Okay so today the post will be about writing sites. There are all sorts of sites for writers on the internet and they are all different but a lot of them have a few similarities. One of my favorite thing as a new writer and now that I’ve been doing it for a while was writing sites. They were always a cool way to interact with other writers. So, without further ado:
Getting Started: Writing Sites
I think one of the things that I found really interesting about the world of writing when I first started was writing sites. When I was thirteen I met another friend at my school who was a writer. We just happened to have English together and one day we were in the library during lunch and we were using the computers. He was using a cool website that I had never seen before. He was writing something and then he was reading something else. I leaned over and watched, totally forgetting the history project I was supposed to be working on. (I don’t know why I even remember that it was a history project. The things you remember, I guess.) I asked him what it was. He told me it was called Figment. This was my first introduction to writing websites. Writing websites are a great thing for beginning writers and also for more advanced writers. As a beginning writer reading other peoples writing is really useful. It’s a good chance to learn new things about writing and to ask for other people to read your writing. It’s a fun way to connect with other writers and learn the different ways that they do their writing.
As I briefly mentioned the first writing site I used was called Figment. It had writing forums where you could get help, leave abandoned characters and plot lines to be adopted by others, and request covers. There were groups you could join, and you could even make your own. The groups varied in types, there were private groups that teachers made for their English classes, there were roleplay groups where people co-wrote script like stories in a discussion board like their characters where conversing, and, of course, there were fandom groups. Sadly, Figment got bought out by a writing community called GetUnderlined. Because they bought out Figment they added a create section to their webpage because they were originally a crappy Goodreads knock off. Sadly they put minimal effort into their writing community pages. I personally think that GetUnderlined is a lot crappier than Figment and I have found several people who agree with me.
There are tons of other writing sites and I have used several even if I didn’t stick with most of them. A few of the ones that are really similar that I didn’t really stick with because they were too similar to another one were writing.com, writerscafe, storybrid, and sweek. Sweek was cooler but I still didn’t like it all that much.
One of the ones I didn’t stick with but wish that I had because it is still pretty cool to me is Fanfiction.net. A long time ago young writer J.M. attempted to write a fanfiction based off of her favorite board game. It epically failed and fanfiction.net has never been used again. However, fanfiction.net is a really cool site for young writers to use. I mostly say use fanfiction.net because writing fanfiction is definitely a good stretch of the creative mind. Trying to write fanfiction is a good way to practice some of the writing skills you might use in other books. And who know you might become really good at writing fanfiction and that might become your writing genre. However, I would not suggest making this your only writing site. Fanfiction.net is really good for writing but its not very good for networking. Most of the writers on fanfiction.net are on there because they want to write, not because they really want to talk to other writers and a lot of your readers aren’t writers. They are simply people from the same fandom as you. It’s a great site but not necessarily for writers looking for writing buddies.
Another site that is a good one to use is nanowrimo.org. NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. The month of November is known as National Novel Writing Month. A lot of the writing community knows this as nanowrimo. Nanowrimo.org is a website for people too write their monthly novel. During November their page is loaded with writers from all across the world writing their novels and filling the website with word counts, forum conversations about plot lines, and general writing fun. The other months of the year nanowrimo.org is a website for writers to edit and prepare their November novel for publishing. Some author use the Now What months, as they’re called, and others don’t. I usually use nanowrimo.org during the rest of the year for their ‘camps’. They have a website linked to their nanowrimo.org site that leads you to camp nanowrimo. Its so that people can do something similar to nanowrimo all year long. Writers get together on it and you are placed in a ‘cabin’ a virtual group of writers made off of your preferences and theirs. Some people are placed in cabins because they marked that they only wanted to be placed in a cabin with people their age and others marked people writing the same genre. Everyone’s writing cabin is different. Nanowrimo is a great site.
The last writing site I would suggest using is Wattpad. Wattpad is the most well known writing site out there. It popular because when you create a story on Wattpad it allows you to pick the copyright it will be labeled under. Some people choose public domain but I always chose All Rights Reserved. If you find someone plagiarizing your work Wattpad helps make it a lot easier to solve the issue. Wattpad is also popular because it’s a great networking resource. Some published authors get found on Wattpad by agents who search the site and then offer to represent you to a publisher. There are quite a few authors who get published in this way. Wattpad is also easier to contact other writers and so it’s a good site for networking with one another.
All of these sites are good for young starting writers and some are good for writers of all levels and ages. I would suggest that you do your own research on writing sites and get to know other writers and not just take my word for it.
So that’s all I have to say on writing sites. I hope you guys found that information interesting and I hope that it helps you to find a writing site that you love just as much as I used to love Figment! Next week the next post in the getting started series will be on growing plot lines. Hopefully I will find a way to make growing plots easy to understand. So as usual,
Get Up, Get Writing, and Get Published. See you next week!