this process, I have developed a few ideas to help me get the most out of the review process. I thought I’d pass these ideas on in case you find them helpful and request that you reciprocate by passing on any ideas you have about how to get the most out of the review process by commenting below.

Getting Reviewed

First, a good review tells you what you did wrong, points out your strengths and provides suggestions for improving your work. A good review is NOT an endless praising of your literary genius. To brace yourself for the impact of constructive criticism, put on a mental suit of armor that separates you from your work, allowing the story, rather than your psyche, to absorb the bludgeoning. Writers often have a difficult time separating their writing from themselves. Authors tend to internalize the critiques of their works as personal shortcomings. Remember, it is the words you submit that are being critiqued, not you. I remember being upset the first time I received a negative review of a story I wrote. I thought the reviewer was obviously a short-sighted, unimaginative moron, until I realized the reviewer had graciously given me a treasure trove of ways to improve my story.

Second, writing is an art not a science. People prefer different writing styles and techniques, making it your job as the author to pick the styles and techniques you feel are appropriate to your writing. Therefore, as the author, you have the power to judge the comments and critiques you receive and draw out the suggestions most pertinent to your writing goals. Yet, to ensure you judge wisely, be sure not to ignore any comments, especially those that initially offend. Often comments you find initially offensive actually contain shreds of wisdom that can dramatically improve your story. If you find yourself being offended by a review close it and read it later with the mind-set that the reviewer’s goal was to help and not to offend.

Third, be appreciative for every review you receive. As you read the review, assume the goal of the reviewer is to help you. After you have read the review, consider sending a thank-you note to the reviewer when you rate the review in order to show your gratitude for their hard work and effort. You can also use the thank-you note to ask the reviewer follow-up questions about the review to get even more feedback.

Jacob

Our home page quotes an old Latin Proverb: “By teaching you will learn.” This sentiment is echoed on our About Us page where we state, “…we believe the biggest opportunities for improving [your work] lie in the learning gained from reviewing the work of others.” Okay, so doing reviews is a great way to learn, but how does it work? If you review someone else’s story do you automatically become a better writer? Well, maybe a little, but the depth of your learning depends on how you do the review.

Let me clarify by with an experience. About ten years ago, I was living in Brazil. At the request of several Brazilian friends, I decided to teach a weekly English class. I found a suitable classroom and pinned up some flyers at a local college to publicize class.

Over fifty students showed up to the first class, and I was completely overwhelmed. I had no experience teaching English as a second language. In fact, my only qualification (touted prominently on the flyer) was that I am a native speaker. I struggled though my first poorly prepared lesson, and quickly learned that “because it sounds right” was an unacceptable answer to students’ questions regarding issues such as proper grammar, sentence structure, pronunciation, and verb conjugation.

For the next week’s lesson, I consulted several English books and grammar manuals. In order to explain the concepts to the students, I had to thoroughly understand them myself. As I studied, my confidence grew. Not only did I know the right answers, but now I also knew why the answers were right. As I taught, the concepts were further cemented in my brain.

As Steve pointed out in his last post, when you review the work of others, you are the expert. The writers you review want your opinion and only you are qualified to tell them what you like and what you don’t. But can you tell them why you like it or don’t? Can you say what makes it sound funny or why it rings true? If you struggle to express the reasons behind your opinion, it’s an indicator of an ideal learning opportunity.

If you don’t take the time to find the explanations behind your opinions, you’re robbing yourself of a great opportunity to advance your knowledge and improve your skill. However, if you master something well enough to explain it to someone else, you’ll be less likely to forget it and more likely to benefit from it in your own work.

So if you run up against something you don’t feel confident teaching, hit up Wikipedia, do a Google search, dig up a manual, or find someone who knows. Put in the preparation and then do your review. The peer you’re reviewing will appreciate it and you’ll benefit from it.

- Clark

I took Clark’s advice from his Two Great Reads post and read The Elements of Style by William Strunk. If you have read my previous posts, you already know I hate all things grammatical. I thought I would have to be indefatigable to make it through even this tiny grammar book. Yet, this book changed my world grammatically, as it lays out the rules of good grammar and form so clearly that even I understood them. I found the Words and Expressions Commonly Misused chapter so enlightening and entertaining that I thought I’d share a few of my favorite misused words and phrases from this chapter in hopes of whetting your appetite for this book. If you find yourself suddenly intrigued by this whole new world of grammar like I was, don’t fret:  the entire book is available free online. My examples below come from the First Edition, although the examples in later editions may vary.  The examples I used from the book are bulleted below, with my commentary for each example appearing in the sub-bullets.

• And/or – A device borrowed from legal writing. It destroys the flow and goodness of a sentence.
  • If you’re not a lawyer (the destroyer of goodness and flow) or a riddle writer, then never write this phrase again. If you are, then repent of your ways, and never write this phrase again.
• Can’t hardly – An unintentional double negative. The correct phrase is can hardly or scarcely.
  • As a young boy I would visit my grandpa on his farm every summer. “Can’t hardly” was a common phrase used in every-day conversation. Knowing now what it means sure makes some of those conversations confusing. “I can’t hardly get the cows milked. How am I supposed to find time to water the back 40?”
• Clever – This use of this word should be restricted to ingenuity displayed in small matters, although this term has been overused to include much more. Note also that the word means one thing when applied to men, another when applied to horses. Thus, a clever horse is a good-natured one, not an ingenious one.
  • Apparently humans are the only creatures capable of ingeniousness. It’s a pity we frequently fall so far short of our potential that we are not even as “clever” as a horse.
• Shall, will – In formal writing, the future tense requires “shall” for the first person, “will” for the second and third. The formula to express the speaker’s belief regarding his future action or state is “I shall.” A swimmer in distress should cry, “I shall drown, no one will save me!” A suicide puts it the other way, “I will drown, no one shall save me!” In relaxed speech, however, the words “shall” and “will” are seldom used precisely – our ear guides us, or fails to guide us, as the case may be, and we are quite likely to drown when we want to survive, and survive when we want to drown.
• Very – Use this word sparingly. Where emphasis is necessary, use words strong in themselves.
  • I would very much like to emphasize this very important rule because it came from a very important author of whom I think very much.

Jacob