Okay, so I will be completely and 100% honest about this:  Writing is a big part of my life. I love writing articles and writing about myself, but I like writing Fiction the best. In fiction, I can make up worlds and and people and whatever else I choose. The problem with fiction writing is that, while there is a wide audience for it, there are already a lot of teenagers writing fiction.
 

My two favorite online writing nooks are Miss Literati and Teen Ink. I love each one because there are many stories to read, and a large audience to write for. I love the theory of Teen Ink, but this is my first publication for it, so I will be discussing the pros and cons of Miss Literati.
 

Miss Literati is a reading and writing website for teenage girls, although I’ve been on there since I was 10, and have seen plenty of heterosexual teenage males on the website. It lets you publish your story by chapter, gain subscribers, receive commentary and criticism on stories, and more. While the website leans more towards fiction writing, I have seen much nonfiction, some For Dummies style stories, and many flourishing artists who use a “story” to house a book cover “business”.
 

In theory, this is a brilliant idea, but at the same time, there are downfalls. First of all, most of my friends are guys, and asking them to go on a frilly pink-and-purple website is occasionally like asking them to play dress up with my sister. Some of them don’t care, but there are a few that are like, “Ugh, really? It’s for GIRLS!”
 

The other problem I have with that website is reach. You see, there are nine bazillion fanfictions of the LATEST hot boy band, and the popular stories, etc. Most people don’t decide, “Hey, let me click the Read tab, oh hey, action/drama/romance/?. Oh hey, Recently Updated!”  They click on something on the homepage, one of their subscribed stories, or whatever they’re searching for. Authors of highly popular stories will delete comments asking users to read whatever story, even though that’s how they got so popular. ML promotes the most popular stories. I posted a chapter (the ninth chapter on that website, to be exact) of my story on there about a month ago. Guess how many views it’s gotten.

If you guessed anywhere between 1 and 5, you’d be about right. The answer is 3.

At first I wondered if maybe the problem was the story, but when I have people read it from my tablet or via Email, all I hear is, “Wow, that’s good. You should publish it when it’s finished.”
 

I love ML and I never pass up the opportunity to tell someone how much I like their story. I wonder why I have such a hard time getting reads.