Writer's help

It's a bit of a cross post but, I shared what amounts to a guide for story plotting down in the Engineering area.  KM Weiland story plotting guide   It's named a bit different down there, but you'll see it.

I'll take this a step further since the forums appear so dead. Throw those questions about writing out there. If I don't know the answer, I'm sure someone else will. I have always written better if I have some social interaction. It gets the mind turning over ideas. Ideas spark stories. Years ago when I was still in high school I got into a debate with a woman who took the position that science fiction had nothing in common with scientific research or science fact. I and my companions listed all the many stories of H.G. Wells and other authors who's ideas prompted scientist to see if something could actually be made. She discounted all of it. Finally, I got it. I said, "There is one thing they both have in common that you can not discount. Both authors and scientist begin their journeys of exploration with the same question. "What if?"

She got pissed and left.

Way back when the Whateley Universe stories first came out on Sapphire's Place I was unhappy that we had no way to get feedback from the fans there except for a very cumbersome comment section. After attempting to help her modernize the site by spending days rebuilding it and updating the pages, Bob and I presented the site back to her. She said "Thank you" and promptly uploading the update for the newest stories from her local backup. Wiping out all our work. We gave up at that point and I took the update from Sapphire's and we created the first copy of the Whateley web site. That lead to adding a forum. The forum was widely popular. Always active and lots of conversations going on. We the authors are missing that give and take with the fans.

Sure, there are some areas we will not comment on if it might be in a near future story or something we already have mapped out. We'll say, "No comment" or "Gee that's interesting." I will say in addition to this, "Don't tell us how to write a story." I'm not trying to be obtuse. It's just that writing takes a bit of personal investment in the story. Being given a story premise with lots of details eats away at the author's urge to write. And some of the Whateley authors were driven away from the universe by actions of some fans who un/knowningly triggered the author to the point that they couldn't even discuss the universe with the other authors.

In the same theme as the author's personal investment of a story. This reason is why we created the fan fiction section. My usual response to someone trying to gut me in a "story idea" kind of way is "Why don't you try writing yourself if you think it's a great idea?" The usual response is "I'm not a writer."

How do you know? Have you tried? Granted there are some self published authors writing porn on Amazon that I wouldn't call an author. At the same time there are writers on free fiction posting sites that could make it as a published author very easily in my opinion.

So I'm asking for questions. Come on people!