Know any good writing forums?

[starrkers]

This is actually a question from my daughter.

Does anyone know of any good writing forums (non sexual, she's 15)? She's looking for something where they have writing discussions and challenges and stuff (like we do when we forget to flirt for five minutes or Charley is watching ).

She found one, but it was "full of lame arse teenagers".

 

[voluptuary_manque]

This is actually a question from my daughter.

Does anyone know of any good writing forums (non sexual, she's 15)? She's looking for something where they have writing discussions and challenges and stuff (like we do when we forget to flirt for five minutes or Charley is watching ).

She found one, but it was "full of lame arse teenagers".

Might under some sort of English Teacher's area. You could go look there.

 

[CopyCarver]

This is actually a question from my daughter.

Does anyone know of any good writing forums (non sexual, she's 15)? She's looking for something where they have writing discussions and challenges and stuff (like we do when we forget to flirt for five minutes or Charley is watching ).

She found one, but it was "full of lame arse teenagers".

You might want to check out the "communities" section of Writer's Digest's "101 Best Websites" at www.writersdigest.com/101BestSites. There are several fairly good ones there, for people of varying interests.

 

[Guest]

My daughter is a few years younger, but she loves Gaia.

http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/

There are a variety of things, including writing forums.

 

[Varian P]

nanowrimo has a plethora of writers' forums, but is much more active closer to November. But it has some activity year round.

 

[john-the-author]

There seem to be a number of writing forums on Yahoo and on LinkedIn. Let me ask what kind of writing forums she's looking for, which may make some difference.

 

[ms.read]

nanowrimo has a plethora of writers' forums, but is much more active closer to November. But it has some activity year round.

isecond that, and they have a high student following!! you can also go to thier sister site: youngwritersprogram dot org.

 

[Weird Harold]

...Does anyone know of any good writing forums (non sexual, she's 15)? She's looking for something where they have writing discussions and challenges and stuff ...

Check out Nicestories.com. They have an under 18 section and a vBulletin based forum for both the under 18 section and the standard stories section.

It's a sister site to EroticStories.com, so the naughty stories get posted there.

I judged a couple of ES's writing challenges several years ago, but I never really got involved with nicestories except to do some beta testing when Art first came up with the idea.

If they do the contests the same way, Es did, the winner of the last challenge sets the requirements for the next challenge.

This is the score sheet for Challenge three:

Scores for Challenge III Story

8 A Plot
8 B Dialog
9 C Realism
8 D Characters
8 E Sex scenes
8 F Originality
8 G Technical aspects
10 H Included base information
8 I Overall impression (counts as double points)


Here are the Criteria:
2 It must take place for the most part at a Fair, Circus, or Carnival.
2 It must have a character named Crazy Joe or Crazy Jo.
2 It must have twins, Pat and Chris identical or fraternal your call.
2 It must have a dog called Killer. Any breed will do.
2 One more thing, someone must get or have a tattoo with a Crow and a Heart

Obviously, Nicestories would delete the "sex scenes" score, but they might be running a similar challenge series.

(the stories are scored anonymously by writers not participating in the challenge before they're posted for general readership and voting.)

 

[starrkers]

Thanks folks. I'll pass these on.

John, she wrote a story in an exam recently that was highly praised and highly marked. Her teachers told her she should keep writing to improve.

I think she's looking for ideas prompts as much as anything, to give her something to write about.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

My experiences with writer's boards is the boards are dominated by clicques that aggressively push their dogma about how-to-write or what is okay to write about.

I use my experiences from the hospital, courts, psychotherapy, and investigations in my fiction. I have used some of my Vietnam experiences, too.

Encourage your kid to get some safe but interesting experiences. Like volunteer work at a hospital or hospice, the school newspaper, etc.

 

[KarennaC]

Absolute Write dot com has a very active writer's forum, which includes boards devoted to different categories and types of writing, as well as some writing games and prompts and a few boards just for goofing around. There are a number of teenage members, though it isn't a teen site.

I found Literotica through a link on their erotica board. There's only one part of the forum that has to do with erotica, and it's down near the bottom of the forum, though there is occasional sexual innuendo in posts on the other boards; something you might want to watch out for if your daughter goes there, though the innuendo is probably on par with what she might hear in a school hallway nowadays.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

SPAM These guys sell books and classes and help.

STARRKERS

Have your kid check out Helium.Com

 

[champagne1982]

You can have her visit EditRed. The forum is full of both poetry and flash fic challenges. There are some serious and well-respected published writers posting, critiquing and reviewing every genre there.

You gotta comment to recieve comments but there aren't minimums or maximums and nearly everyone there respects minors and conservative people. As was said in an earlier post, there's nothing on the forum there that you wouldn't be exposed to in a Jr High hallway.

 

[bluebell]

I went through a brief period where I was rather enamored with SparkNotes. It's really helpful for everyday school questions (forums for help in math, english, philosophy, etc.) but they also have a writing section with threads where people can post and discuss their work, leave feedback for others, etc.
It might not be specifically what your daughter is after but you never know. They seemed a friendly lot when I was banging about.

 

[starrkers]

My experiences with writer's boards is the boards are dominated by clicques that aggressively push their dogma about how-to-write or what is okay to write about.

I use my experiences from the hospital, courts, psychotherapy, and investigations in my fiction. I have used some of my Vietnam experiences, too.

Encourage your kid to get some safe but interesting experiences. Like volunteer work at a hospital or hospice, the school newspaper, etc.

That's largely the problem.

Living a few miles outside a small village doesn't offer many opportunities for "experiences". Few opportunities for volunteer work (she already has her name down on every list in town, but so far no takers), no school newspaper...

Hence turning to the net.

Thanks again, folks. If she can't find something suitable from the above, they should at least provide a launching pad to continue her search.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

STARRKERS

She can learn alot right where she is.

The plot of ground my house sits on was once a lumber mill. The creek out back was a mill pond for the cedar logs. Downstream is the ruins of the dam. There was a large town here; it vanished when the cedar was gone. Someone recently discovered the cemetery.

 

[chris 44]

nanowrimo has a plethora of writers' forums, but is much more active closer to November. But it has some activity year round.

I think it also has a youngsters section, but as I don't qualify, I can't say what it's like. The nano forums also have all sorts of Q and A items that I've used in the past.

Chris