Salvatore Buttaci, author of Flashing My Shorts

I say keep writing till you can’t write anymore!!

Revise Revise Revise haha and Revise more and get many opinions is what I say too:)

I really like Fictionaut but I still haven’t received an invite which sucks but its okay because I still visit the site to read, its just I don’t get to comment on what I like and I hope they make an iPad app soon to view the site too and also I hope I get an invite soon from them;)

As you mentioned with hacker news, I believe that to maintain the community as it is, some serious thought and programming will be required to foster it if the general public is to be let in. This is an attainable goal as has been proven in the past by other sites.

So great to see a “flickr” for writers, it’s a piece that I felt was missing from the Internet puzzle for too long.

In fact, I strongly suspect the structure of the site has something to do with it. A couple of hours after my first login, two other writers whom I had not heard of or talked with before left comments on my profile page. My bet is that they saw me in the ‘new member’ section, and went out of their way to welcome me.

Oh, and possible factor number 3: the community’s small enough to be welcoming, but big enough to be self-policing.

@Kyt: I’m not sure that they’ll go open house anytime soon (or even at all) but – yes, I do agree with you that I’m half-looking forward to, err, seeing what happens if and when they do.

As much as there’s going to be a market for writing salons where critics are harsh and the bright light of scrutiny is always shining on new work there will also be niches like this where a softer touch is present.

They do have a favorite system coupled with polite commentary. It’s not going to be a place to publicly refine work (although I see small groups that @Kevin describes) but a social diagram of the works the audience likes by following favorites.

I think I’ll check it out.

It’ll be interesting to see if the site maintains this attitude after they go from invite-only to open house.

@A.M.: I would reply to your comment with this: even if people don’t like your stories, eyeballs are still focusing on your work. I have had mixed results with my work on the site currently (favorable comments on some work while none on others) but I know that members of the community are reading. And commenting on unedited and unpublished works does happen, but mostly in online workshop groups set up on the site.

@Eli: I think the spirit you’re talking about comes from the fact that most of the writers/poets on the site are used to having intellectual dialogue that doesn’t require what techies would call “sniping” in comments.

@Mark: You’re welcomed. =)

Fictionaut’s, however, seem to only comment on works that they like. (If the writing is horrible, you keep quiet and go somewhere else).

Is that a good thing? I can see why it can be nice, but if my writing’s shit, I’d rather someone tell me.

Interesting to see your insight though seeing as Fictionaut is pretty close off to the public at the moment. What did you say to get an invite? ;-)

The design of the site *is* beautiful — got to agree with you there!