I am interested in non-commercial writing websites (primarily short stories) on which one can (1) publish one's own writing without excessive editorial interference and (2) locate stories having some degree of literary merit. There seems to be a real dearth of such sites. This is not entirely surprising, since the quality of stories can be expected to be inversely related to the degree of editorial control. Here are come comments on what I have found. I would be interested in what others think. As will be obvious this post is a work in progress. Literotica.com - primarily a site for erotic writing, but does publish non-erotic fiction as well. There is a minimum word limit on short stories and writing containing excessive spelling or grammar errors is rejected. By comparison with other sites I've visited, it is possible to locate some well-written stories. Writing.com - non-paying members are limited to ten pieces of writing. There seems to be no editorial control and it is probably not unfair to say that the writing consists overwhelmingly of juvenilia. Very hard to locate good short stories on this site. Booksie.com - again little or no editorial control and overwhelmingly juvenilia. Very hard to locate good short stories and not easy to browse for stories. Helium.com - has a fiction section but seems to be primarily a site for non-fiction writing. A featured piece of travel writing on the town of Apeldoorn in the Netherlands consistently mis-spelt the name of the town. This made me wonder whether it was worth exploring the site in detail. Goodreads.com - primarily a book reviewing site but does enable members to post their own writing in the form of book chapters, but no facility for browsing stories and story categories. Writerscafe.org - probably the most professionally designed of the websites covered here - I haven't explored it in sufficient detail to be able to comment on the quality of the writing yet. Fictionpress.com - very much a young people's website. The quality of the writing is very poor. Storiesonline.net - in spite of the name, primarily a site for erotic short stories, but quantity and quality of stories below the standard of Literotica.com
Must the two be on the same site? I mean, there are places like "Untied Shoelaces of the Mind," "Daily Science Fiction," and such which are non-commercial or close (DSF has no ads, for example) and that publish quality stories. You can't just post your stuff there, though; you can submit your work, and if they accept your story they'll pay you, but it isn't the sort of site where anyone can post what they'd like. If you want to read fiction that is both free and high-quality, there are a few such sites out there -- some of the ezine markets listed on Duotrope do not require a fee to read the stories. But for obvious reasons, sites which don't put up some kind of gatekeeper are likely to get more fiction of poor quality than of good. (Good quality fiction, among other things, is more likely to be sold someplace instead of posted on a public site. Fanfiction can be a special exception, here; "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality" is an excellent fic, and unpublishable for obvious reasons.) Is there any particular reason you'd like to have a free posting area and a bunch of good fiction on the same site? If not, why not just post your own work on Fictionpress.com and visit "Daily Science Fiction" or "Short Story America" or wherever to read free short stories?
Reply to HenleinFan: Is there any particular reason you'd like to have a free posting area and a bunch of good fiction on the same site? Yes, there is. I write short stories occasionally. I do it for my own amusement but I like the idea of putting them on a website that has a wide readership so that others can peruse them and enjoy them if they are to their taste. I also like the idea of perusing the work of others who are similarly motivated. I don't want to hawk my stories around umpteen websites, so I want a website that will publish all stories that meet a basic standard. But although I'm modest about my writing, I don't want to put it on a site where 99.9% of the writers can't string two coherent sentences together. That is, there needs to be a light editorial hand used - short stories that don't meet basic standards of literacy or are fragmentary are rejected. Such a website would satisfy my needs as both a reader and a writer of this type of fiction.
I made a rather intemperate and ill-considered reply to a post by HeinleinFan earlier. I've since edited it to make it more civil.
*eyebrow raise* Well, I'm glad I didn't tick you off by trying to help. Or that if I did tick you off, it was a temporary thing.
