What are other good Writing Forums?

Which ones (besides this one) have you found in your searches so far?

 

Fantasy Faction
Science Fiction & Fantasy forums
Specifically for fantasy, but there are many excellent forums for writing more generally. The best thing is to do your own searching, join, participate, then settle on the ones that best suit you. That's what I did. I was on probably a dozen or more forums, which got rather overwhelming for a time, but eventually settled on just three.

 

In addition to the ones mentioned above, Amazon has its own forum community, and there's a number of subreddits you could look at. You'd also be remiss not to consider places like goodreads, scribophile, or wattpad. While they're not exactly forums, they make a good blend of related activities.

For full disclosure, at one point or another I've looked closely at each of the sites mentioned so far and I don't use any of them. I do keep a fanfiction on Archive of Our Own (AO3). And I follow a bunch of fantasy art pages on facebook for inspiration. But I have to consider not only where can I get information from, but also where can I contribute the most. Spreading myself thin across too many sites didn't feel like a great way to contribute much of anything.

 

I like forums because they're communities. We've pretty much lost our neighborhoods, at least in the post-industrial West, and forums offer something akin to that--people who are not so close as friends, yet are not strangers or that odd condition known as co-worker. They're people with whom one has casual conversations that can turn thoughtful, talk around common interests, share a joke or two. Community provides, or can provide, information, support, even wisdom. Facebook is too noisy, Twitter manages to be noisy and superficial as well. Instagram and Pinterest are the online equivalent of waving placards. Forums--going all the way back to the era of listserv and Compuserv--are uniquely suited to the camaraderie of text. It's worth spending the time to find the community that suits you best.

 

There's also the worldsmyths forum. They're smaller and newer than the others but very friendly.

 

Agreed on the Water Cooler. It's a great place, but Mythic Scribes is like hanging out at the best pub ever while the Water Cooler is more like wandering through downtown New York.

 

I've hung out in some FB groups. I agree there are better places to go for writing. At the same time, it's been interesting to see responses about books or about types of writing. The short version is this: there's a reader for every type of writing. There's also another reader who hates it.

 

I tried out a general writing fb group that was pretty good a while back. The big focus was on reporting in with your word counts, and I think that can be useful. Also good for cheap writing quotes and the occasional article. It was based on one of those how to write books.

Wouldn’t go to fb for story advice though. People chime in without reading other comments or building the discussion. It’s like 15 micro discussions and none of them particularly useful.