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Best Short story platform

Ban

Troglodytic Trouvère
Article Team
Hello everyone.

I have been writing off and on for quite a bit now. Looking at how old my account is, I'd say I have at least 2 years of unfocused writing under my belt now. In that 2 years I have worked on very big projects, which have all inevitably led me into deep spirals of ceaseless worldbuilding. While worldbuilding is very enjoyable, it is not very productive for developing writing skills. So I have decided that I would like to write free short stories before I even want to think about taking the leap to publishing. My imagination is not lacking, but my writing needs some work. These short stories should give me enough experience to undertake the big projects I have planned. Besides that, I think writing free short stories could get me a bit of an audience if I become good at it. What sites do you recommend for publishing such stories? I am looking for a constructive environment(s) with lots of people willing to read new works on it. The stories I wish to write currently lean more towards the non-fantasy side, so I don't think the showcase section of this wonderful site is very appropriate. Plus my aim is not really to showcase my skill, but to entertain.

Thanks in advance,
 
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Mytherea

Minstrel
While not specifically for writing, I've used DeviantArt, mostly when I was just starting, but I occasionally still put up stuff that, for whatever reason, I deem okay to share but nowhere near good enough to revise for submission. The community there can be close, but there are quite a few specialty writing groups on there that help you connect with people who read and write similar stuff to you, and though I never received a huge amount of solid critique, I had a few readers (I'm not as active on it anymore, so my community has kinda deteriorated). Hell, I sold a story I deemed unsalable through dA, so there's that (but that was an isolated incident and crazy unlikely).

I've also heard good things about Wattpad, but haven't used it myself, so can't weigh in on it. Oh, and I follow a few blogs where the writer offers free flash or free serialized short stories, so that's an option too.
 

Sheilawisz

Queen of Titania
Moderator
Hello Banten.

I am a proud Wattpader and I am really starting to love that place. Wattpad works with a system of Clubs, which are something similar to the various Forums that are part of Mythic Scribes. There are Wattpad Clubs for many different genres, like Romance and Fantasy and Humor and others, and there is a Club devoted to short stories as well.

In Wattpad, the Short Story Club accepts all genres as long as your work fits their definition of Short Story. That is exactly this here: A short story is a work of fiction and is similar to a novel, but just shorter. It can be as short as a few pages or much longer, and divided into a few chapters. Short stories can be any genre and are usually less complex than novels, with a single story line and less characters.

What many people do not know about Wattpad, is that the place is so full of stories (and many of them have surprisingly good quality!) that it gets quite difficult to attract some attention towards yours. It's like a planet of stories, with good narrators and good works everywhere, so you can think of it as totally crowded with creativity.

There is a particular system for sharing your stories in Wattpad:

Every Wattpad Club is equipped with a SYS thread of its own. SYS stands for Share your Story and they are threads devoted to making promotion of stories: You use a code to post your cover image, you post a link to your story and finally you provide a summary in the hopes of attracting readers.

The SYS threads are re-started from scratch every seven days, and it's very strictly forbidden to make promotion of your stories anywhere outside of the SYS. Also, judging from what I have observed so far Wattpad enforces a zero tolerance rule against any hostile behavior, with unusual severity.

You can join all the Clubs that you want, and there are conversation threads too.

If your main goal is to entertain and at the same time develop your narrative skills, then yeah, Wattpad would be the place for you. The main purpose of Wattpad is to share and read stories just for the pleasure of it, so do not expect it to be some kind of school or academy like other writing-related sites have become.

If you join, please find me there I am Sheilawisz just like here.
 
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Ban

Troglodytic Trouvère
Article Team
Thank you for the suggestions everyone. I see that Wattpad seems to be the most suitable platform for me, so that's where I'll go! As soon as I have a good amount of time I will look around that place and see what it has to offer.

Oh and Sheila I will definitely see where you are at when I join. After your glowing recommendation of the site I would feel bad for myself if I didn't check it out :)
 

Sheilawisz

Queen of Titania
Moderator
It's great to hear that, Banten.

Some general advice to get started: Even though it's possible to use Wattpad by means of either a Facebook or a Google account, I recommend you to create your own Wattpad account so you can be more independent from the other sites. In your Profile, you get to display an avatar as central image and also you can upload a background image if you want.

Some profiles look really cool because of that.

Apart from talking a bit about yourself as part of your Profile (kind of a personal introduction), you can also share it through various social networks easily. The Profile also displays your stories as a descending list, with cover image and summary each, so it works as a showcase of all of the stories that you upload to the site.

How to upload stories to Wattpad:

If you have ever used the famous Fanfiction Net site, you'll discover that Wattpad works in a similar fashion when it comes to the uploading of your works. There is an option called Works that takes you to the story uploading options. You click on New Story in order to start one, and after that you have to upload chapter by chapter.

You can either type directly in the site, or just copy and paste if you have the story somewhere else.

You also get your own personal Library, in which you have direct access to stories of other people that interest you as reader but maybe you want to read them later, so you have them in that place. There are other things like Tags, Comments (the comments for a story are given chapter by chapter) and the voting system, but you'll learn all of that with time.

If you have any questions, just feel free to contact me through private message.
 
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Ban

Troglodytic Trouvère
Article Team
Thank you for the crash course Sheila!

I know a little bit more about Fanfiction.net than Wattpad. Weirdly enough I discovered that website earlier today. It's good to know they have a similar system for stories. From what I've seen I like the simplicity of that site. This system does confuse me a bit though. From how I understand it, stories are published within specific writing clubs. So if I would write a story for a short story thread but I decide later on that I want to add a lot more chapters to it, would that matter? Or are stories not listed in specific club threads?
 

Sheilawisz

Queen of Titania
Moderator
Hello again Banten.

In Wattpad, when you publish a story any person that uses the site can find it and read it. There are several ways to search for and discover stories, like the Tags system, but the SYS threads at the Clubs are different to that.

The purpose of the SYS threads is to make open and shameless promotion for stories, in the most direct way possible. In order for a story to be admitted in a SYS, it must belong to the genre of the Club in question and also that genre must be the story's official Category, which is set by you in the My Works section of the site.

The SYS are just like notice boards, and they are given a full reset every seven days. If you want to continue to make promotion of your story, you have to wait for the SYS reset and post in it again, but your story exists in a separate place and can be discovered by potential readers in other ways.

It's not that you upload your story to a thread, the SYS thread is just for promotion.

In case that you upload a story that fits into the Short Story category at first, but later you add a lot more chapters and complexity to it then you would have to change its official Category. Let's say that it's a Fantasy story, then you would have to promote it at the Fantasy Club's SYS, or some other Club depending on where it fits.

It sounds complicated at first, but you'll get used to it very fast.
 
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staiger95

Scribe
Short stories are the best for honing your narrative skills. They make you really think about what you are doing as a writer and why. Best of luck to you, sincerely.
 
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oenanthe

Minstrel
There are dozens of paying markets for short stories out there. I'm blinking in absolute confusion that no one suggested submitting your work to magazines. The Submissions Grinder and ralan.com are both free resource websites that list short story markets specifically for fantasy, science fiction, and horror.

I don't get it. I'd never dream of putting a short story up on wattpad when I could sell it for a few hundred dollars and possibly get an award nomination out of it. Yes, this means I have a bunch of short stories that never saw the light of day, but that's probably a benefit and not a drawback...
 
C

Chessie

Guest
There are dozens of paying markets for short stories out there. I'm blinking in absolute confusion that no one suggested submitting your work to magazines. The Submissions Grinder and ralan.com are both free resource websites that list short story markets specifically for fantasy, science fiction, and horror.

I don't get it. I'd never dream of putting a short story up on wattpad when I could sell it for a few hundred dollars and possibly get an award nomination out of it. Yes, this means I have a bunch of short stories that never saw the light of day, but that's probably a benefit and not a drawback...

Well, the OP said that he didn't want to think about publishing...it's why paid options weren't suggested to him...
 

Ban

Troglodytic Trouvère
Article Team
There are dozens of paying markets for short stories out there. I'm blinking in absolute confusion that no one suggested submitting your work to magazines. The Submissions Grinder and ralan.com are both free resource websites that list short story markets specifically for fantasy, science fiction, and horror.

I don't get it. I'd never dream of putting a short story up on wattpad when I could sell it for a few hundred dollars and possibly get an award nomination out of it. Yes, this means I have a bunch of short stories that never saw the light of day, but that's probably a benefit and not a drawback...

As chessie said, I am not looking to publish at this stage. I just want to become better at writing without having to worry about holding all my work to a standard I deem worthy of being published. If a short story would do well I could always publish a revised version of it, but I don't see that happening very soon.

But thank you for the suggestions though.
 

oenanthe

Minstrel
If a short story would do well I could always publish a revised version of it

I'm pretty sure you wouldn't be able to sell a short story once you published it somewhere like wattpad, though. generally, paying markets are looking for First publishing rights, which you used as soon as you posted it on a public site.

But there are online writing workshops where you can post your work for review from other writers who are also trying to improve their work. and these places are a lot better for short stories than they are for reviewing novels, so that's an option as well. And these places are not considered as giving up your first publishing rights.

I guess I'm having a hard time understanding why you'd want to share your "practice" work with the entire internet.
 

Ban

Troglodytic Trouvère
Article Team
I guess I'm having a hard time understanding why you'd want to share your "practice" work with the entire internet.

To entertain people ofcourse :) . The market for books is oversaturated, so the chance of people reading my work is rather small if I would try to publish. At the moment I just want to practise, have a bit of fun and entertain whoever might want to read. Besides, ideas are limitless, when I reach a level I deem worthy of publishing then I can always write another story.

If I do write something that I am really proud of then I might go to a paying site. For fun practise works however, I'll probably stick to something like Wattpad.
 
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