Previous Post 1. Writing in short story or episode form is an ideal way to hone your writing abilities. It allows you to use a whole range of styles, locations, dialogue patterns, plot structures, and raw ideas at different times. 2. Writing for an online audience that offers some level of response is a good way of gauging how close you’re coming to your intentions in writing. It’s not just whether people liked the story, it’s whether they understood it, whether you communicated your ideas, whether you conveyed the mood. It’s a useful writing barometer. 3. Writing in an interactive forum sparks your ideas in ways that solo writing doesn’t. Sometimes other people’s work inspires you to add something to the canon. Sometimes something you don’t feel is quite right in other people’s work prompts you to write something that helps get the context straight. Sometimes your work inspires others to write, which is usually a pleasant added dividend for your efforts. 4. Writing in an established shared continuity allows for you to get to the core of what you want to accomplish in your story without having to wade through lots of setup. You don’t need to spend five pages setting up a top-secret spy agency or a tough police commissioner. The shorthand is already there, and you can concentrate on the key thing you wanted to convey. 5. Your long-term works may be of greater and deeper significance and quality but they are long-term projects with long-term payoffs. Most writers are encouraged by a little bit of reader support, and short episodic offerings garner short but welcome feedback to keep you going for the long haul. 6. The Parodyverse is also an online community where posters interact with each other. Adding story content helps lubricate the social wheels, gives starting topics for conversation, and strengthens the raison d’etre that keeps pulling most contributors back. 7. Regular writing is an essential discipline for those who want to become good writers, and especially for those who aspire to be professional writers. Regular posting on the Parodyverse board is one way of ensuring you keep up that regimen – it’s kind of like Weight Watchers but for writers. 8. Being able to write a set piece on a set subject is also a useful writer’s discipline. Otherwise one just sits moodily in front of a blank word processor waiting for inspiration to strike. The Parodyverse is very good at provoking set subjects, through tie-ins, round robins, theme weeks, and so on. What use is your genius if you can’t harness it to write a short story about a particular situation when you need to? 9. There’s a critical mass above which the Parodyverse board works and below which it doesn’t. Posters need reasons to look in regularly to read and reply. If the board isn’t fed with quality stories then there’s a downward spiral with fewer replies because there are fewer folks looking in, which in turn discourages new stories. If you value the Parodyverse, feed it every now and then. 10. If you do not write, Dancer will Hunt You Down you will tend to feel disengaged with the board, and that’s another spiral that leads to feeling distanced and excluded. We want you to be part of the team. Replying is the minimum membership fee, but writing is what scores the goals.

At one point there were over twenty stories on the front page of the board this week, written by ten different authors. I'm willing to bet the highest number of replies was eight.