Young Writers Society

I started posting my work recently on several sites at once. Obviously YWS was quickly found to be the best of the lot, no surprise there. But I wasn't sure to begin with, because I wondered if it was just going to be teenage writing. Obviously I was wrong in this too.

However, just for little more than curiosity, I was wondering on the title. How young are people expected to be? Is it unlikely to get writers older, like in their thirties, forties, perhaps older? Are there older members here? Am I even pushing the upper limit at 25? I've found myself, while reviewing, going 'oh, I noticed you are 17, this makes it even more impressive', 'oh, you are 17, this is -', 'oh you are 17...' and now I've realised that pretty much everyone is 17 or younger and I'm feeling a bit old to be here. And I do believe I may be getting older. I think.

I'm not exactly sure why this site gears towards younger people. It seems a great site for all ages. I wonder if it alienates older writers/readers at all?

That's all!

i may be wrong, but i believe "young" refers to the age of one's writing career, as this site is geared toward blooming writers looking for guidance. i doubt Nate will turn anyone away who's above a certain age, although in the age distribution thread i noticed that i'm older than basically everyone that posted in it. guess the writing bug hit me late.

Yeah I suppose so. I checked out that age thread - interesting. While I'll continue to post all I do here - it is a great site in numerous ways, even down to the layout - I'm starting to realise it might not be the best place if I want to draw in a big adult audience (I hope that doesn't sound patronising), let alone draw the attention of any agents (ha, a dream!). I didn't think everyone would be so much younger than me! I wish there was a site as well-designed and kept as this one that had a greater proportion of older readers, though.

Yeah, I'm 23 now so I feel kind of ancient sometimes. I first joined when I was 14 and the site was a couple weeks old, so I've been on both ends of this.

The site was originally geared for those 13 to 25. It was inspired by the fall of another site for teen writers, so that's why it was geared towards that. Eventually the "13 to 25" slogan was dropped, but most of the site is in that range.

Nate has in the past tried to start a similar site geared toward adult writers, but it never took off. It might happen again someday, but I wouldn't hold your breath.

Side note: try to avoid saying things like "oh, this is good for your age" in a review. It feels patronizing. I've read much younger writers that are incredible, and older ones who aren't. Age is not an indicator of talent.

Yeah I'm not gonna say that kind of thing anymore. I never phrased it like that anyway. It was more, some way through the review, 'I just noticed you're 15. I'm even more impressed. I never managed to write as well as that at your age.' But that's probably patronising too. I'll leave it out, especially considering pretty much everyone is younger than me!

How old is Nate? I think few adult writers use these kind of things, unfortunately.

30

There's no upper age limit for YWS, and we've had members in the past who were in their mid-30s. Initially, I started the site primarily with younger writers in mind who were in the 13-21 age bracket. Yet as the site grew and the members got older, that was changed to 13-25 and now it's 13+. Obviously, young writers are still the main focus, but the fastest growing demographic on the site is probably those in their 20s.

Nonetheless, if you're looking to build an adult audience, YWS is probably not the best site to go about doing that. The site simply isn't big enough, and the average age of the members is still 17-18. As far as alternatives go, check out www.absolutewrite.com, www.writingforums.org, or www.scribophile.com. Out of these, Absolute Writer is probably the best: large, active, and although the design is awful, it has everything you need.

I still like YWS more than any of these, but I'm biased!

Regarding a site oriented more toward adult writers, I've tried it a few times, but it never did well. The problem I always ran into was a general lack of interest. But given that the average age of the YWS community is steadily creeping upwards, I've sometimes thought about just rebranding YWS! That is, just change the name to something like The Writers Society. But, I don't think that would go over well!

I've seen writers on here as young as ten or eleven. And then some in their mid-twenties.

Honestly I think that YWS is made up of very mature and adult teenagers/tweens. So even though it's not an "adult audience," per se, some of the writers on here read adult books and, in my opinion, would be able to easily stand in for an adult audience.

I myself am fourteen but read mostly (about 95%) adult novels with darker themes. And a good deal of people I've met on here are the same. So, what I'm trying to say is, even though they may not be the exact age of what you're looking for, they're still in something of the same league as the adults.

I think you'll be fine. Don't get caught up in the age thing if you like the site. There's plenty of other "old-timers" (in their twenties) that are very dedicated to YWS.

Nate - pleasure to make your acquaintance. It's great what you've done with this. I would be surprised if people didn't like a simple rebrand (no other changes), but who knows. I'd of thought a greater variety of ages would allow for a greater range of criticism, advice and expertise, with writers who have honed their craft for decades helping the youngbloods (including me). Saying that, I know age is no measure and everyone can help everyone, but that doesn't mean you can't get different advice and interaction with a 50 year old long-time author to a 16 year old one.

Thanks for the site links, I'll check them out! Oddly none of them really came up when I searched for suitable writing sites. Instead I came up with, and have posted to, things like webook, worthyofpublishing, writerscafe, wattpad (which won't let an 18+ work be available to the public), and storywrite (which I deleted immediately as it censored with asterisks most of my story). Then there are all those sites that want to charge you to submit your work.

Lucrezia - thanks for the reply. I get your point, and I agree with you to some extent. Certainly I'd have made the very same case if our positions had been reversed. But there's adult, and there's adult. I mean, I'm uncomfortable thinking of some of my work being read by young readers. Works of graphic sexuality and violence are perhaps unsuited to a teenage crowd (not always, but often).

That said, I'm not really complaining, I just feel like a young person joining something and suddenly being one of the oldest members right off the bat. I'll keep posting.

It's possible my intentions are different to many people here too. Thanks to my ego (hey what writer doesn't have one!) I post parts of a book I've already written for it to gain a wider audience, rather than write new things to be helped with in order to build my skills. I don't know if that makes this the wrong site for me, or if that's cool too.

Absolute Write (you're right, horrible design!) and Writingforums don't seem to let you submit work, just be both forums to talk about things, which isn't really what I'm interested in. But scribophile looks great! Getting set up on it now.

Edit: Actually no, it's already not really working out for me like YWS... dammit! You guys have the best model

I think I'm going to live here... for the rest of my life ( there's nothing you can do about it! Hopefully ).

I second that^ @Holysocks *hopefully*

SetSytes wrote:Absolute Write (you're right, horrible design!) and Writingforums don't seem to let you submit work, just be both forums to talk about things, which isn't really what I'm interested in. But scribophile looks great! Getting set up on it now.

Edit: Actually no, it's already not really working out for me like YWS... dammit! You guys have the best model

Haha, thanks!

Scribophile has a great design, but the owner has set up this weird paid membership structure that I don't like.

The only other site I can think of is http://www.critiquecircle.com/, but it has its own quirks as well. It is a neat site though, and the concept of requiring points to post new literary works on YWS actually comes from Critique Circle.

Personally, I really miss the way www.writing.com used to work. You could post as many works as you wanted, and it had a fantastic community. But in about 2002 or 2003, it started using a subscription model that was pretty benign at first but quickly became draconian. If I'm not mistaken, these days you don't even have ads removed if you sign up with their lowest tier -- you just get to post a few more works.

Hi! I'm 25 and still hanging around here

23 year old here!! *waves* Coming from the era of the smurfs, captain caveman and when Polly pocket was actually no bigger than your thumb nail! Not anymore!!

I'm not sure. I'm just 10. I'm a yws baby.