ci5hq | New weekly CI5hq game?

A while ago someone I was chatting with wondered why even people who asked for it in their posts never seemed to receive any constructive criticism for their stories - instead, although it was also welcome and happy-making, people almost invariably left positive comments. We paused briefly around whether not leaving feedback meant that people didn't like a story or just didn't have time to read it, and then we moved on to the different ways people betad stories, and how even betas disagree sometimes, and what betaing meant anyway, and... well, lots of things, all about writing. It was a fun discussion!

Apart from being a cool way to pass the time though, an idea was born, and I'm finally getting around to posting it - would people/anyone be interested in a weekly feature on

ci5hq that was about writing itself - writing for Pros in particular, of course, although it would overlap into general writing. It could be done in lots of different ways, although it might be good to have a regular format too, but it would look at the more practical side of writing rather than the stories themselves - what makes one story work and another difficult to read, how can a fic be improved, where should apostrophes go, and what in the world is tense anyway, and does it matter? *g*

One thought was that people who were interested could volunteer a story to be betad by anyone and everyone who fancied it, to get different thoughts and ideas going - perhaps it would be posted one week, and beta comments requested for a specific day the next week (made as comments to a new post - I'll have to think about the mechanics!), for general discussion by/with the author and betas altogether. And the stories volunteered needn't be new, they could be ones that we've already posted, but perhaps think might benefit from a bit more work.

Most of us hope that our writing will improve over time, and one way to help that along is via feedback - about the things we might be doing wrongly, or awkwardly, or not doing at all, as well as about what we're doing right. So... what d'you reckon? Writers and readers all welcome - you don't have to be a writer to have valuable insight into whether a story is good to read! Does anyone fancy it?