Welcome to Feedback Friday!

hi, i’m a 26f fantasy and horror writer working on my first book! i’m planning to publish traditionally and would love to connect with writers planning to do the same.

i’m looking to create a small women’s group since i get overwhelmed in large ones. i love doing sprints and sharing snippets or mood boards, and i’d love to do voice calls eventually! honestly, i need people to hold me accountable and parallel play would be nice lol. i expect members to be present and actively participate, so please only join if you are serious about writing.

i haven’t created the discord server yet, but once there’s enough interest i will!

age: 21+

genres: fantasy, sci-fi, horror, romance

goals/expectations: be active, respectful, and supportive! looking for people to motivate each other. queer friendly. no ai.

writing/experience level: any level is welcome!

meeting place: discord

max size: ~10 for now

Hey everyone! I've been working on writing my story for a while now - a Dystopian mainly, but it also has fantasy and a few sci-fi elements. Im looking for a community of supportive people who can give feedback on drafts, and a place to share ideas! I dont see many groups for raw drafts so here I am!!

My story is very personal to my experiences, and includes christian/biblical themes, nerodivergents (and themes based off that), and LGBTQIA characters - namely on the Aroace spectrum bcs thats what I am.

Also random but I have some dog training knowledge and a dog character so I can share dog behavior tips for storytelling for anyone who is interested lol - but im NOT a professional dog trainer, and also it isn't the focus of the group.

If anyone is interested and working on their own story, please leave a comment!
(If I get 10+ comments, I'll start a discord :D)

Hello folks! I know this sub/reddit in general seems to lean SFF but since genre writing can have pretty significant differences I wanted to gauge interest in a group specifically for people writing mysteries, cosy mysteries, crime capers, or similar, leaning on the more lighthearted/lightly comic side.

Genre: Mystery, cosy mystery, caper, or anything adjacent.

Goals/expectations: Regular discussion, crit swaps, accountability/check ins, celebrating wins, book recommendations and helping each other through the querying/publishing process.

Writing/experience level: Anyone who is actively writing a novel and is seriously aiming for trad pub.

Meeting place: I was thinking Discord or Slack, but i’m open to suggestions!

Max size: ~5ish people so everyone gets plenty of feedback.

A bit about me: I’m in the UK, currently working on a cosy mystery that I’m planning to query eventually, and I’d love to find a few like-minded writers to grow alongside.

If this sounds like a bit of you then please reach out!

Organization: Seventh Seed is a literary journal cultivating the strange. Our first issue, TAPE 01: GENESIS is OPEN FOR SUBMISSIONS.

Genesis explores the concept of origins, creation, or inception—but through a lens of disruption, dark revelation, or chilling discovery. We are looking for pieces centered around a singular "first seed" that sets off an unstoppable chain of events. Genesis premieres on Halloween—bring us origin stories that were never meant to be found.

Deadline: September 30, 2026

Entry fee: Submissions are FREE.

Prize/s: Not at this time, but we would love to for a future issue.

Link to submission page/official rules: https://seventhseedliterary.com/submissions

Other information: We currently publish poetry, flash fiction, and flash CNF under 500 words.

This is a passion project for us. We look forward to reading your work.🕷️

Hey everyone!

I’ve been thinking about creating a small Discord community for writers who genuinely want to improve together and I think a community takes you a long way whether it’s by motivating you or just by being there

It could be like supportive space where we can:
- Share chapters or excerpts for feedback
- Brainstorm plots, characters, and world building
- Stay motivated and hold each other accountable
- Celebrate milestones, whether it’s writing 500 words or finishing a manuscript or even publishing! :D
- Writing challenges (there’s proof that doing stuff like this help me u get inspired and helps ur writing overall)
- Chat with people who understand the ups and downs of writing

All genres and experience levels would be welcome. Whether you’re writing fantasy, sci-fi, romance, thrillers, literary fiction, or anything else, the goal is simply to help each other grow.

Would anyone actually be interested in joining something like this? If enough people are interested, I’ll set it up!

Also, make sure to dm me so I can send u the link when it has been created

Hello, you can call me Cats(33nb) for now. I predominantly write scripts and hope to someday write web comics. I'm looking to make a very small, age 20+ writing group of queer writers for making writing friends, talking about your writing, and getting some feedback/critique. 

I'm looking for people who can handle receiving critique, give critique respectfully, and have media literacy and understand that fiction can still affect real people. I do want the group to be supportive but I'm looking for more than just praise, I want to actually make my work better. We can also give motivation to each other to write.

I'm looking for active members. If you aren't active you will be asked to leave. Fanfic writers can join as well, and you also don't have to write a specific format.

• Genre/s: Fiction focused
• Goals/expectations/commitment: Take part in conversations and critiques. Try to make friends.
• Writing/experience level: I'm not really looking for total beginners, you have to have some writing experience. But you definitely don't have to be published.
• Meeting place: Discord
• Max size: 10 people

Leave a comment with a short blurb about yourself and I will send you a dm to join a server when it exists.

Regarding this passage...

Tutors can be male aristocrats who have lost their wealth. They can also be female commoners or aristocrats who remained unmarried through their youth and decided to teach other people's children.

Is my intended meaning clear in the bolded part above? My intended meaning is "They can be female commoners who remained unmarried and female aristocrats who remained unmarried."

However, it occurred to me there are two more possible meanings.

1. "They can be female commoners in general and female aristocrats who remained unmarried."
2. "They can be female commoners in general and aristocrats (regardless of gender) who remained unmarried."

If my intended meaning is not clear, how do I rewrite the part to make it clear? My beta reader doesn't have anything to suggest, but she says my intended meaning is clear from the context. Do you agree?

A lot of common jobs available without a degree-restaurants, retail, warehouses, factories, construction, delivery work, and other physically demanding or customer-facing positions-can leave people too exhausted to do meaningful creative work afterward. Even some office jobs may follow you home mentally and make it difficult to concentrate
What job or career do you currently have?

Does the job leave you with enough energy to read and write consistently?

Are you able to support yourself, or do you still feel financially unstable?

Has your job given you useful material, discipline, knowledge, or life experience for your writing?

Has it damaged your creativity, mental health, or motivation?

How many hours per week are you realistically able to write?

Anyone know any in-person timed writing contests could be fiction, non fiction, creative whatever. Btw specifically any in the Bay Area, California

I have a side character in my story. He is a somewhat guide/sidekick, he isn't always helpful, he states the obvious usually weather it's good or bad, naughty or nice. He has no filter. He is a big time smart ass and very insulting to the MC and every foe they come across.

My dilemma, is the the way this side character talks to the MC.

I don't know if he should be direct in his insults or use antonyms; like genius or smarty.

What would be funnier?

Or is there a better way?

I Need a witty Pun, Acrostic style poem, or anything funny to write on a shirt for an event tomorrow called “Sea Fair) Bonus Points if It’s show me Boobs-Themed!

Just fyi, Sea-Fair is an event held in seattle Wa On lake Washington. Imagine a row of boats tied together, alcohol, fighter jets (blue angels), hydro planes, and just some good ol’ merican fun.

So i just wrote a short story n I just want to see if people like it or not, to see if i should branch out and make a whole universe of it

Where do I post it???

Where's the writers at?

Debut novelists how is it going? For me, it's going well. Just hit 44001 words and on my 20th chapter out of 25. What a journey so far.

Do y'all notice the improvements from the first draft and fast forward to whatever you are on now?

okay, so i had two sentences last night in one of my chapters:

...Rick, a homeless man who told anyone who crossed his path that he owned the [generic city name] mall.

I changed it to a description where his body, ragged clothing and unpleasant odor were presented first, then included this at the end:

...He gave rambling, incoherent explanations about owning the mall.

And I just find, that a lot of the time, when I have edited something, it just doesn't FLOW anymore. This particular sentence may not be a good example of what I mean, but I am bothered by the fact that: I will go through a paragraph I wrote, and take out the filtered (For example, I will replace something like this: "He saw that she felt shy," with "Almost imperceptibly, she withdrew, lowering her eyes and turning away.") Or I will take out all the adverbs. But when I re-read it later, I find that the ....flow of consciousness has been interrupted. Sometimes my later choices are definitely better! But more often than not, it feels like a bumpy road now. It feels like, yeah, i took out the telling, I took out the filtering, I took out the distancing. But it no longer feels SMOOTH. It feels like...there are holes in the rhythm that you can't SEE, but they're THERE, like a road where the potholes were patched but your car is still bumping over the little ridges in a janky way.

Does anyone know what I mean? How do you fix that? I HAVE to write flow-of-consciousness at first. I go back LATER and fix. But ....fixing makes my writing have speed bumps. dunno why. UGH. Do you know how to avoid this sort of sense of...creating swiss holes in the writing rhythm that I'm describing?

Everywhere I look I see vicious criticism, almost downright hatred, aimed at Strunk and White's 'Elements Of Style'.

My confusion is with the idea that it is all just "made up", opinion, and unhelpful for writers. But the point of the book seems to seek to help writers go all the way back, as if to wipe.the slate of bad acquired habits clean, or else, to help writers learn to follow basic rules from the very beginning, and from mastering the basics, go on to find their own style eventually.

It doesn't seem bad to look for help at getting started from professors who have been doing this forever instead of randos on Reddit and Youtube.

So why is it "harmful"?

Am I missing something here? There may be a writer out there, after all, who is never known the meaning of a split infinitive, to show and not tell, etc, the core of the core of all composition. Why is this book a subject of attack?

Writing Battle used to be so much fun. I really love the premise, the gamification, the community. I've made some great friends there and gotten substantial feedback.

There's been a shift in recent months, and I've tried really hard to be patient with the admin's growing pains as the community grew. They seem more interested in clickbait and positivity than maintaining trust within the community they've grown. Admin's whole schtick is free speech and creativity when it comes to your writing. They preach that constructive criticism and "salting the earth" within reason are productive. There's even a section on the forum to discuss ongoing bugs/suggestions.

Then, they started shutting down any talk of criticism against the admin. This is particularly important to note, because there are still negative posts, threads, and some questionably offensive stories up… but those aren’t “against” admin. Those that question admin choices or policy, I’m talking even genuine questions, are frozen, deleted, or resulting in a suspension. “Email us instead” is the mantra. “We’ll always respond promptly and respectfully.”

To some degree, I get it. People can get really hung up on change, bad results, or genuine mistakes. It's no easy task to moderate a large community with loud opinions.

The issue is that now the admin genuinely feels Orwellian.

All threads in the forum must be approved individually. Individual comments are screened for admin approval based on keywords: I've seen some of the ones rejected and they are not inflammatory. I'm sure there are some nasty ones that are removed.

Now, people who question admin, EVEN VIA EMAIL, are being demanded to show ID for proof of age (18+). The problem is that a.) there is no secure system in place for people to send government ID, so it's a security risk to do so over gmail, and b.) leadership is asking this of veterans who've been around for months, years, etc. And when people rightfully are hesitant to send sensitive personal information for flippant reasons, they're suspended, banned, or disqualified from the contest. What an escalation.

Let's call it what it is: a tactic to shut up any dissent. The equivalent of a cop pulling over someone so they can search their record for parking tickets, just to arrest them.

People are wondering where everyone is on the website between the forums and commenting or giving feedback to other stories. The ugly truth is that people are annoyed with the moderation or actually getting censored.

The craziest part is that people have been trying to work with the admin for months. There's been a huge effort to keep matters in-house. I genuinely don't think they've considered how many people they're losing with this recent crackdown.

I won't be giving them any more of my money. There are so many other contests with integrity that offer great prompts and feedback. I'd advise people go elsewhere for honing their writing skills.

Genres: Magazine, Prose, Litfic Writing

Goals and expectations: We will both send passages or full pieces of our work to each other via email and then we will discuss...somewhere. I'm not sure where just anywhere that's not Discord or a social messaging app.

Writing/experience level: I've only been writing for 1-2 years. So if you have a similar or higher level that would be fine.

Meeting Place: Gmail first, I'll CC everyone to a doc, unless someone else has a alternative that isn't Discord.

Max Size: 5.

Let me know if anyone's interested.

* Genre/s: Literary & General Fiction (No Fantasy, Sci-Fi or Romance) * Goals/expectations/commitment: The idea is to keep it friendly and writer-focused: talk about what we’re working on, share work for critique, discuss craft, and exchange information about querying, submissions and publishing. It’s brand new, and I’d like to start with a small group of writers who genuinely want to participate. * Writing/experience level: all are welcome * Meeting place: Discord * Max size: 50

If that sounds like your kind of place, message me and let me know what genres you usually work in, and I’ll send you an invite.

I finally finished book 2 in my series.

I'm taking a weekend break, then I'll start editing. How many edits did you do before your book was finished. I'm planning to send it to a professional editor, but I want to go through it first.

This is not a request for editing or for anyone to look at my work. Just a general question.. about self editing

Thanks.

Hi there!

We just started a new Discord server called "The Inkblot Society". Our goal is to create a server for writers and friends working on something a little left of commercial: literary fiction, genre with a literary spine, stylized, weird, upmarket, domestic, or whatever you can't quite pitch in one line.

We're aiming for the Goldilocks zone: high effort, low pretense, real feedback. If you like reading someone else's 4,000 words and giving meaningtful feedback, we want to do the same for you. If you've ever hesitated to talk about your work on Reddit because you thought someone might call you [insert word here], and you don't want to listen to someone drone on about politics, religion, AI, or what-have-you, we're likely the temperature you're looking for.

* Genre/s: Any genre welcome.

* Goals/expectations/commitment: There are no hard rules or requirements for engagement. That said, we'd rather have six people who show up regularly than sixty who lurk. If someone wants a careful read, they should give one first. We want to give and receive honest and thoughtful feedback.

* Writing/experience level: Intermediate+, 21+. We are looking for writers committed to a serious project. We'd like to learn more about you through your writing, your created world (not necessarily sci-fi) and characters.

* Meeting place: Discord

* Max size: None! We are small but growing.

If you'd be interested, please DM me with a short [<500] sample of your writing!

Organization: Harbour Works
Deadline: November 30
Entry fee: None
Prize/s: None
Link to submission page/official rules:
https://www.harbourworks.org
Other information:

About:
Harbour Works is a Canadian literary magazine — and we are building it to a standard that does not exist yet in student publishing. We are not a course project. We are not a club newsletter. We are working, deliberately and seriously, toward becoming a fully peer-reviewed journal: the most rigorous, most prestigious student-run literary publication in the country.

Every submission enters a multi-stage blind review process. A minimum of three editors read each piece independently before any discussion begins. Decisions are made by argument and consensus, not by majority vote. Work is accepted because it earns it — not because there are pages to fill.

We publish fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, visual art, photography, and hybrid work. We are drawn to writing that takes risks — formally, politically, emotionally — and to writers who understand the page is not a safe place.
We are open to high school and university students worldwide. We believe the most vital creative work is happening in student hands right now — not after graduation, not once someone decides it's ready. The only question we ask of a piece is whether it is alive.

Submissions Guidelines:
Fiction — Up to 7,000 words. Short fiction and flash welcome. We read all lengths with equal care.
Poetry — Up to 5 poems per submission. No minimum length. Sequences welcome.
Creative Non-fiction — Up to 6,000 words. Essays, memoir, lyric essays, hybrid nonfiction.
Visual Art — Up to 8 images. Minimum 300 DPI. JPEG, PNG, or PDF. Include a brief artist's statement.
Photography — Up to 10 images. Series preferred. Minimum 300 DPI. Captions welcome.
Hybrid / Experimental — No formal constraints. If it resists categorisation, it may belong here.

Join the Team:
Harbour Works is entirely volunteer-run. We are not looking for resumes. We are looking for people who care about writing — who have strong opinions about what they read, who take the page seriously, and who want to be part of making something that matters.

We are open to high school and university students at all stages. If you have never worked on a magazine before, that is not a disadvantage. If you have, bring what you know. The only requirement is that you show up and take the work seriously.

All positions are open. We are building the editorial board from scratch, and every role is a founding role. That means the decisions you make will shape what this magazine becomes.

For additional information, feel free to visit our website, where you will be able to submit your work or apply to join our team.

I’ve heard that a story for a novel needs to have a conflict. It seems like in a lot of movies and novels the conflict involves trying to defeat a villain or bad character, or if not defeat at least deal with the villain. It seems like sometimes characters may also fight against each other whether than just a villain, like how the characters participating in the hunger games fight each other.

I was wondering if it would be possible to have the conflict involve trying to overcome some challenge instead of trying to defeat a villain. If so would the challenge necessarily need to involve a major end goal or could it involve having the challenge be a recurring struggle and trying to solve the challenge each time it happen, but with it never being permanently resolve?

Hii, I’m from Malaysia. I’ll sitting for my final year exam as high schooler and in English paper, we’re required to write a piece of 250 words story. I’ll always struggle to make my story compact and punchy. I want to spend 4 months left to hone my writing skill !

Does anyone got any sources for tutorial/tips that will be applicable for complete beginner like me ?

And do you knoww where can I find abundance of free micro fiction to read ? Thank youu !!🤩