A Medium for Imagination
A call-to-arms for creative writers.
I’m an avid reader on Medium. I follow a few publications, especially ones where writing advice is given and where many offer food for thought. It is an amazing platform for anyone to have their voices heard…to an extent. As a tool, Medium offers so much for the average joe who aspires to express their thoughts any which way he/she can. While this is great for those who like to comment on current events around the globe, it leaves creative writers — mainly those who don’t write non-fiction — up the creek without a paddle.
When I log on and glance at the trending stories, all I ever see is self-help and current events. Where are the creative works of fiction and poetry in every genre out there? I can tell you right now… It’s very difficult to find them. Just one search for “Fiction” under publications yields a very short list. But what’s even more frustrating is that the first search result is The Nib, whose description reads: “Political cartoons, comics journalism, humor and non-fiction. Words + pictures.”
They don’t publish fiction, and yet they are the first result in the search!
For someone like myself, who enjoys reading and writing fiction and who has been searching for a place to publish on Medium, this is not just absurd… it’s downright asinine! I know I can’t be the only one writing fiction who, upon finding Medium, has an immensely wide door opened unto them… only to find the main page riddled with opinion pieces on current events, the occasional self-help article, and no currently running fiction publications — they’re there… most have just gone defunct.
This is unacceptable.
Now, poetry has a tad more support and is easily found with a quick search. However, poetry publications on Medium don’t take precedence over a semi-political-commentary publication like Human Parts (another big-wig taking up the main page).
It’s quite obvious that there is next to no community for fiction on Medium, as more people seem preoccupied with opining on politics than they do on telling well-crafted stories. Being a platform for journalism is all well and good, but Medium can have a much broader scope than that! There is so much potential for publishing as a whole with this website; both in the realm of non-fiction as well as fiction. To state boldly:
Medium just may be a publishing platform that can change the way we access and express creativity forever.
I read an article written by Tom Farr a month ago entitled Why Fiction Writers Should Find a Home on Medium. In it, he lists reasons why writers, such as myself and others, should seriously consider building our audiences on this site. They are all great, valid reasons and I’m sure that his works — and the works of others — have received many views since being published, regardless of how long ago they were written and posted. But when it comes to emerging publications and the contributors of each there isn’t any growth shown.
In fact, my many searches for fiction on Medium shows that there are more unlisted works of fiction that have probably never seen even the edge of a spotlight. And many of these works are pretty good and should be represented by a publication… if any existed that haven’t gone silent.
Medium may not be suffering from it’s use as a journalistic tool, but because it has been used profusely for that purpose it now reminds me of a smartphone in the hands of an old lady who only knows how to dial phone numbers.
It’s not being used to its full potential as a tool for ALL writers!
I urge all of you creative writers of fiction, poetry, and whatever other genre; find each other, collaborate, start publications and keep them alive! For every day you delay, another right-wing nut, or left-wing hooligan is trending at the forefront of this fantastic toolbox with their biases, spinning the latest information; writers who’d rather be writing fiction are, instead, publishing self-help articles; creative writers are going unlisted, their stories and unique voices left quiet in the dust kicked up by a cacophony of political commentary.
Medium challenged the status quo of the publishing/blogging world. Why should we let a rising — soon incumbent — status quo remain unchallenged? Why should we let the realm of fiction wither and die while self-important pundits outright consume our potential audience? This is a place where all writers of any genre should be able to shine and support one another.
So let’s do this. Let’s get together and challenge the status quo within Medium so that it can reassert its unique utility once again. Let’s pool our efforts to create as plentiful a publications list for creative writing as there is for non-fiction on current events. Ev Williams created an amazing tool for all writers to use, not just a few. Let’s not let Medium continue on without it having met its full potential.
If you’ve enjoyed this post and want to see fiction spread to the front page, please consider Recommending this to your friends and followers who are aspiring writers. If you want to keep tabs on all my latest pieces feel free to Follow me on Medium, Twitter, or Facebook. Thank you.
J. D. Antesberg is a writer, photographer, and musician living in Central Pennsylvania. He works full-time as a Charge Nurse in his local community and is the author of Daedalus: a Serial Novel.
