Where did all the screenwriting forums go?

The way people interface with the online screenwriting community has changed over the last decade for better… and worse.

UPDATE: I received this email from the good folks at DoneDealPro:

We never, ever closed our free forums. Not even for a day. I had to strongly consider and look at possibly doing so due to high hosting fees, but members of the community insisted they help out and raised some money to get the forums over the hump. All is still going nicely. Never missed a beat ultimately.

So please read the content below with this information in mind. Glad to learn the DDP forums are still an active online screenwriting resource!

I got an email recently from a Go Into The Story reader in which he posed the following question:

Dude, where did all the forums go? Seems like everything just vanished in recent years. I knew triggerstreet closed, but over at donedealpro there’s barely any activity at all.

Any tips? I just can’t believe all the screenwriters out there all stopped using forums in one instant. Doesn’t make sense.

It doesn’t make sense… and yet it does make sense. Some background.

When I launched Go Into The Story in May 2008, it was birthed at the front edge of the emergence of a wave of online screenwriting resources. The granddaddy of them all was JohnAugust.com which came into existence in 2004. As far as I’m concerned, every online screenwriting resource of any quality owes a debt to John for having the foresight to make the connection way back in time: Provide content online to anyone either inside or outside the Hollywood system.

There was a veritable explosion of sites: Mystery Man on Film, The Bitter Script Reader, Kid in the Front Row. Back in the first few years of Go Into The Story’s existence, I included on my home page a set of links to dozens upon dozens of blogs dedicated to screenwriting.

Then there were the online writing communities where people could congregate on message boards and share thoughts and insights about the craft, but over time some have shut down.

What happened?

Most sites have either disappeared or gone fallow. Mystery Man on Film supposedly died. Kid in the Front Row went on hiatus. The Bitter Script Reader posts occasionally on his blog. Trigger Street shut down.

Did that translate into a downturn in interest in screenwriting?

Not at all. Instead, it reflects a shift in technology and people’s connection to the online experience.

There is /R/Screenwriting, the Reddit screenwriting community which has 425K members.

John August and Craig Mazin began hosting the invaluable podcast Scriptnotes. Fellow screenwriter Brian Koppelman started up with his own podcast The Moment which covers a wide variety of subjects, often involving the creative arts. Other podcasts in the screenwriting arena followed including The Dave Bullis Podcast and the Indie Film Hustle Podcast.

Those are all great learning resources, but what about online platforms which allow writers to engage with each other?

Go Into The Story used to have a more active community engagement, but over time that has decreased. What’s interesting is while this has happened, site traffic has grown from 1M unique visits per year… to 1.2M… 1.55M… to 1.8M… to what projects this year to be 2M+ unique visits.

What this suggests to me is a maturation of the online screenwriting community. Back in the day, there was a lot of “Hey, I’m interested in screenwriting, too” engagements. Now it feels like people know screenwriting is a thing and their focus is on finding online resources which help them learn the craft.

That has become my focus over the last few years: Provide quality content to facilitate writers in their educational process.

In terms of ongoing online screenwriting communities, I don’t claim to stay on top of these trends, I’ve just been too damn busy to track what’s going on. All I know is the Facebook group I started in late 2015 — Zero Draft Thirty — is a wonderful community of writers, 3,400+ members who actively support each other.

Bottom line, change is inevitable. My advice: Find a small group of writers who understand story and make yourselves accountable as a writing group. Biweekly or monthly meetings, either in-person or online, to share and critique each other’s pages. I just got done mentoring six writers as part of the Black List / Women In Film feature writers lab and I know they will continue as a writers group, much to their benefit.

Focus on finding a core group of writers you can grow with… and use whatever online resources you find helpful knowing they will come and go.

Except Go Into The Story. I’ll be here. As my mother used to say, “Lord willing and the creek don’t rise.”

If you know of some good online communities or resources for screenwriters and writers in general, feel free to post in comments. But please, no outfits who promote their consulting services.