What Is A Twitter Chat?
A Twitter chat is when you jump online at a certain time (either once a week for roughly an hour, or once a day) and join a conversation using a hashtag.
There are heaps of chats out there to choose from for writers (and I’ve included a list below to help you get started.)
How it works is that you either turn up once a week at the set time and answer the questions with the group, or you pop in once a day to answer a daily prompt- depending on the type of chat and whether it’s a ‘chat’ or a ‘game’.
Why Should I Participate?
Twitter chats are a great way to build your Twitter presence, connect with other writers, and cultivate some real, genuinely engaged relationships.
It’s definitely worthwhile participating in at least one chat (if not two or three)-so it’s really just a matter of finding a chat that (a) takes place at a time suiting your schedule, and (b) you actually enjoy turning up to participate in.
How Do I Find New Chats?
There are two ways that work best- the first one being that you ask people. Just put out a tweet and ask for recommendations. You can also check people’s bios. If they host a chat of their own, they’ll usually mention it, and if they might even mention a chat they participate in regularly.
The other way to do it is to follow Free Writing Events on Twitter-who frequently post about a ton of chats, the weekly prompts and dates, to help you keep up and find new chats.
Here’s Eight Places To Start:
1) #StorySocial, hosted by Kristen Kieffer
Story Social is a weekly Twitter chat for writers to chat about all things writing! It runs every Wednesday at 9pm ET.
2) #AuthorConfession, hosted by J. M. Sullivan & Jessica Julien
Author confession is a monthly Twitter game. The hosts will post a board each month filled with prompts for you to use, and you post your responses daily.
3) #RWChat, hosted by Kimberly Bell, Alexis Daria, Robin Lovett & C. L. Polk
Romance Writers Chat is a chat for romance writers to chat about writing romance. It runs every Sunday at 7pm EST.
4) #Thursday Aesthetic, hosted by Jessica James
Thursday Aesthetic is a visual Twitter game where writers post a mood board of their WIP or book using the given prompt each week.
5) #CharacterTherapy, hosted by Vivyan Lynne
Character therapy is a fun, ‘character’ based Twitter chat where you show up as a book character and answer the questions from your character’s perspective.
6) #BookshelfBuzz, hosted by Leslie Hauser
Bookshelf Buzz is a fun, book based game where you can chat about all of your favourite reads using the daily prompts (similar to #AuthorConfession). This one is a good fit for those with book blogs or BookTube channels.
7) #WIPTruthorDare, hosted by Allie May
WIP Truth Or Dare is a daily Twitter chat game (like #AuthorConfession) where you answer a daily prompt, but you get to pick either truth or dare each day.
8) #MuseMon, hosted by Laura Tatum
Muse Monday is a weekly Twitter chat where you can post a line of prose from your WIP that is inspired by, or reflects the chosen prompt for the week. The prompt is always inspired from a song.
Written by Pagan Malcolm
Pagan is a copywriter and business coach helping writers understand the business side of publishing so that they can become serious authors.
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