There is a serious lack of a full text community

[Stacy]

Seriously. Guys, you don't even know how spoiled we are in the Sims story community.

I've been googling, trying to find something. The forums are all dead and taken over by spambots.

I know there's a lot of people out there - or else there wouldn't be so many links on Web Fiction Guide.

I think they still treat it like traditional publishing. I mean, they do talk about instant feedback being one of the advantages of publishing online, but it's like - they're not all up into each other's creative process like we are.

It's like they're stuck in between traditional publishing and online publishing, like there's still a wall between the author and the reader in their culture.

I mean, I'd do a VSS thing again and make my own forum, but well - I had years of social capital built up in the Sims world to spend on VSS. I'm invested here. I'm a noob there.

I guess the point is - be thankful for the community you have, because it's the best darn one I've seen online. Also - getting 10 its thousand readers is going to be a challenge. But I'm up to it.

[laura]

Hmmm, this is long and rambling, and I'm not sure if I've even answered your questions, lol!

I'm not sure you'll find any "community" like we have here for full text storytelling, because the community for full text IS the publishing world, and your readers are all the people in the world who love to read. Otherwise, on the flip side, you have the fanfiction side of things, but I know that's not what you want either. Anyone who writes full text to a serious degree (like what you're doing) tends to hang with the publishing (or wanna-be publishing, like myself) crowd.

There is a slight split between online/digital publishing and print publishing, but it isn't a big split, and the authors/readers are generally part of the same community. Like authors who publish in online literary journals also tend to publish in print sometimes too. Both mediums are valid and even paying sometimes.

The thing about Sim-storytelling is that we essentially belong to the blogging community, rather than the fiction-writing community. We're bloggers who blog fiction rather than non-fiction or essays or news. It's like we're all hobbyists, but at the same time, some of us put a lot of effort into this "hobby". But really great hobbyists is the most we can aspire to with this, because what else are we going to do with it? Bloggers are just bloggers, doing it for fun - and sure, there will be that one-in-a-million blog that goes viral and gets super-famous or something. Maybe they even get a book deal out of it - it's been known to happen. Some bloggers will transition into journalism. But fiction bloggers, I guess you have to ask yourself, what do you want out of this?

I've asked myself that question many, many times! I'm not sure if I've ever come up with a convincing answer for myself.

But as far as a community of bloggers, it's just other bloggers, and people who read blogs. Mommy bloggers read other mommy blogs - Sim bloggers read other Sim blogs - techie bloggers read other techie blogs - and so on.

I can tell you though, what we do here at VSS is basically what you would do in any writers/critique/feedback group, which is why I love it here. And yes, this is a really great forum, and a very brilliant set of writers we have here. Why don't you add a full-text section to this forum? If you password-lock it, then I believe it would keep it safe from search engines, and thus not count as "published material" for those who intend to publish later. There are a good few of us who write full text only stories as well as our Sim stories.

Otherwise, you can find a local writers group in person where you live. And you should also take a look at the Absolute Write forums, if you haven't been there already. (I'm "pixiejuice" over there, though I mostly lurk.) It's a very live and busy community of mostly professionally-minded writers, but you're sure to find a niche for yourself in there. There's a forum for just about any kind of writing you could possibly think of!

And in publishing, when writers want community, we surround ourselves with fellow writers in writing/critique groups. And we read each others' blogs and talk to each other on twitter or message boards like this one

Basically, I think I'm saying most people have a choice to make. Either this is a hobby for you, or it's serious. If you want to publish 10 or your full text version of Valley (and I honestly think you could!), then you hang out with the publishing crowd. But if all you want is to share it and have people enjoy it, then blogging is fine.

[meowzbark]

I really appreciate this site. As you guys said, it's hard to find something like this elsewhere. All I've seen are either vampire fan-fiction trash sites (uck) or very kiddy oriented sites...PG writing only? Seriously?

When I was in high school, I was really big into text RPGs that you did through either email or on message boards. Can't find any of them anymore. All the pages I find have been dead for years. Or it's one liners.

In other words, keep this alive!

[bunnylita]

The only place that's been around for as long as I've been writing on the 'net (which is about ten years now) is www.epiguide.com. The community has gotten much smaller over the years, but it's a great place to hang out and talk to other writers. I miss when the place was more bustling, but what are you gonna do? I'm so glad twitter came around. I talk to a lot of writers on there.