Over the past several years I’ve joined and unjoined numerous writing web sites. I was thinking about the sites I’ve unjoined and why I unjoined them. I only wish I had been able to read a review of these sites before I committed to joining them, posting some of my writing on them and critiquing the writing of others.
So to be helpful, I thought I’d review a few of these sites here just to give a “heads up” to others about them.
It may not be that the site was completely useless; and I will do reviews of sites I feel are worth their while.
Here is my first one:
Today’s Woman Writing Community
RATING: C-
I spent six months as a member of this free site. Although I enjoyed the message forum board, mainly just to read what others had to say, I noticed that not much changed as far as topics went.
If you are looking for strong critiques of your writing, this is not the place for you. I was fine with the rules of reading two pieces of writing from others before submitting my own. However, although I felt I gave helpful reviews of my peers’ writing, I didn’t feel I received the same in return. Of the six stories and two poems I submitted, I only had two of my stories critiqued; those critiques consisted of “great story” and “I loved it”–not much else; however, I had many people reading them. If they could read them, why couldn’t they critique them? My two poems never were looked at.
After six months I realized that this was more a place for people to post topics on a message board (most of which were not helpful to me).
If you are serious about your writing and want some helpful, useful feedback, don’t waste your time with this writing site.
bunchesofos