There is a magical place out there rated number 1 in online story writing.

Where an author has no limits. Where the challenges are accompanied by hundred dollar prizes. Where every story gets read, and every story gets rated. Where you can take writing classes.

A truly beautiful place in the final frontier of Internet.

But what they don’t tell you is that of the millions of writers, there is constant competition. Every author is ranked in an archaic, dog-eat-dog system. The approximated 200 new stories a day are precariously balanced on top of a few challenges with $ prizes. The writers of these reviews receive ‘member cents’, these are used to advance one’s own stories above others. This makes personal gain one of the fundamental goals for commenting on a story, leading to unintelligent feedback. Of the 4,000 comments left each day (today 4,285 and counting), one that I saw was “Dude, good poem!”

So I am thankful to be part of Ficly! A family of authors working together for each other.