Guest Post: Emma, on Writing Communities

     My lovely friend, Emma, (who has been featured on here before) graciously agreed to do a guest post. Behold, here it lies.

Six Reasons You Should Find a Writing Community (and where to find one)

     The writing communities I have been fortunate enough to grow up with have so greatly impacted my writing, and (despite fear of sounding cheesy) my life. When I was 13, I joined the OYAN community. It’s fair to say that this is the most impactful thing to happen to my adolescent author self in the area of my work. Later that year, I also participated in NaNoWriMo for the first time. I started being invited to and attending more writing local writing camps. This past year, I participated in a women’s writing and critique group, hosted by the lovely Cinelle Barnes (http://www.cinellebarnes.com.) Through all my writing experiences, these have been the most memorable to me, due to the consistency, friendship, experience, and feedback that they all uniquely provided. This has just been my experience, but talking to my friends from these experiences, I know I am not alone in thinking that writing communities are so crucial for budding authors. Without further ado, here are some reasons why.



      1. Accountability

This is essential. It may not be this way for everyone, but when I have a group of people that know about my plans and goals for my latest writing project, I’m much more likely to stick to it than if I were solely accountable to myself.


      2. Connections

Connections in the writing world can be very helpful. When everyone around you has similar interests and pursuits, you all bring something, someone, some company, to the table that you’d have a harder time finding on your own. That can go anywhere from editors and agents, to the opportunity to guest blog. As seen here, hehehe.

     3. Publicity

You need a writing platform, and simply put, this is a way to get a following and your name out there. This goes along the lines of connections.

      4. Advice and Discussion

Older writers can share their mistakes and triumphs with younger writers. This helps everyone collect knowledge and wisdom and experience that would take much longer to collect alone. You also can discuss your ideas and work out writing related issues. 

     5. Feeling Less Crazy

Okay, hear me out on this one. Writers are weird folks. Okay? Okay. Define weird as you may, debate normalcy all you want. Nevertheless, if you are a writer, chance has it that if you try chatting to parents about your novel idea of shadow demons, or to your youth leader about the newest spat your charries are talking about in your head at night, you’ll get some weird looks. So join a world where this is not only accepted, but helpfully talked through. To be around people like this is pretty encouraging for a vulnerable young writer.

      6. Critiques

Getting informed feedback on your writing on a semi regular basis is extremely helpful. This is essential for improving your work. Without an outside view, you can easily have disproportionate responses to your work. With an outside view, you may find plot holes you missed, or character inconsistency you overlooked. You also can get positive feedback, which is encouraging.


      Now that we’ve established why writing communities are important, where can you find a writing community? My favorite places to get involved in a writing community are local critique groups, and online forums. I’d recommend the OYAN forum (https://oneyearnovel.com) It’s exclusive to students of its curriculum, which is very worth the time and money. Then as for free forums, Neverland (neverlandauthors.invisionzone.com) and Kingdom Pen (kingdompen.org) are both good choices. Kingdom Pen is a selectively Christian forum and ezine, while the other two are both leaning in that direction, but not as explicitly so. Then there is the notable National Novel Writing Month forum (https://nanowrimo.org) This organizes its own meetups and local groups as well.

      Now, you also can get connected via blogs, web series, and online classes. And of course, there’s the writer’s conference, a hotspot for making like-minded friends. There are so many amazing writing conferences full of experienced speakers, agents and editors, and fellow writers. The downside of conferences is that it’s not as consistent of a community as forums or weekly critique groups, but they are nonetheless valuable experiences.


     Overall, the friends you can make in tight-knit, like minded communities like this can be incredible. “Friendship begins at the moment when one man says to another, you too? I thought I was the only one.” -C.S Lewis