Discussion Forum
Discussion: Bits of a story
Excellent comments, thank you.
Let me give you a little insight into our thinking when we designed this system. There are two real motives to it: one is to give us measurable data we can use to determine what books should and shouldn't be published. The other is to provide authors with meaningful and nuanced feedback on their writing.
Both of those suggested to us that we needed a finer-grained rating system than just an overall 1-5 stars. Some writers, for example, may draw believable and compelling characters, but do so in the context of a story that's been done to death. Just saying "well, I give it 3 stars" doesn't tell the author much about how specifically they can improve. Since one of our (admittedly selfish) purposes in creating this site was to create a way to get unbiased feedback on our own writing (i.e. not from friends and family), having feedback on different specific aspects of story craft was important to us.
Whether to post an excerpt from chapter 1 or chapter 5 is, IMHO, not terribly critical. Some people like to browse books at the bookstore by opening to the beginning and reading a few pages, others (like me) tend to just open the book randomly to the middle somewhere and read a few paragraphs. I believe that if the writing is good, if the characters are well drawn, that will show through no matter what chunk of book you select.
And yes, 5000 words is a pretty arbitrary amount. We'll certainly change it to allow for longer excerpts if the community says that's what they want. Our decision to go with a short-ish excerpt initially was motivated by a desire to keep down the amount of work required to do a review, and to respect authors' rights: we felt it wouldn't be fair to ask an author to post the entirety of their work to a public forum without having first secured some promise of publication. 5000 words felt like a reasonable compromise, but again, you all will tell us if that needs to change.
I'll chime in my agreement with Jason and my thanks to Wefarrand. Like any new business, there will be some refinement to our systems and process as we get more users. Hard to believe, in fact, that there are 35 already and we are just a week old!
I'm glad you are getting helpful comments through the review process. My thinking on the length of submission was that it is pretty standard to submit about 5,000 words or 50 pages, or some other arbitrary amount to a publisher or agent as a submission and that is what they base whether or not to read the rest of the story on. The real intent was to have users say, "I'd pay to read the rest of this (5 stars)." Of course there is a second review of the full work when the ratings accumulate, but our intention with that is roughly the same as the first. 1. Determine that the book lives up to the first chapters and that the writer can end the story as well as begin it. 2. Get a more in-depth dialog with some readers (not open to as many as the excerpt) so the rest of the book can benefit from the same bouncing of ideas as the first chapters do in the initial reviews.
We are depending on continued comments from you and thank you for participating as one of our first writers. Stick with us and we'll improve the system as we go.
I also agree with Jason and Nathan. I, personally, would not want to review an excerpt longer than 5000 words. I also feel that you have to hook the reader in that first chapter--certainly by the second. If I had to wade through several chapters of character description or background information, I don't think I'd stick with it. I have a short attention span, but I think most people in our culture due.
I'm so impressed with all the thought that's gone into this publishing concept and website. I'm new at reviewing other writer's work, but with practice I hope to do better. I mostly critique from the gut. If I second guess myself too much, I won't be effective. I'm glad the system is set up so you're not influenced by those who've already read and reviewed a selection. I do think I was a little stingy with my points for This Side of Normal. I'm not going to read an excerpt any more late in the day when I'm tired and bleary eyed; or if I do, I'll reread it in the morning before I review it. Well, like I said, I'm new at this.
Jan's active submissions:
STALKING YOLANDA (revised),
How to Get a Life
5,000 words is the magic cookie. Within that amount of words, I can tell if a story has hooked me or not and can provide an honest review.
I prefer an excerpt start at the beginning of the book as that's how I choose my books at the store. I will read three pages, and if I;m not hooked it goes back on the rack. Most people I know shop for books the same way, so I think it's a good model to go by.
The idea of submitting the third chapter because 'it's the best' might sell me here, but it won't sell me on the bookshelf - and most readers that you want to sell to won't be inside this small grouping. They will get the 'not so great' pages at the beginning, put down the book, and never make it to that great third chapter you wrote.
Judge your own reading habits. Pick up the last book you didn't like and see what page you stopped on. I'm willing to bet you didn't read far before putting it down. As it is in real life, so it should be modeled here. After all, let's be brutally honest with ourselves. If we received 500 points overnight and were signed on by Long Tale Press, only to see our novel languish on bookshelves unsold, would we truly be happy? I should think not.
For me, it never has and never will be about getting to 100 points to have my novel published. Instead, it's a process of revising my beginning to work my average up to the point where I know readers love my beginning - and if I hit 100 points along the way, then I know there should be profits to be had as the story should be good enough to hit the shelves and sell.
The system as it stands is excellent - the only current faltering point is the low number of people actively reviewing the stories of others, and we cannot truly blame management for that one, unless we expect them to break into people's households and force them to eat scones until they provide reviews. This is a hypothetical, Gary ... mmmkay ... :)
The spoken lasts but a moment; the written lasts forever.
Respond
You must be logged in to post a response on this discussion.
I tried my hand at a few reviews. More will be necessary to form an opinion of the review method of Long Tale. One excerpt really caught my attention, which may be exactly the litmus test needed to judge a work. Certainly, if I don't like the first chapter, I am not interested in reading on. I hope to be able to read the rest of the manuscript for that one excerpt.
I may have made an error with my posted excerpt, since I didn't use chapter one. The first four chapters introduce characters and the general situation and the heroine comes on the scene to start the meat of the story in chapter five, the way the book is structured now. I used chapter five. The reviews it has received so far are very helpful and I thank the reviewers.
Anyway, I am wondering if less than 5,000 words do justice to a 130,000 word book. The excerpt tells a lot about the syle of writing, but can't tell much about characters and structure of the story itself. I am not sure that the rating system is addressing what can be expected for a small bit of a big story. As a reviewer, I am not terribly comfortable with the five star system. The narrative comments are very useful to the me as a writer and give me as the reviewer the opportunity to be specific. I am wondering what other reviewers are thinking about the process at this point. It will be interesting to see what reaches the full manuscript review.
Anyway, Long Tale still has my rapt attention.