I know I frequently offer websites to you all that I think will be useful to writers. But today I found one that I myself am going to use, because it does something for the serious writer that I used to get from fanfiction.net when I was in middle school–it allows you to post your work, and receive feedback from peers.
Writing.com
Now, before we poo poo this idea immediately, let’s think about why this holds merit. You can always get your own WordPress blog and post your work there, with no guarantee you’ll gain a readership. You do of course run the risk, with this website, of getting negative feedback from less-than-constructive or helpful readers. But It also works to do that whole workshopping online thing that I was talking about in a previous blogpost.
When you sign up for Writing.com, you fill out your usual website info like username and email address and password and all of that stuff. But you also fill in what kind of genre you tend to write. I picked Fantasy, Short stories, Mystery, Romance (yes, hello), and Horror. Of course, no single story of mine integrates all of these things, but now people who are looking to read any of those genres can find me.
So what am I going to use this account for?
Well, as I mentioned before, this can be used as a grown-up version of fanfiction.net where you’re writing original works instead of fanfiction (and I guess it’s more serious than fictionpress). But for someone like me who was a student of writing but has few opportunities to share old works while still maintining ownership of them, I can now have a place online where I can post stories (like the one I read on Scrawl) and have them available for others to read.
So look me up! My username is Frey. There’s nothing there right this second, but there will be soon. I hope to see you there as well.