I Got Banned From Writing Battle, and All I Got Was This Lousy Blog Post

Way back in March of this year, I called Writing Battle one of the “Things I Loved“. Welp, as of today (technically, Wednesday, August 21), I am permanently banned from ever participating again.

Here’s what the email said:

“Hello,

This email is to let you know that your story has been removed from the Solstice Raven Battle, your account has been removed from the platform and all outstanding Battles (including Solstice Raven) will be refunded.

We do not wish to have you as a customer, now or in the future.

Sincerely,

WRITING BATTLE”

I’m gonna repeat this part because it took my breath away at what a bad move it was:

“We do not wish to have you as a customer, now or in the future.”

Real mature move, there, Writing Battle

Jacki, WTF Did You Do?!

That is what I am sure you must be wondering. I honestly kind of am, too. Well, here is what I did:

I wrote a story.

See? I have always walked the line of being a goody two-shoes. It makes me physically uncomfortable to break rules, and I feel like it is obvious on my face and in my body posture when I do it. So, yeah, it’s not something I do on the regs.

And I don’t think I did this time either. I will explain.

Here is how Writing Battle works. I pulled this directly from its “Things I Loved Entry” from March, so you can see just how into this I was at the beginning. Any additions from my brain today are italicized:

• I paid my money.
  • This ranges from 20-23 bucks, depending on when you sign up.
• I waited until the start date.
  • August 6
• I received a:
  • Genre
    • Fish Out of Water
  • Character
    • Injured Soldier
  • Object
    • Raft
• I had a few days to “reroll” and choose something else if I didn’t like my topics.
• I didn’t love my genre, but I stuck with it as a challenge to myself.
  • (this was for my first battle)
  • I loved my genre this time.
• I wrote a 1000-word story.
  • 500 words during the battle in question.
• I turned it in.
• I got two stories to:
  • read
  • critique
  • and choose a winner
• This happened 4 times (I think; I lost count).
  • I only made it through two duels before getting banned.
  • Was looking forward to the rest of them.
• Now we await the winners.
  • Not me, because I got banned!!!

The Writing Battle Community

One of the most magical things about Writing Battle, the thing that set it apart from the many other writing competitions out there, was the forums and the debrief period. I was gonna take some time to explain what made them so magical, but I’ll just let the WB website tell you itself:

The forums were a place where writers could talk about the competition, other writing they were working on, and call out other excellent stories they’d read in the debrief process. It was supportive and loving for the most part and a really happy, human place to be.

Notice I am using the past tense here. That is because, recently, those in charge of Writing Battle completely shut down the forum. Now, I am not all up in stuff like I used to be, so I have mostly been watching this implosion from the sidelines. Here is a recap of what is happening based on my limited knowledge:

• First, people started getting upset about moderation.
  • Posts criticizing Writing Battle or questioning decisions were allegedly being deleted or shut down, and some users were suspended.
    • That got people asking, Um…are we allowed to talk about this?
• Then people started getting banned.
  • According to longtime participants, the bans went from being about what happened on the Writing Battle site to allegedly including criticism happening elsewhere, too.
• And then the forums disappeared.
  • Writing Battle says the forum was “broken up” and its functions moved into other areas of the site.
  • Former participants, however, see the shutdown as the final chapter in a much bigger fight over censorship, moderation, and free expression.

My Final Battle

Which brings us to the final battle I participated in. When I got my prompts, I initially planned something more convoluted… a post-apocalyptic reality show where an injured soldier had to live on a raft with some 20-somethings, and the last one on the raft was the winner. But THEN! An actual magical fish would come out of the water and show them all a secret underwater world they could live in that hadn’t been ravaged by humanity.

But it didn’t feel right. I turned it over in my head for a while. Then I thought about Writing Battle as a whole. Then I went to read some more ‘Dungeon Crawler Carl‘.

The more I thought about the censorship on the forums, the angrier I got. Writing is supposed to be about freedom of expression, not suppressing human voices. And that’s what I felt was happening here.

Then I had an idea. So I wrote a story about it. Wanna read it? Here it goes.

I feel like Frank R. is the same main character from my original idea, but I think he’s a more relatable fish-out-of-water in this story. And there’s a huge sense of satisfaction I feel every time I read the end of this piece. Sure, it’s very in-your-face and kind of obvious, but like Boots Riley repeatedly showed us in ‘I Love Boosters’… now is not the time for nuance.

So I did not nuance one bit.

When I finished this story, I walked upstairs and told Mickey, “There’s a chance I might get banned for this story.” I didn’t say it with embarrassment, though; I said it with pride. Of all the stories I’d written for Writing Battle, it was my favorite. I felt a love for Frank R. that I didn’t feel for previous characters.

The fact that Frank has clear echoes of Mick Rory from ‘Legends of Tomorrow’ probably helped that a bit.

I held my breath until the first duel, certain I would get an email telling me my story was inappropriate and could not be judged. But I didn’t.

Then the second duel passed, and my story was still safe. So, I breathed a little easier.

The Ban-ening

When I came home from ceramics class on the day of the third duel, I opened my email to read Mickey an email about an upcoming trip. Before I could even get that email open, I saw an email from Writing Battle with this Subject Line:

Account Status: (user ID [my user id])

“I got banned from Writing Battle!!!” I laughed to Mickey, and then I read him the email.

Then immediately, I texted D (my adult daughter, if you do not know me personally), who got me started in the Writing Battle. I will not share it here, but her response came in all caps. She told me of other people who were banned for similar stories. Some much more subtle (and better-written) than mine!

And again, here’s the text of the email so you can WTF it with me again without having to scroll back to the top:

Hello,

This email is to let you know that your story has been removed from the Solstice Raven Battle, your account has been removed from the platform and all outstanding Battles (including Solstice Raven) will be refunded.

We do not wish to have you as a customer, now or in the future.

Sincerely,

WRITING BATTLE

No info on why I’m banned… just the same form letter that was sent to all of us rebels.

Those aren’t the only people getting banned either. I’m learning that those who voted for (and provided positive feedback for) the “rebel” stories are also getting banned. Folks with credit card issues unrelated to anything.

The ban hammer came down strong on us. Like, instead of maybe doing a deep dive inside themselves and wondering “Am I in the right here?” the organizers just said, “Nah, we’re good. We don’t need the talented writers anymore. Not if they speak up in the face of injustices”

I went over the rules with a fine-toothed comb, and found nothing that could disqualify me.

• I hit my word count.
• I stayed anonymous.
• I didn’t add content warnings, because there wasn’t any content worth warning.
  • This was one of the things I loved about Writing Battle.
    • “If content in your story contains subject matter that other entrants may be sensitive to, a content warning (CW) should be used. There are content warnings available to use on the platform. An admin may add a content warning at any time.”
    • This made me feel like the organizers actually cared about the mental health of their users.
• I only entered once.
• I didn’t use AI.
  • I mean, duh.
  • It’s a writing competition.
  • Not a robot battle.
• I didn’t “glorify racism or sexism, or celebrate the discrimination against LGBTQ+ individuals or other marginalized groups.”
  • I have heard of other writers reporting stories that DO “glorify racism or sexism, or celebrate the discrimination against LGBTQ+ individuals or other marginalized groups.”
  • The organizers didn’t remove those stories, though.
  • Or ban those writers.

There is, however, this fun little addition to the rules:

Contest Changes – WB has the right to change the Contest rules at WB’s own discretion
in the interest of a fair competition. It is the responsibility of each Entrant to check for
changes to the Official Rules and ensure that he or she checks all email communications
from WB for any and all Contest Changes.

So maybe that’s what happened here? IDK, I’m checking for changes to the Official Rules, and I still don’t see what I did wrong.

So I Replied to the Email

I was really looking forward to receiving my peer feedback on this story, so I wanted to get some answers. So I replied to the curt form email I received. I kept it real simple and real true. Here’s what I said:

Hi.

Could you please tell me what I did wrong? I am autistic and sometimes have difficulty with the nuances of rules.

Thank you,

Jacki

Cause, like, I didn’t break any rules, but I guess I did hurt someone’s feelings?!

I sent this email 9 days ago. I still haven’t received a reply. I did, however, receive a $20 refund from the battle I got banned from. I didn’t get the peer feedback from the two duels the story made it through, either. In fact

Also, I still have outstanding professional feedback from my previous battle. I know where I placed, but I never received the professional feedback I paid for. The professional feedback that could help me shape that story from something I was kind of “meh” on to something that might be publishable one day.

While I wait for my reply to that email, I’ve been spinning around the idea in my brain to start a writing contest of my own. I don’t want it to be, like, normal prose or stories. I’m thinking something with a travel angle… small town vibes in particular. One of my clients asked me to create something similar for their employees, so I think I’ll start there and see how it goes. Watch this space, I guess.

I don’t expect a reply, though. When people do things wrong, they tend to not want any documentation.