from Hacker News

Ask HN: Is there a Hacker News for writers?

by hertzrat on 9/7/22, 1:30 PM with 95 comments

• by campbellmorgan on 9/7/22, 2:01 PM

  I have discussed this idea with friends who are writers / artists. Call me a cynic, but while many writers / artists aspire to collective shared knowledge, the reality of both the writing and art market is that unique knowledge is an important differentiator and an asset to their careers. If you do find a fascinating, rare 19th century travel journal in some online archive the last thing you are going to do is share it with others like you until you're sure that you're not going to use it as material yourself. The exception to this being other writers completed work (ie long-form articles, books), but that probably doesn't need a focus on writers / artists per se and a more general "aesthete" HN might work better...

• by technofiend on 9/7/22, 2:39 PM

  There's a genre-specific discord for litrpg and although it was originally geared towards readers many of the authors hang there. Verified authors get a tag and probably even their own channel, but I'm not sure about that since I'm not a verified author. The downside I see for authors is like HN it could prove a distraction, possibly even more so if the general public discovers it for all the usual reasons.

  It sounds like a great project for someone who wants to spend the time and energy moderating a forum, slack, discord or what have you. The issue will be gatekeeping "real" and aspiring authors from people who just want a way to @ their favorite author about something. It would potentially be a great place to get advice if people took the time to direct new writers.

  As an aside - the podcast Writing Excuses is a great place for new authors to find hours of advice from established authors in several different genres. The show regularly rotates in new guest authors, keeping the topics fresh despite being on their 15th season. Of course like any entrepreneur they have something to sell - their books and writing workshops - but for all that their advice is sincere and useful. https://writingexcuses.com And there is allegedly a discussion forum somewhere on the site although I've never sought it out.

• by sinecure on 9/7/22, 2:58 PM

  I've spent decades exploring online communities (haven't we all?). From forums to 4chan, from Digg to reddit to hacker news. I would say that hacker news has one of the highest quality, most engaged and passionate user bases around... a rare feat. To replicate a place like this for other interests would be a dream.

  I think the recipe for a good, interests based community is limited moderation, small scale, and a non-profit orientation. Because even once great communities on reddit have been poisoned by their massive growth and ad driven leadership combined with heavy handed, political moderation.

  Oddly enough, I have found /lit/ on 4chan to be one of the best communities for discussing books and writing. They are more grounded and passionate than most of the other Chans and while you'll still find the occasional edgy post or nonsense, the censorship free and open community has some brilliant minds engaging there.

  Discord has potential, but the constant flow of information and the reliance on typically heavy handed moderation make it just a faster version of popular writing subreddits.

  I wish someone could make a cheap and easy shell to quickly make "hacker news" like clones that people could run for given interests, to create communities like this one geared towards other interests.

• by blockwriter on 9/7/22, 2:22 PM

  It's difficult because there is not a lot of news or pressing issues in fiction. Contemporary fiction is not robust enough for it to be the basis of an aspiring writer's study. Canonical works are. This is distinct from coding, where new methods, and news about developments in technology, are directly applicable to the best work being done. You would need to create a sense of urgency about literary criticism, but this requires an abundance of reading on the part of the user base.

• by gpmcadam on 9/7/22, 1:48 PM

  Not really for sharing links, but for discussion there's https://writing.stackexchange.com

  And for general use of the English language, there's: https://english.stackexchange.com

• by boplicity on 9/7/22, 2:57 PM

  Hacker news partially works because of the way the community is built; there are people here at all stages of their careers, which is unusual. (Anywhere from successful startup founders, to teenagers just interested in the topic.)

  A corrollary community of writers would be wonderful, though I do think it would likely require the backing of an institution parallel to Ycombinator.

  Fortunately, there are many organizations that offer community for writers; most major cities have writing centers such as Richard Hugo House in Seattle, or The Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis. If you're looking to connect with such a community, these types of places are wonderful resources, though they tend to be offline focused.

• by ArtWomb on 9/7/22, 1:38 PM

  https://www.reddit.com/r/Screenwriting/ was awesome. Max Landis would literally pass on good spec scripts posted on the internet by randos to his hollywood agent back in the day, and regale the hordes with making of anecdotes from "American Werewolf in London" ;)

• by chrsig on 9/7/22, 1:46 PM

  I really hope HN is able to supply a few communities. My wife is a writer/editor, so I'd love to share one with her.

  I showed her HN, and the level of discourse that happens here, and she was really surprised at the level of discourse that happens here.

  If nothing else, maybe someone with some motivation sees an opportunity to create such a community. May or may not involve cloning dang.

• by Evenjos on 9/7/22, 4:12 PM

  There is Codex. https://forums.codexwriters.com/

  It's for SFF writers, and it skews towards trad pub. There are (easy to meet) membership requirements: You need to have earned some money as an author, or have been published somewhere pro-ish.

  I've been a member for many years. It's a useful community.

• by epilys on 9/7/22, 1:52 PM

  If you are willing to kickstart one, there's this generic hacker news clone I maintain where you can create a writing community. Make a "Writing" category of post tags and I will put it in the public category list :)

  https://sic.pm

• by freediver on 9/7/22, 2:53 PM

  https://aldaily.com comes to mind

• by PuppyTailWags on 9/7/22, 3:01 PM

  What kind of fiction writing do you do? Scribophile and Absolute Write are more general communities. If you're into science fiction & fantasy, consider the Dream Foundry. Are you published somewhere & can you join a writer's association?

• by purim on 9/7/22, 2:24 PM

  Taking this further why aren't there more communities like HN? What makes this place so special and obnoxious at the same time?

• by greenie_beans on 9/7/22, 2:24 PM

  twitter. for real. a ton of writers engage with each other on twitter.

• by alisonatwork on 9/7/22, 2:37 PM

  I am not a writer, although I know a few. The most interesting place I've encountered, and a place that almost inspired me to write myself, was the one and only sci-fi convention I ever attended. Note that it wasn't really a convention focused on TV/movie/comics fandom, although a few of those creators were on panels too. Mostly it was sci-fi and fantasy novelists discussing industry topics in panels, taking questions and hobnobbing with attendees between sessions. I'd definitely recommend trying to find a convention with a more writer-y focus, especially if you are interested in genre fiction.

• by muzani on 9/7/22, 4:17 PM

  The NaNoWriMo folk were really good at this 10 years ago, but I haven't visited that group in a while.

  There's also a really good erotica forum which I won't link in public here, but they have a complex application process. The people who get through are mostly respectful, incredibly intelligent and creative, and have quite a bit of ambition. They motivated me to start learning proper writing techniques like outlining and rhe whole Aristotle stuff.

  Also I find that screenwriting groups are very mature. The novelist groups tends to want fame and something else, but screenwriters are more interested in what makes a truly good story.

• by SleepilyLimping on 9/7/22, 4:23 PM

  I feel it's very difficult to find communities for writing (not fiction writing, but like, "writing for web" or "content writers") without it devolving into shilling or self-promo.

• by k3ylebe3nzle on 9/7/22, 2:32 PM

  I have been a part of and creating online communities for 20 years now and there is not going to be anything like HN for "normal people" anytime soon.

  The reason HN works is because we are all in the same area and somewhat experts (or trying to be). The problem is that NO OTHER community is online nearly 100% of the time. So there is no writer HN, no science HN, the only thing that comes close is Reddit or 4chan because those are kids, who are also online 24/7.

  Real people are in the real world, only techies and kids live online.

• by brudgers on 9/7/22, 2:29 PM

  I think, that to a first approximation, the HN-for-X is HN.

  The problem facing a dedicated HN-for-X site is that X-experts, spend most of their time doing X instead of talking about doing X with people-aspiring-to-do-X.

  I mean Steven King is mostly writing books and when he gives advice he scales it by writing it down (or having it video recorded).

• by mab122 on 9/7/22, 2:06 PM

  I am not a writer or anyone but I have read quite a few questions from https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/

• by monetus on 9/7/22, 1:43 PM

  The other commenter mentioning reddit is probably right that it is closer to HN. All my writer friends use vocal.media though if you want to check that out

• by ryzvonusef on 9/7/22, 6:30 PM

  As a slight tangent to your discussion, here are links to Brandon Sanderson's BYU lectures on creative writing[1], and other general writing advice[2]

  I like that these are not behind some sort of paywall like a "Masterclass" or something.

  He also runs an award winning podcast [3] since 2008, which brings forwards famous authors and gets them to share advice on writing.

  It's not quite the cozy one-on-one forum style discussion amongst peers that you were wishing for, but if OP is looking for some guidance.

  Btw, have you look at the screenwriter's subreddit [4]? I feel they have a much tighter focus on the "writing" aspect, than other general writing related subreddits or forums.

  ----

  [1]: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSH_xM-KC3Zv-79sVZTTj...

  [2]: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSH_xM-KC3ZtjKTR2z8rP...

  [3]: https://writingexcuses.com/

  [4]: https://old.reddit.com/r/Screenwriting/

• by dhosek on 9/7/22, 3:41 PM

  I’ve been relentlessly flogging a new site, https://litjunction.com/ based on the lobste.rs code inspired by hacker news. Not sure if this is what you’re looking for. (Invitation request link: https://litjunction.com/invitations/request )

• by t_mann on 9/7/22, 4:40 PM

  Great question, would be great to have a general "HN for other professions" thread!

  One that I can share is econjobrumors.com, but I also have to strongly warn about it. It's a forum for econ PhD students and academics to discuss the academic job market, but unfortunately, due to its no-sign-up anonymous posting feature and looser moderation policy than HN, it's been taken over to some extent by right-wing trolls - it's even made the news at one point about how it might drive minorities and women out of the profession, that's how bad it was (is?). But last time I checked (a few years ago) it was still very active and even used by young academics from other disciplines (especially math) to discuss their job market, and I saw several "Is there an EJMR for Y?" posts, indicative that there were useful signals for people on the academic job market between all the noise.

• by swayvil on 9/7/22, 2:26 PM

  Probably something on Reddit. If you don't mind the evil.

• by mguarino on 9/7/22, 1:47 PM

  Have you found any slack groups that offer this?

• by felipelalli on 9/7/22, 3:19 PM

  Politely? You were kind.

• by seydor on 9/7/22, 2:39 PM

  There is a hacker news for everything, it is called reddit

• by sdenton4 on 9/7/22, 5:25 PM

  Check out Metafilter, perhaps?

• by Starlevel001 on 9/7/22, 3:10 PM

  Most writing spaces are full of incompetent people who are terrible at what they do, give bad advice, blame everyone else for their problems, and have wildly incorrect opinions on topics that they aren't qualified for.

  In other words, most writing spaces are just like HN. Take your pick.