Finding your Perfect Writing Forum

Lists of ‘good’ writing forums on the internet always seem to have the big bustly websites listed first like a popularity contest. As the list goes down, the size of the forums listed usually gets smaller, most of the forum-world gems being lost, save to those expert Googlers or those who chance across the whispers floating around the interweb grapevines.

As an amateur writer myself, and a forum-er of four years, I've found smaller forums  with closer critique values work much better for writers, especially ones just starting out or who are interested in actually getting better (believe it or not, there are a surprising amount of writers who don’t seem to want to get better at all). Absolute Write's 35,000 members may be seriously daunting to someone inexperienced with forum life, and unless you're already a freaking awesome writer and have a flashing sparkly avatar or something, you are not going to get noticed among the crowds.

If you’ve never been a member of a forum before, regardless of how long you’ve been writing, you may find it a rather different experience than you may have initially thought. Some forums can be nice happy places full of friendly people and others can be a cut-throat world of surviving out the older members. Some can be writerly havens and others can be abysmal lairs of ego-stroked pre-teens waiting for you to tell them their Twilight fanfic is fantastic literature . . . it happens. Telling the difference is easy, though, so no worries, but the main concern is what you want to get from a forum.

I joined my first forum when I was fifteen, knowing nothing about them, and I know that I certainly wouldn't be the writer I am today without that forum and the others I joined. I dread to think of where I'd be now if my first stop-off had been the Young Writers Society (YWS) which, unfortunately falls under the category of a far from constructive forum. So getting the right one for you, is crucial. If you're a young writer in your early teens, concerned with meeting writery friends, then YWS might work for you, but keep in mind the doors - if you want to be a writer you need to always be learning. There is no such things as the perfect writer and if you’re serious, you’re going to have to convince more than just your parents and friends you’re good.

If you're perhaps a bit older (should I say mature?) and more serious about being critiqued by people who seriously know what they're talking about (and not afraid of receiving constructive criticism) then Critique Circle are fabulous. However, I wouldn't recommend CC to a newbie writer - these guys mean serious business. You’ll need a backbone and decent amount of knowledge in the craft to return the favour to whomever critiques your work. Critiques for critiques, fair game, right? You don’t get something for nothing.

Also, as I’ve jumped in the deep-end with the ‘best’ sites (in my opinion) I’ve had the experience to nosey around, this one’s for poetry-peoples:  Tin Roof Alley Poets, which, though has a few downfalls in some members being utterly awful human beings, is great for receiving genuine, honest and very detailed critiques (have a backbone, though or you’ll probably find your poetry crippled at the knees rather than manning up) and will certainly help you improve your work and educate you in poetry-ness.

Another thing I always find with lists of writing forums is that they never seem to include are forums for younger writers, which, as I’ve been a member of about twelve different forums, possibly even more, and witnessing the births and deaths of some, I think I can comment on a few.

Young Writers Online and Teenage Writers are both excellent forums (Dear any possible readers hailing from either forum: I LOVE YOU BOTH SO NO ARGUING *coughs*) for young people. Though very different from one another, in both atmosphere and community, they both offer a great community of mixed ability writers focused on helping others improve through critique. The latter also has camps where more experienced members teach others about the different crafts, and the former has many competitions and events throughout the year. There are no better forums for young writers (age 12-25) on the interwebs. Trust me, I’ve been on almost all of them. I should note that these two are *coughs* rivals, though that may be an understatement.

When it comes to forums, as I think I’ve said before, the best thing you can do it ask yourself what you want to gain from joining them. If it's just to make friends with like-wise minded people then smaller less critique and more discussion-focused sites will work better for you as you won't get lost in the struggle to be noticed, as in bigger forums. People on those forums are generally friendlier and for lack of a better word, spammy, so it’s usually very easy to fit in to these kinds of places.

Some examples:

Poet's Graves Workshop (all ages)
Legendfire (mostly younger writers, but appears to welcome all(?))
Fictionpost (all ages)
Hortorian (mostly younger writers, but appears to welcome all(?))
Kids' Writing Club (young writers, only)

Also, if you’re already a member of a critique-heavy forum, sometimes it’s just nice to pop by places like these for a little breather. A slower pace, new faces to talk to, teach, and learn from. There are many kinds of writers and you should always be looking to learn from others. I personally, like a balance, but that might be just me. I’m a member of both critique-heavy forums and more lax ones, and I find that this works for me. The thing is to find out what works for you.

If what you want is to get better at writing, learn something and be critiqued, then you need to look carefully before joining a forum. Many forums may boast awesome critique prowess, but rarely do they deliver *sigh*. A swift glance through some of a site's fiction and poetry forums is usually enough to confirm whether or not they are worth your time. Questions to ask yourself: are the 'critiques' mostly/all one-line comments or a couple sentences, do they say anything constructive or just stuff like 'zomg I love your work, post more!', or even worse . . . do they tolerate chatspeak? If so, these are the places to avoid posting your work, for you will not improve, and the people there are probably not overly interested in improving or already think they’re the best thing since Marshamallow Fluff. So it will be a waste of time joining. Look for places that more often, or even always, give good, detailed and honest critiques. By ‘honest’ I also mean, harsh where necessary.

I have little experience with bigger adult forums such as Absolute Write, so I don't feel I can accurately describe their services. I know YWS is lost in its own size, which, though is nowhere near as big as AW, comes under the description of a site filled with prospect, but saturated with no learning, no effort, ego-stroked members, and generally awful critiques, meaning that their prospect is mostly sadly wasted (can you tell I'm biased? :3). I guessed this could be the case with super-sized forums such as AW, but after joining and having a poke around I found the critiques were mostly helpful, and most work did actually get looked at, though navigating that place was interesting. It wouldn't be my cup of tea, but I suppose it depends on who you are. Size shouldn't be a deciding vote one where you join though.

Look around before joining somewhere that will get you nowhere despite years of posting, unless you want to join a forum more for the friends and discussion than for betterment and helping others. On that note, I must say, most of the places I've linked will require you to do your fair share of work to receive critiques in return, even the less critique-focused places require you to comment on others work - but critiquing, especially detailed critiquing will help you grow as a writer, too, so that shouldn't be a problem, should it? :)

Anyhoo, this is getting rather long and rambly. Feel free to contribute your opinions or any info you have on sites mentioned, or any others.

EDIT 12/12/12 (ha): Someone asked me for the link to this today, and reading it back, I'd like to just unreccomend teenagewriters.com (TW). Unfortunately last summer the place was taken over by a businessman who kicked all the staff and older members off, killing the site. There's still a lot of useful stuff in the archives I recommend looking for, if you want to learn about writing, but the site is no longer active and has nobody moderating it.