Young Writers Society

I'm away for ONE day and I miss EVERYTHING!!!
I have some serious catching up to do ...

Yeah as soon as Bae leaves, Ig posts xD

Awhs. Cute, Bae.

Tehe yeah
Always gotta have a romantic couple!! X3

Wait, did the plane explode or not? I thought it did?

The plane exploded, but as far as I understand from the post, at least part of the frame is still intact.


Merry Christmas, everyone! You guys are amazing. The plot is steaming along. Your character interactions and developments deserve cookies. Lots of cookies. And Christmas pudding. But you have to watch the reality of your posts!

REALITY CHECK:

I don't know if any of you have ever made green wood bows, but it can take most of a day to make a bow that shoots straight, and that is with decent tools. Stripping, sharpening and fletching a single arrow can take more than an hour. Even then, your shots are often of little danger to small animals, especially when coming off a stretchy string such as cloth. After about 50 draws the wood loses its elasticity and the bow becomes near useless, which is also about how long it takes you to get used to the way it pulls to the right or tends to shoot into the sky when you're not concentrating.

Stitching together skins creates fine holes which usually render them permeable to water. The wild standard for a canteen is most often an intact bladder, large, seamless skin, ostrich egg or coconut.

Creating anything without rope, decent tools or quality dry wood is near torture. Everything takes at least three times as long as usual. Simply finding the right materials and getting them back to base can feel like suffering a thousand deaths. Don't downplay the difficulty of getting anything done on this confounded island!

A wooden spear, no matter how well thrown or made at this stage, will not go through a boar. It quite possibly won't even stick inside it. (If you can even get near one in the first place!) Hunting is harder than it looks, especially without the resources of trappers and trackers.

Shortly, more ingenuity, less facility. Next time you need a knife, don't just find one, make one. If you are not having indigestion, suffering, in pain, or getting frustrated with your utter lack of resources, you are doing something wrong.

But for your amazing work, a big fat Thank you is in order!


On another note, where would you guys like this to go? I was thinking in the lines of, through trial and error, building a little civilization there and finally being discovered by a passing ship, but so late in the proceedings that everyone is actually quite well-settled. I'm not sure about going home, though. We could also do a split, with some people going off on a little raft, finding mainland and getting help to find the others. Ideas, thoughts?

Ok so I do know how make bows and knifes so maybe P.J. could teach the group a thing or too. Also I do this the raft idea is a good option. Maybe a group could go out and be immediately washed back in or something like that. Just an idea:)

I just fixed 'Ezzie | Jungle' .. I feel stupid, now. =_=

Don't worry, @PenAndSword! It's all chilled and you don't have to fix anything.
And there's no call for feeling stupid. Don't you dare.

@TinyJarStoredDreams, are you thinking flint-knapping and reusing bits of exploded plane? We'll probably need broad arrowheads and spear-tips too if we want to stabilize hunting as a food source. Lots of work for all!
I like the washing back idea. It's a horrible survival setback and will add some interesting character dynamics.

I also think we should perhaps start trapping and getting creative with food? Woodlice and snails are fair game when the boar is finished off. (I've tried woodlice, and they're actually quite alright once you can get over the texture; they taste a little like fish.) And sea greens are always available—kelp, sea lettuce, purple laver etc.

And they should have hunting and fishing regulations, like, no excessive hunting, only hunt in a specific area, etc.
Also, what will the vegetarians eat? I think one of the characters is one..?
Would they just eat berries and sea greens?

I think that if any one was a vegetarian they would go back to meat quickly after being stranded. Without the protein our bodies are practically useless. In reality, if someone was stranded and a vegetarian, I'm sure they would at first try to go meat-free but within a week or two their bodies would be depleted - we aren't made to live off of just greens.

As for the bow and arrows and other stuff being made quickly: I actually have two friends from Uganda. I met them two years ago, and to say the least they had it really hard in Uganda and had to fight every day to live. I've watched them in action: if you know what you're doing it's easy to make things quickly. Just a side note

And MERRY CHRISTMAS everyone!

See, that's what I was thinking, but I wasn't sure. I don't know what I would do if I got stranded on an island... Yano, I'm a vegetarian. But I suppose that works. ^^
I really don't know that much about survival when I think about it...

Just joined, submitted a character. It's okay if I take over Damien, right?

Yeah, I had debated that, Pen. But I think when it comes down to it, when you're fighting for food and malnourished and starving, human instinct would take over and you would have to eat meat. Ya know? I mean, we luckily live in a society where we can be vegetarian because we van substitute things and take supplements, but I've met people from various parts of the world who find it ludicrous hahaha

Perfect! I skimmed over the posts last night and all looks good so far. Once I get home I'll do a post that should bring me up to speed with everyone else. Since Cassie is sick, whoever's on the beach can just acknowledge her but not have her get too involved with what's going on for right now. Once I come back, she'll get better/start exploring.