Quick Question for Authors or Anyone Who Writes

[L.]

Hello everyone! Happy Wednesday. I'm L. and I'm an author and I published my first book in a current series I'm writing in May.

While writing my Shinobi 7 Series is important and I dedicate a lot of time to it, as a writer I also like to broaden my skills. I mean try writing different genres and so forth. I had the idea to write free stories and post them online. I'm guessing the positive outcomes will not only be fine tuning my writing, but also interesting people where they'll follow my story chapter by chapter and so forth.

I guess it's kinda like how the fanfiction site works. I would post either one-shot stories or chapter by chapter ones and the people review each post. But as far as I know, fanfiction.net is for fandoms of shows/movies/etc that already exist. I would want to write new stuff, you know, make up my own setting/fiction.

Okay, so the actual question has arrived!

Do you know of any sites where I can do what I've described I want to do? Maybe one of you are already doing what I'm hoping to do and you can reference me a site! I just love writing and I wanna adventure out and try new things. Plus, if I can get my writing style more popular with free stories, it's win-win. :D

Thanks! I feel like I've rambled on a bit, oh well. Have a great day!

~L

[Philip]

Hi

Have you thought of blogging each chapter on your own site?

[L.]

Philip wrote: "Hi

Have you thought of blogging each chapter on your own site?"

I didn't consider that, actually. My site doesn't have many followers or traffic but I that's a good option once I generate some :)

[Philip]

L. wrote: "Philip wrote: "Hi

Have you thought of blogging each chapter on your own site?"

I didn't consider that, actually. My site doesn't have many followers or traffic but I that's a good option once I g..."
There are various blog announcement groups which can help drive traffic from GR. Also you could announce on Give aways sections.

[Alexes]

You could try Wattpad. It's a great place to do exactly what you're describing.

[L.]

Alexes wrote: "You could try Wattpad. It's a great place to do exactly what you're describing."

I don't think I've heard of that site. I'll certainly check it out, thank you :)

[Mary]

Mary Sumeridge: Beginnings

Hi is Wattpad a free site? Can you give me some other places which would be a good place to put your blog on?Mary Filmer Children's Author http://maryfilmer.com

[D.J.]

Yes, Wattpad is free. It's been described as Facebook for writers. Instead of posting pictures and interesting links, you post samples of your writing, comment on the writing of others, get ratings, feedback, etc.

I posted one of my short stories on there a while back but got no feedback from it. I think this is because I don't have the time to really get involved in the community there and don't know anyone else on the site. I'm too busy writing. But it's not a bad site and they even have an iPad app and some other nice things so you may get more exposure from it than I did.

[L.]

D.J. wrote: "Yes, Wattpad is free. It's been described as Facebook for writers. Instead of posting pictures and interesting links, you post samples of your writing, comment on the writing of others, get ratings..."

Thanks for explaining that better. I've checked out the site, now it's actually setting aside the time for it. I appreciate the help :)

[Nicolas]

Wattpad and Readwave (readwave is smaller, but is a great community, and often offers writing challenges or contests.) are both great for sharing stories. Your own blog is another fun idea... Just be aware you WILL have to promote it if you want there to be traffic.

When I started writing, I used my blog as an accountability method. Come hell or high water, I would post one short story a week. Could be VERY short, could be very long. I could work on it for longer than the week, so long as I still had SOMETHING to show each week. I didn't promote it at all, and only a few of my more dedicated friends and coworkers really paid attention.

But it gave me a lot of experience, helped me define my written voice and get more confident in my novels, and more aware of my work processes.

I did this for five years or so, and collected more than 100 of those stories that are decent enough quality for me to refine for rerelease. Around year 5, I started working on longer form outlines for novels, and kept serializing them in chapters. To be honest, that didn't go so well. I wasn't as thorough in my outlines as I am now, so those early serialized manuscripts are very disconnected, and were much more work. Nowadays, I do some writing related thing each day, whether it's revising, or writing more. I keep a very tight production schedule, and there's no way I could do that without all of the experience I got in those first five years of focusing on short fiction. It's a great place to start exploring.

Good luck!

[Arabella]

I got my experience through writing on fanfiction.net.I produced over fifty stories over four year period.They were all Lord of the Rings tales....There you can upload chapter by chapter and get reviews as you go along.It so whipped into shape my ability to write fast and keep up...people were waiting for the conclusion of the tale.
I still have a story there Im uploading currently to promote my book...I even have a code for Smashwords so you get the book for like $1.09, No takers yet...but I figured this might be where some of my market is

[David]

FictionPress is a sister site to fanfiction.net you can only post original fiction there.

[Feliks]

Plotbot.com is another one.

[Nihar]

I also never heard of wattpad before! Interesting website, thanks!

[John]

This is John Reinhard Dizon, author of The Standard, available on Amazon. I've been beta-testing a new manuscript, The Test, a cross-genre young adult/Christian/speculative fiction novel. So far I've gotten 40+ hits and no comments yet. In order to avoid agents accusing me of pre-publishing, I've been replacing each chapter with the following one so the story does not remain online in its entirety. The only good it's doing me is keeping the story rolling so that I can post a new chapter weekly. Every bit of motivation helps, I guess.

Here's the link:

http://www.wattpad.com/22321517-the-test

Send me a friend request!

https://www.facebook.com/johnreinhard...

[L.]

Arabella wrote: "I got my experience through writing on fanfiction.net.I produced over fifty stories over four year period.They were all Lord of the Rings tales....There you can upload chapter by chapter and get re..."

I got my experience of fanfiction.net as well! I know what you mean by the pressure of completing a story for the sake of the reviewers. I still consider FF.net my training ground, even to this day.

Thanks to everyone for their input. Blogging is like my kryptonite but I know it's important to do it. I think I'll try out writing short stories on my blog in addition to another site, like wattpad or the other listed. I do enjoy hearing how writing side stories in addition to main novels have helped you guys. Very much appreciated :)

[Garrison]

I'm currently using Deviant Art and Face Book to post all of my writing (whenever I'm not publishing it on Lulu). I can't guarantee that joining Deviant Art will generate a great deal of views, but you never know.

[Loretta]

Try Squidoo.com You may even make a little money there. I don't write stories on there, but I write articles (called lenses) about my books and other subjects which interest me. Here's a link to all my stuff. http://www.squidoo.com/lensmasters/Lo...

If you do use it, make sure you copy right all your stuff first. Especially if you may want to try to sell it in books at a later date.