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A Matter of Medium:

Reframing Writing Communities

Michelle Holzworth

Original intent: examine feedback methods from two different writing community locations: physical and digital.

Procedure: conduct ethnographic research (using thick description and interviews) to compare “real” writer groups and an online writing forum.

Question: What sort of tradeoff might be at hand when exchanging a physical medium for a

digital medium?

The method

The internet as a “space” rather than only a “place” (McKee and Porter).

Sociocultural (Kehus, Walter, Shaw’s work on online discourse communities).

The lens

{ {Physical Location Third person reports

from FantasyFicers about their respective writers groups:

Coffee shops Writer’s house

Digital Location

Fields notes on FantasyFic:

Forum policies Forum

structure

The subjects

The justification

{ {Physical Location

“In the writers’ group…all of us are serious writers on some level or other. On the forum, we have had people from all across the spectrum, ranging from beginner writers to professionals. It causes friction, as the beginner does not take critique well at all on many occasions, and the established writers get frustrated with being asked to critique, but also being asked not to critique, both at the same time.”

—Xerius, connoisseur of the written word

Digital Location

“Firstly, I want you to know that everyone who is interested in writing fantasy or reading it is welcome at FantasyFic. This site exists for one primary purpose: to give writers at varying stages in their career an opportunity to post their writings and solicit comments and critiques from fellow members.”

—Raya, FantasyFic Founder

Writer & reader aims

{ {Physical Location

“The limitation is that it requires a fixed time commitment, so like any other group where you need to block off time to travel to a certain place for a certain amount of time, it gets easy for life in general to crowd you out. Whether it be commitments, weather, lack of funds (you feel obliged to order at least a couple cups of coffee and maybe a slice of cake to justify occupying space for three hours), or lethargy (you had a long week and the last thing you want to do on a Saturday is run across town to sit in a crowd), it can be difficult to summon up the energy needed.”

—Xerius, connoisseur of the written word

Digital Location

“It's hard to say re: the limitations. Both formats depend heavily on what you put into them and are only as limiting as you let them be. I suppose I'm limited on the forums as I can't read the person's reaction to what I’m saying. Looking someone in the eye can have that advantage.”

—Kally, forum administrator and aspiring author, et al

Setting and setbacks

{ {Physical Location

Suli attested that her main writers’ group has been “going for 40+ years,” and that she would not “quit attending” when there is “that much writing wisdom available” even if I didn’t the delivery hurt.

Her words demonstrate an important lesson: ultimately, a writer’s goals can trump a medium’s drawbacks: “If I can take the feedback and not let [one jerk] crush me, it will make me stronger.”

Digital Location

“Participating in FantasyFic gives me an online community of longstanding that doesn’t feel the obligation to sugarcoat feedback and perspectives that aren’t available to me from writers within my peer group.”

—Suli, FantasyFic contributor and aspiring author

Membership matters

{ {Hegemonic Democratic

The addendum: digitization

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A Matter of Medium:

Reframing Accepted Practices

The materiality of new media “may be understood in terms of writing technologies…Or it might be understood more broadly to refer to a host of socioeconomic conditions contributing to writing production…yet more broadly, the materiality of writing might be understood to refer to networks for the distribution of writing, controls over publishing (in whatever forms), and global relations of power articulated through these. And it may be understood to include particular subjectivities” (Horner).