it depends which forum you're in - some are extremely active and others less you. If look at the list on the 'groups' page, the ones at the top are the most active. It's just unlucky if you happen to get in one that only has a few members who dip in and out occasionally.

Childrens, Fast First Draft, Commercial Short Story and Intensive Critique are all active - I haven't been in the others so I can't comment on those!

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groups is what I meant - that's where all the really useful stuff goes on, where you can upload your work and critique other people's, plus have a chat about writing related stuff

Hi greentown,

Just wanted to say I do sympathise with your predicament. It's difficult when we're all saying, "yes, it's all going on in the private forums", because obviously you can't see them and paying up to do so feels like a bit of a leap of faith. Equally, I must admit I rarely if ever post outside them. A lot of the things we post about in there are agent and publisher related, and I wouldn't always want my agent or publisher reading them (no that I slag them off, ahem). And a lot of the rest of it is insecurity/general writerly angst (!), which, again, I wouldn't necessarily want to be searchable.

I can definitely say that PM and the Lounge are busy - new topics being posted daily - and I think you would probably find a lot of the discussions helpful as a literary writer. I write (largely) lit fic myself, and have got a lot out of the site over the years. I'd give it a go if I were you, but can see why you might not want to risk it.

Perhaps the 'literary' criteria is the problem? Maybe not as many people are in to literary fiction.

Actually there are a lot of literary bods here, in fact I'd say the members pretty much span the full spectrum from highly literary to highly commercial, with all the genres in between.

But I think there are probably more literary novelists than literary short fiction writers, perhaps partly because it's very, very hard to make a living out of literary short fiction.

Hi Greentown - I also got a trial membership initially, was disappointed by how quiet it was on the forum, paid my £20 for community membership thinking that I'd get access to all the forums only to find it doesn't (my bad - I didn't read something carefully enough).

I'd like to be able to follow the general chitchat (that's what makes a place feel like a community) but it's a £40 punt, not a £20 one, which is a lot when you don't know what you'll be getting.

I understand why people want to keep some things private but I don't follow the logic for keeping any paid members out of certain discussion forums.

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Clear as mud, my message - I meant that community membership (£20) doesn't get you into the Private Members' bit or the Lounge but full membership (£40) does.

paid my £20 for community membership thinking that I'd get access to all the forums only to find it doesn't

I didn't realise that. I thought the Community membership enabled access to the Lounge and Private Members. It doesn't say that you don't get access to these areas in the text below, Toast.

Community Only : £20 per year WriteWords Community : Full Access to the lively community including the Forums, Writers Archive, Interviews and Writers Groups. Upload unlimited pieces of work, receive comments and advice from other members and our bank of industry experts. No access to Jobs, Directory or Showcase sections.

I do have the full membership, but I wanted access to the directory, etc.

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I don't know whether I've misinterpreted the membership packages, but check about Private Members and Lounge, as the community membership says 'full access ... including the forums' and PM and Lounge are under the forums tab.

paid my £20 for community membership thinking that I'd get access to all the forums only to find it doesn't

Hate to contradict you but yes, it does! I'm a community only member and I get access to all the forums, including the Lounge and Private Members.

I don't get access to Jobs & Opps or the Directory. I paid for this in my first year and found I never used it so just signed on as a Community member in the following year.

As to the site being quiet - well, I've been on here for three years now and I've noticed both very quiet and very busy times - the level of activity fluctuates from week to week.

Toast, do drop David Bruce a line, and sort that out...

Yes, do, Toast. That can't be right. I'm on community membership myself because I don't use the directory & jobs, and I'm certainly allowed in the PM & lounge!

a lot of the rest of it is insecurity/general writerly angst

This is so true. And not just writerly angst. We post about some very personal things, that we would never post about (I think) if it was open to all and sundry to see. At least if people have paid to be in there we know they're not a casual troll who will have a go at vulnerable people. Not that trolls are kept out entirely, but paying £20 does deter most of them!

Yes absolutely - to echo everyone else, I'm on the community membership and I most certainly have access to Private Members and the Lounge. But I remember someone else saying they had the same problem and had to get David to sort it out.

Toast - definitely email David and check that out, because it's probably a technical glitch.

Thanks, guys - maybe David was reading this thread because suddenly I can see the Private Members' forum & Lounge!

Somewhere on the site (which I checked before I posted about the £20) it says that you have to be a full member to get into the Private Members' bit - can't find it now, naturally.

Well, that's better and sorry about spreading misinformation there!

we look forward to seeing you in private members toast.

Champagne is served from 4pm, along with compulsory rum.

(Only virtual champagne, unfortunately).

along with compulsory rum.

No one who isn't on the LifeBoar gets rum, though: we need every drop...

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Good news that you're in, Toast!

Hi Flora and Emma - well, I just had a bracing dip into the thread in Private Members' discussing this issue in parallel and one thing that came up was that people on trial membership can put up work for critique but may then not stay, so they've taken up a lot of the time of established members without giving anything back.

Perhaps that's a privilege of trial membership that shouldn't be offered? If someone won't punt £20 for a even a bit of critique, which is very time-consuming to give, then I'm not sure they deserve it.

However, I think that trial membership without being able to view all the forums does indeed give the impression of a dead or dying site. I'm very grateful to members such as EmmaD and Terry Edge who kindly and promptly welcomed me and responded to my threads when I was a trial member, but not many other people did and there were very few new threads. I kind of felt that tumbleweed was blowing through the site. The only reason I took a £20 risk was because a friend of mine was already a member and strongly recommended the site and made it clear that most of the action was in the membership-only areas.

A bracing dip in PM? Try the lounge, there's a party going on without you!

It's really good to get this level of response and such a variety of feedback on my thoughts on the trial view of the website.

Clearly I'm not the first person to take out a trial and then wonder where everything is happening and I would hazard a guess that a lot of potential members are walking away without ever realising that there's anybody here!

For me, I'm not looking for critique and while I would be happy to give feedback to others - I definitely wouldn't be willing to pay to do that.

I understand what people are saying about the publishers/agent gossip stuff in the Lounge and not wanting it to be Google searcheable and so on.
But, as we all know, this is the web, it's anonymous unless you use your real name, if you use a different username, nobody knows who you are anyway and of course, your agent could be signed in anyway as a member - none of us know who's really there so the whole privacy thing is kind of an illusion anyway.

I take on board too that a 'writing' site is probably going to have to really work hard to support itself entirely from advertising so it might seem a good idea to charge membership.
But if potential members walk away because they can't trial the 'paid for' content - then it's self-defeating, there may never be enough members to entice extra advetising.

The problem a paid-for site has with 'punters' like me is the diversity of free sites offering at least some 'writing' content.

I mean, I can look on entirely generalist free sites like Mumsnet or Netmums or the TES and there will be at least a couple of book and creative writing threads on each. Okay, I may not be getting the expert feedback I could get here (I don't want critiques) but without better trial access I have no way of knowing at just what level or how expert the debate is here anyway.

It's quite likely too, that on some of the sites I've mentioned, there will be professional writers just dipping in and offering advice while they're being Mums or being teachers.

If I could give one suggestion that one make this site more interesting then perhaps it would be to open up the busy/gossipy boards to trial members (why not just be totally public?) but give members the option to click a thread as private for critiques and personal stuff.

Surely not all the treads in the Lounge need privacy.

Of course, I don't know what's in the Lounge, but maybe there could be stuff like - Do you write in a shed, if so where did you buy it and does it work? How do you heat it? - What's the best TV portrayal of a writer you've seen? If there is a car that screams WRITER - what is it? What should you wear to meet an agent at The Ivy? Have you sacrificed your art for love?.... and so on.

Now that kind of stuff is fascinating - it generates replies - it makes the site seem interesting - it will bring new members making the site more diverse/more interesting - bring more advertisers - but by golly - it sure as hell doesn't need to be Private - does it?

I'm only a triallist and as people have said, sometimes full members are reluctant to put the effort in with posts from trial members but if there were, at least some, public boards you'd probably find more people answering queries anyway, taking the pressure off full members.

Well hey, those are my thoughts so far. At the moment, on the basis of what I can see on the trial pages, I feel more inclined to stick with other more general websites - where you get a bit of everything - but I wish that wasn't the case - I would like to be able to come here and know I will get a proper writer's view of best sheds