Annyonghasehyo

Hello, I am a writing forums refugee. I am looking for a new place to settle, and hope to make some friends and maybe do some beta reading or whatever.

Whatever happens, don't ask me about my forum name or you'll get a really silly philosophy rant.

 

Anyonghashimnika, chemigaotoseyo?
(Hello, how are you doing? in Korean per forum language use rules )

 

Chesunghamnidah, hangungmal chalmot malsseyo. I know just enough to impress people who know no Korean.

 

Hello and welcome! I am also a forum transfer student. Permanent transfer.

It's a pretty cool little place. I hope you like it here.

 

Was it absolute write? Did you get banned for posting about one of their no-no topics?

 

I've never heard of them, so no. It's an old forum that shut down a few years ago.

 

Tell me about no-no topics. That sounds interesting. I mean, don't get yourself banned here too. Be vague, if you need to.

 

Me too.

But anyway, I forgot the official boilerplate welcome:

Welcome! I'm Iain, one of the mods here. If you haven't had a chance to yet, be sure to check out New Member Quick Start and Forum Rules, and don't be shy about contacting me or one of the other mods (jannert, big soft moose, minstrel, and EFMingo) if you have any questions or problems.

You'll need to have two weeks' membership, twenty posts (which include two constructive critiques of others' writing) before you can post in the Workshop for critique of your own work, but until then, feel free to poke around and jump into any one of the numerous discussions that are ongoing here. Those initial requirements will fly by.

Okay, now that that bit's taken care of, good to meet a fellow Korean-ish speaker-ish, have fun, and I see you've already found the rest of the forum. Cool!

 

Lol, it's fine. Well, they had an entire forum about writer's block, but you were not allowed to talk about whether or not writer's block existed. Ever. Not even in a separate thread. One guy got perma banned for breaking a rule in a forum game -- you were supposed to post the first three sentences of your manuscript, but not three sentences you just wrote. They had to be a part of a story. This one guy did not, and the only reason we know about it is because he confessed. Perma-banned, no warning. Another time a thread of mine was closed purely for asking about claiming writer's expenses when you didn't make money in a given year. My thread was closed within fifteen minutes because they wanted me to ask a lawyer instead. Odd, because surely at least one writer has faced this, and even then, why bother closing the thread? Why do they care that much? (By the by, you can claim expenses without earnings for a few years -- I got away with three -- but if you don't publish and earn something within that time, you can have your expenses reclassified as hobby loss)

There was this one time when I got in trouble for disagreeing with someone about the nature of depression. I was just asking about examples of things depressed people are told by those around them but a couple of people went on weird lectures about me needing to do more research. When the thread itself was a form of research. I don't remember the details, only that I (politely, I think) told them that their statements were not helpful. Again, I don't remember the details. All I know is that the next time I came on the forums, the thread was closed. I don't think it was necessarily anything I said, but rather the idea of people disagreeing about things. The forum is very, very much anti-disagreement and discussion. It's supposed to be rainbows and sunshine all the time. Which was a problem for me, because I'm also on a barely alive Starcraft fan forum, and the kind of arguments we have on there are well, particularly aggressive. So I'm used to disagreements without people caring that much.

What got me banned was what I said in a thread about unlikable female characters -- the OP wanted to figure out how to make her flawed MC likable, and yet everyone kept saying that "it depends on the reader" or some variation thereof. I mentioned some things, pointing out sexism I have read in my betas. For example, in one manuscript I read (fantasy YA), a male character very politely asks a girl out for coffee. Bear in mind that we never see this guy before, and the very first thing the MC's friend does is rudely blow him off: "Move along, Big Ego." Then near the end, another female character asks out a guy, and he politely declines because he's in the middle of doing stuff to save the world. She and her friends then get incredibly defensive and accuse him of being rude. I've seen this kind of sexism before in betas and games, where a female will react to anything she doesn't like as though she's being persecuted, but then feel free to be extreme in her own actions. I once even saw an indie game where a girl threw a major autistic fit about gender roles when Odin politely asked her to go find someone -- "It takes a WOMAN to do a MAN'S job!" or something like that. Odin literally did nothing to deserve this treatment, and even if he did, uh, provoking a Norse god is probably a really stupid idea. Well, apparently you're not supposed to talk about sexist females. I wish they'd responded to me with some argument or position. This one person had a long post she edited down to a neutral statement, but the other replies were just general disapproval. Instead of asking me to stop or even coming up with a rational response, they just banned me.

What it boils down to is that on that forums, you're not really allowed to post anything not leftist, nor have any disagreements of any kind, or just anything that goes against the grain of their feelings. They seem to care so much about atmosphere that they don't want anything that disrupts their harmony. The irony is that this made me more of a dust particle in their oyster, because I don't normally go out of my way to provoke people, but the whole oppressive "do things our way or no way" made me, well, much more contrarian than I would otherwise be. I just like facts more than making sure everybody likes me.

 

Hmm. Well, for what it's worth, I hope you find a better fit here. Disagreeing is absolutely allowed, but arguing gets shut down quickly anywhere outside the Debate threads. You can really go to town in there, but we try to keep anything politically incindiary out of the other threads, which I like. There are plenty of members from all over the political spectrum here, but I love not having to know. It's my anti-Facebook. I don't have to hear about it. Others love getting into it, and there's a place for that, which is great for them. As to controversial or taboo subjects, have a ball. People ask research questions about what should or shouldn't be considered sexist/racist/etc. all the time, and there's usually well considered discourse on the subject with no purposeful shaming. Sure, things can get delicate, but in general, there's an effort to be helpful in those threads rather than get angry at someone for not knowing. In fact, that's almost the theme here: helpful. There's a big effort to help make each other's work the best it can be, even if that means asking and answering delicate questions. Check out those links Iain posted for newbies. There's good stuff in there, better than I could tell you. I'm glad you're here. I hope you have a lot of fun.

 

Ah, my bad. I was just trying to answer the question. I'm not going to bring up anything from over there here, except I might at some point talk about whether writer's block exists.

 

You're a writer alright.

 

kimchee, bulgogi, Samsung!

There, that's the extent of my Korean. Welcome to the forum! You haven't told us what you write.

Not speaking for the mods, but should maybe point out though that we don't discuss personal mental health issues here,

And there's also a first (and last) three sentence thread here too, but you're safe posting there.

 

There's a thread for that.

 

Ah yes, that's the only place it's allowed, my bad.

 

Actually, @Naomasa298 is right, there isn't. There's a thread on how mental health affects writing, but we don't do personal mental health issues here simply because not only is the mental health field continually evolving, we cannot verify the identity or qualifications of anyone here.

 

Ah, well, I'm done with that story, so I won't be asking about mental health stuff. It wasn't so much the science I needed, more just people's personal experiences. Some people had really fascinating quotes that they were either told or told themselves. Pretty haunting stuff, really.

Bulgogirul meokko ship'oyo. Oh yeah, I could have mentioned that. Well, right now I'm borderline scifi, speculative fiction. Weird stuff that has some basis in reality. I have an ebook up which I won't go further into because forum rules, but other than that I've done fanfiction (gasp!), short stories, and I'm working on a free online comedy story based on my job. I want to be a serious, haunting writer, but unfortunately everything I do seems to have an element of goofy. Oh, and I have a story in a contest right now where a guy debates a sentient rock why that rock should not rule the world.

 

I wrote a romance once. Showed it to my aunt (who isn't a big romance reader) and she said "Well, it's clear that you got started writing horror."