Internet communities where I can read/rate/review short fiction, and post my own?

Question

So what active internet communities are out there where I can post my own short fiction, for others to read, rate, review and discuss?

(Note that I'm not asking about local writer's groups, or collaborative story sites, or writing contests, or forums about writing, all of which have been asked here previously.)

Answer 1

One of the more popular sites is Critters Writers Workshop. I participated for a year before finding a local workshop, and I found it very helpful. It used to be SF/F/H only, but it looks like it has expanded to include all genres.

Answer 2

Scribophile is a nicely organised site with an active community of writers. Its tools for helping with structuring critiques are quite helpful. You earn points to make submissions depending on the length of critiques and whether they are appreciated by other site members.

Answer 3

Writers Stack Exchange

You can get critiques right here, and there are a couple of ways to do it:

• For critiques here on the main site: There are some guidelines for you to follow, along with a quick point about legal issues, but they boil down to this: Ask a specific, answerable question about your writing. So "make this better" will be closed, but "is this character sympathetic" or "does this beginning grab the reader" are fine things to ask. (Asking specific questions during a critique is good form in any event.)
• If you'd like a more general critique, feel free to post a link to your writing in our chat room, possibly during one of our regular chat events.

Answer 4

American Zoetrope Virtual Studios

This is one of the oldest collaborative submission points on the web. Zoetrope publishes a lit magazine, too.

Answer 5

literotica.com

Obviously, the focus is on amateur erotic stories, but the site has over 50,000 members and well over 200,000 story submissions. In addition to all the ones you might expect, there are "non-erotic" and "romance" story categories, and a well-written story doesn't need to be explicit to get good ratings and feedback.

Quality of the stories is understandably pretty mixed, but with an easy 5-star rating and feedback system, its pretty easy to identify the cream of the crop, or to get quick feedback on your own writing.

Answer 6

ficly.com

A unique flash fiction site, with a 1024 CHARACTER limit per story, that allows collaborative prequels/sequels. The story limit isn't as restrictive as one might think; it has helped me tighten up my prose, and help me eliminate the dreaded ly adverbs from my writing. All stories on the site fall under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.

Answer 7

My personal favorite is a site where I've been active for several years: The Online Writing Workshop. This site is geared towards science fiction, fantasy, and horror writers, so it won't be useful for you if you don't write in those genres. However, the OWW has been the training ground for an impressive list of bestsellers and up-and-coming writers:

• N.K. Jemison
• Joshua Palmatier
• Charles Coleman Finlay
• Elizabeth Bear

... and others (I can't seem to find a good list right now).

It's a great place. You'll like it.

Answer 8

Figment

Figment is a website aimed at teenagers where stories can be posted and commented on. Comments and reviews can be given about stories, and people can favorite stories. Short stories, long stories, and poetry can all be posted.

One common thing is to trade reviews or comments. People will post on a forum that they want reviews and that they will swap and review on other stories. Reviews and comments come up differently. Comments are short and usually just contain a person saying that they like the story, but reviews are more in depth and are submitted under a different category on the story page.

Answer 9

Fictionpress

As a writer, FictionPress is a place to showcase your creativity. For a reader, this a place of discovery and an opportunity to feast to your heart's content.

Answer 10

Protagonize

Originally for developing collaborative works, Protagonize has been recently redesigned and revamped completely and allows all of the things you're looking for.

Protagonize now has nearly 21,000 members and encourages interaction between authors and readers, allows you to build an ongoing and engaged readership, create and participate in writing groups, and collaborate with other authors on writing projects.

We consider the site a writers' playground; a way to flex your creative muscle and showcase your writing. We've also had a number of our authors get published using their work on the site as a reference or portfolio. We also give authors full control over licensing of their publications, and fall back to a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license for all collaborative works.

Disclaimer: I'm the developer/operator of Protagonize, so feel free to ask me any questions about the site or how it works.

Answer 11

There's Fablelane for ultimate short stories that have been co-authored by the entire community. You could start your story there, or read the existing stories. Many of them are adventures and fiction.