Why I Can’t Recommend Absolute Write
Before I begin this article, let me site a few other sources, corroborating about the generally poor service that has existed on Absolute Writer’s Water Cooler.
Sources:
https://thelookingglassofcarrollbryant.blogspot.com/2013/09/internet-scams-absolute-write.html
https://forumsreview.blogspot.com/
This should be sufficient, because the second link actually sites several sources in and of itself, and I would risk retreading on old ground. What I can however mention is why I myself cannot recommend Absolute Writer’s Water Cooler. In some ways, I consider it a prologue for the Cancel Culture that would eventually sweep the creative community, including the writing world. Twitter in particular shoulders a lot of the blame for spreading it.
In my experience with Absolute Writer’s Water Cooler, I had once tried seeking out beta-readers for one of my early stories that never made it into becoming a novel. I still largely wrote prose at the time, although I mostly write Comic Script these days. This manuscript would have been called Herman Of Ducktown. This is a reference to Ducktown, Tennessee. It was also partially based on the mining town that made that part of Tennessee a desert, despite deserts not normally being found in this state. This story would have been a prequel to an alternative continue of a story that is now Uploaded Fairy.
In this, I was writing a story about Child Soldiers ( referencing child soldiers in Africa ) and speculative on what our political landscape would be like, if we used child soldiers in the US. At that point I had made the mistake of calling my MC “Dog boy”, the context being that he was raised by wolves until his preteen years. However MacAllister Stone took the context, and twisted it around to me saying something else related to the term. This forum also perpetuated the myth that a writer should never respond to their “reviews”–a myth the writing community still has a hard time shaking off.
But I went through an entire year of writer’s block, because I was dealing with people in this forum that frankly could not be reasoned with. This is why I consider terms like “never respond to a review” something only a victim blamer would say, because they know they are victimizing writers who simply want to improve their craft. Every other critiques were basically in the same realm of “answers that sound like answers, but don’t really answer anything” area of commentary. This was when I was around nineteen I believe. Around 2008.
I focused mostly on writing short stories like A Mechanic Slave, and others making sure I never showed any of my work, except for stories I was absolute sure I was never going to touch again. Unfortunately I thought Wattpad would actually be an improvement from this, but as it turned out this proved not to be the case: the high school like clique environment remained present up until Wattpad chose to shut down their forums. Toward the end they were using automated moderation.
Now personally I am actually a member of extreme left, probably more left-wing than they are. I can’t help but wonder if part of this was actually a coping mechanism from dealing with the experience on Absolute Write. What you’ll notice on Absolute Write, is that a lot of these people are actually very much in the realm of Cisnormative non trans people. And yet for whatever reason Cancel Culture reigned supreme on this websites.
But here is the thing, there is a difference between constructive critique and politics: the difference is usually that the latter has some kind of agenda that they are wanting to push on people. Critiquing of manuscripts for novels, is one area where it’s extremely important not to push an agenda on people. This is why I simply cannot recommend writing forums of any kind. But especially Absolute Writer’s Water Cooler. Ink Blazers ( Manga Magazine ) was also bad in its own way, but never at any point was the environment such that it participated in whole sale Cancel Culture. I even met one fellow webcomic person from it, and she’s awesome.
Take my advice, if you want a writing community, start one in your neighborhood. It’s important that you find critique partners in fellow writers and comic artists you actually meet in real life.