Young Writers Society

At one time, I used to regularly keep an eye on other online writing communities. I liked seeing how their community interacted, what their mods did, and what features they had. It was always very helpful.

So in that vein, if you've ever been a member of another online writing community, would you mind sharing your experience? Even if it's only a sentence or two, it'd help me with putting together a list of sites to check out.

Thanks!

I am actually on Wattpad, but I don't use it as much. It's similar to YWS, but you get to publish stories with cover art and on mobile, it will show up like it's in a library.

I was on Young Writers Online for awhile but I didn't like it that much compared to YWS

I tried this one out called RapPad, which is for lyric writing, as implied. I really liked the set up, and they certainly had some cool tools to help with rhyming and possibly flow... but I don't remember.

The thing I didn't like about RapPad, was the culture. There's a LOT of swearing, and mock-fighting that goes on. The whole site would be considered 18+ by YWS standards- so beware. And of course some really ridiculous spats break out. But at the same time they're very welcoming and willing to show you the ropes.

Anyway, it's interesting the way RapPad is set up.

I've also been on Wattpad, but the only thing I really found useful was what they have for novels, with the pages and all.

Never heard of RapPad before, but checked it out and I really like the way they have browsing new works set up. It uses the masonry style for displaying the works, and that's a neat way of going about it. Their editor is also pretty nifty too.

Lol @Holysocks our traipse into RapPad was kind of hilarious looking back. XD I did like the really cool editor on there, and how they gave you options for rhymes and stuff. (I wouldn't like that on YWS, but it was a cool feature there) The community was so bad (mostly just language that I didn't appreciate etc.) it was almost laughable.

Before YWS, I was on figment, and while I liked it at first, I saw how toxic the community was, especially in the forums. Everyone was really selfish and just cared about themselves. The mods seemed distant and disliked by the general populace. Everything was about being popular pretty much. That's why I ended up looking for someplace different.

I found YWS and YWO at the same time and joined them both at the same time. I ended up thoroughly checking out YWS first because it seemed more user friendly from the get-go.
I checked back on YWO a couple days ago when someone mentioned it in chat. That place is D.E.A.D. dead.

I've found on my brief excursions to Fanfiction.com and wattpad that the community leaves a lot to be desired and they don't seem as user-friendly as YWS. Maybe that's just because I was unused to it, but I feel like I was better able to understand how YWS worked when I was new than fanfiction and watpad.

So, I was a really stupid kid and tricked the system to try out Scribophile. (Okay, it was only 6 months ago, but I've learned now.)
They had some pretty cool things to them, but the community was full of jerks and the mods were distant and fake-sounding, if I can say it. Sure, there were some nice people, but I never really got warm to them, as I so quickly do with the people around here.

First, they had a number of ways one could "Critique." First, they could do an Inline critique, where they simply wrote comments within the lines. Then they counted characters by how much you added/destroyed.
The second Critique type was the Freeform critique, which is the same kind YWS uses now.
The third type was actually one from a template, where the author of the work would specify which categories they wanted people to touch on, and Scrib would give a critiquing template for the reviewer to work on. For example, if the Author wanted help with Characterization, Plot, and Continuity, that's what the template would focus on. I rather liked this kind of review.

But the community... It was.... too large, dare I say it? It felt like everything was just a cog in a machine, but I guess that's what happens when somebody sponsors Nanowrimo. Everybody comes flocking to the site. (Please don't sponsor Nano. It'll bring too many people here. And the GR will never get cleared. Never again.)

I'm a member at Scribophile too, and I've actually had mostly good experience. The mods are indeed way more distant and kind of elitist than here, but I've gotten some of the best critiques on my works there (I'm sad to admit it, but some of them were actually more thorough than the ones I got here on the same works). I like Scribophile's system with points and karma and whatnot, 'cause it focuses more on writing quality critiques than writing many of them. As much as I love YWS and will always love it, I'm seeing too many people focusing too much on quantity and not enough on quality. I also like the way you can arrange your works on Scrib, and write short synopsises of each chapter if you're posting a novel.
Other than that and the general layout, Scrib and YWS have more or less similar content, with the people on here (especially older members and mods) being much more approachable.

That all said, Scribophile's next to impossible to use properly without paying for it. You only get 10 private messages (and that includes the ones you send!), two works and basic three critiquing forms in the free version, which isn't really super great if you want to seriously participate.

Wattpad I've tried, but haven't stayed on it. It isn't serious and professional enough for me, with "critiques" being very short and rarely actually helpful. I'm also not fond of their posting system, it all just seems too social network-ish and not too friendly for people who don't already have (mostly) finished fanfic novels. That said, I know of some people, even published authors now, whom Wattpad worked perfectly for. It's just not my cup of tea.

Absolute Write is another place I'm a member of. Its layout is perhaps harder to navigate and more boring than Scrib's or YWS's, and around the internet you can find some not-so-good things said about it, but I generally like the place. From my experience, it isn't for people who don't have a rather thick skin; people will critique, and they will mostly be brutally honest. They will tell you what does and doesn't work, and mostly the critiques will be constructive. I love how they're really focused on writing as a profession rather than just writing as a hobby, since that's ultimately what I'd like to achieve, and I really like that you can get answers from real agents, editors, published writers and so on. I would even go as far as to say that it has a serious tone that works very well with me, and that I sometimes miss here on YWS (but then again, AW is primarily aimed at older writers). I have no idea what are mods like (they kind of blend in and don't interfere too often, I think), but everyone's quite nice once you get in and actually start talking to people.


I exist on a few other places too, but I'll keep it at this.

I'm at Quotev and Fan fiction.net and archive of our ownjust to get readers for my fan fiction.

Quotev and fanfiction.net are good if you just want praise for your fan fics. Readers don't really give reviews on how you can improve. All they say are just like, "it's great! hope you tell me when the next is up!" or "It was bad." or "That character was actually canon before...." etc.

thus, in my experience there, I did not improve much as a writer as much as I did when I discovered YWS. A bit ironic too because I just write fan fics. I don't read fan fics.

For Archiveofourown, you need to request beta readers. It's not as fun as YWS. :/

Fictionaut is also a good place but it has a screening process that some might not get into. (myself included. boohoo :'( ) Disadvantage here is that it's mostly for older readers and writers (there is a tag for sex literary works there).

I hate Wattpad. THERE IS NO QUALITY CONTROL, NO RESPECT FOR REAL AUTHORS WHO TAKE CARE WRITING THEIR WORKS. THEMES ARE CLICHE AND WEAK AND THE PUBLISHED AUTHORS THERE WERE JUST EDITED BY PUBLISHING COMPANIES....

YWS is still the best online writing community I've been to!

(sorry for the rant.)

Amazed to see nobody mentioning www.storiesspace.com

You don't get any critiques on that site, but people out there give you quick feedback. An amazing feature of storiesspace is its moderation process. Mods revise your work, and correct all your silly typos and redundancies before publishing online. I generally post on storiesspace first and then on YWS. But apart from moderation process, I don't see any benefits on that site. Critical reviews are not even rare! So YWS always remains my first choice

Figment was my go-to site before this.
-The navigation was, I'll admit, easier and better than on this site, but that was the only good thing about it, looking back.
-A lot of writing was ignored: unless you went out and promoted yours, you probably wouldn't get reviews.
-I noticed a lot of really short reviews. I was guilty of doing them, too.
-For the two above reasons, I'd pretty much stopped posting my works there. (Now I've really quit--who needs that site, anyway?)
-The forums were either inactive or so active that your post was buried, depending on the section.
-The descriptions of the genres were horrible. It went something like, "Got [genre]? These books are the [genre]-est." That irritated me even when I loved the site.
-People were snarky and rude.
All in all, I'm REALLY glad I found YWS.
**
Oh, and I tried Watpad and Fanfiction.net, but Wattpad had the same 'let's ignore new members" thing going on as Figment, and Fanfiction.net was just pointless because I don't write that much fanfiction.

Was on fanfiction.net for years but we don't talk about that time. Ever.

Infiltrated YWO and TW back in the day. Never really got much of a warm welcome as YWO knew where I came from and TW had a tip-off from a mutual mod. As it is, they had a lot of swearing, and new members didn't have full access to the forums. I think they're both gone now though.

Was - very briefly - on Inkpop. It seems pretty toxic and basically like Young Writers High School. People just went around commenting on each other's work looking for likes on their own. Popularity contest with no focus on improvement. Is it figment is the adult version?

StellaThomas wrote:Was on fanfiction.net for years but we don't talk about that time. Ever.

Hey guys, did you know that the name @StellaThomas comes from her fanfic in which Luna Lovegood and Dean Thomas had a daughter called Stella?

Thought you'd ought to know.

@Demeter, I hate you.

StellaThomas wrote:Was on fanfiction.net for years but we don't talk about that time. Ever.

Infiltrated YWO and TW back in the day. Never really got much of a warm welcome as YWO knew where I came from and TW had a tip-off from a mutual mod. As it is, they had a lot of swearing, and new members didn't have full access to the forums. I think they're both gone now though.

Was - very briefly - on Inkpop. It seems pretty toxic and basically like Young Writers High School. People just went around commenting on each other's work looking for likes on their own. Popularity contest with no focus on improvement. Is it figment is the adult version?

Not the adult version, exactly; from what I've gathered, Inkpop merged with or became Figment. I don't really know...