[Critique] Flogging the Quill (Ray Rhamey)

Kevin Nelson · Dec 20, 2013

I'm not sure if this is the right subforum to ask this question in, but I was wondering if anyone has any experience with Ray Rhamey's blog Flogging the Quill. He offers to give editing advice on the first page of your novel, and gives his readers a chance to express their own opinions about whether they would turn the page. You can see poll results about how many of his own blog's readers would keep reading your novel.

Does anyone have any opinions about this? Has it been a useful service for anyone? Are there any issues that might keep it from being a good idea?

beckethm · Dec 20, 2013

I read FtQ regularly and I've been flogged there.

IMO, Ray offers a lot of sound writing advice, especially if you take the time to read through his archives. Doing so helped me identify some issues in my own writing.

The floggings reflect Ray's personal views on what constitutes a good first page. It's an informed view, but still only one person's opinion. The polls help to balance that to some extent. (In my case, my first page got a "no" from Ray but about 30% of readers liked it. I've since trunked that novel.)

I think you can get comparable feedback in SYW here, and for that reason I probably won't submit to FtQ again. I'd recommend to anyone curious about it to read the archives, follow the blog for a while, and then decide whether you find it useful.

Kevin Nelson · Dec 21, 2013

Thanks--I just submitted my first page to him! What I most like about him is that he also does a regular "flog the pro" feature on Writer Unboxed, so you can see how the work of bestselling authors stacks up.

[Critique] Flogging the Quill (Ray Rhamey)

Kevin Nelson

Aspiring to authorship since 1975

beckethm

Kevin Nelson

Aspiring to authorship since 1975