Squills 6/30/25

Welcome to Squills, the official news bulletin of the Young Writers Society!

What will you find here? Tons of interesting news about YWS, including but not limited to: articles about writing, art, and the world of humanities; interviews with YWS members; shameless plugs; link round-ups; and opinionated columns. And where will all of this come from? Take a look at our fantastic creative staff!

If you have feedback on this edition of Squills we'd love to hear your thoughts over at the Squills Fan Club .

CREATIVE STAFF

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Editorial Team
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Liminality
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Literary Reporter
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NadyaStatham
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Staff Chef
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1. WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT ROLEPLAY MONTH
2. REVIEWING SCOOP MAY-JUNE
3. NEW ARRIVALS
4. THE YWS TIME MACHINE: YWS'MORE - FIVE YEARS OF S'MORE MAKING
5. CAMP NOVMO | THIS JULY
6. RPMO MOD INTERVIEW
7. SHAMELESS PLUGS
8. SUBSCRIBERS

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT ROLEPLAY MONTHwritten by DungeonMaster< PM: >

The Roleplay tab has seen a surge in activity over the past few months, especially in the Storybook Sanctuary , and we love to see it! With so many new roleplayers, we realized many of you may have never experienced a Roleplay Month before, or even know what it is. With that in mind, we've put together a quick overview of all things RPMo so you're better prepared for the exciting month ahead.

So, what even is Roleplay Month?
Roleplay Month , commonly referred to as RPMo, takes place every July. It's a month long celebration of the Roleplay Forum, designed to encourage particpation and bring old and new roleplayers together across the site. During RPMo there are many events Roleplay Crew will be hosting, such as the popular Checklist Challenges, DM Dailies, Workshops, Quests, Badges, and more!

I've never roleplayed before. Can I still participate?
Don't worry if you've never joined a roleplay or written collaboratively before. RPMo is the perfect time to start! There will be lots of experienced RPers and moderators to answer any questions you might have. RPMo is all about having fun and trying new things, so whether you want to co-write an epic fantasy or try out a certain character style, there's room for everyone. We'll also be hosting a couple roleplay-centric workshops during the month, a great opportunity for RPers of all experience levels to stretch those writing muscles. Reach out to a RP mod if you have any concerns!

What are DM Dailies?
DM Dailies are daily challenges posted by the DungeonMaster account for each day in July. Most of the time they're quick and easy (and sometimes goofy), but there will be a few loftier challenges sprinkled in there - like starting your own roleplay - which will bring greater rewards. Complete any amount of challenges you wish to earn YWS points!

Do note that each challenge does not need to be completed on the day it is posted. As long as the challenge is completed sometime after the bounty is posted and before the end of July, it counts!

What's the Checklist Challenge?
While DM Dailies offer new quests every day, everything for the Checklist Challnge is known ahead of time. Each difficulty tier offers a list of roleplay tasks you can strive for during the month of July. This year, DungeonMaster is offering something special! If you're brave enough to tackle the Advanced or Completionist Badge, you can find some Buried Treasure!

Anything completed for a DM Daily can also be used to check off something in the Checklist Challenge. Grab a spot in the thread now!

I heard a lot about Workshops. What are those?
Workshops are interactive pad parties focused on a specific topic, usually used on YWS to aid fellow writers! There will be two official RPMo workshops offered this July, hosted by Roleplay Crew: Character Creation 101 and Worldbuilding 101.

Character Creation 101: Character creation tips from DMs, creativity/inspiration tips, character creation Resources and prompts (Non-AI). Open to all of YWS: prose and poetry writers are welcome! This workshop is all about channeling your creativity. You can earn a 'Character Creation Specialist' badge for completing this workshop!

Worldbuilding 101: Worldbuilding prompts, tips, map creation resources, and tips for collaborative worldbuilding. This workshop is open to all of YWS as well, especially prose writers or anyone new to fantastical/original worlds. You can earn a 'Worldbuilding Master' Badge for completing this workshop!

Look out for the dates for these workshops in the RPMo Announcement Thread!

Wow, that's a lot! I'm not sure if I'll have the time to join in on everything.
That's totally fine! Roleplaying on YWS is first and foremost for fun, and it's important that we all keep that in mind when diving into July. Participation will look different for everyone. Our intention with Roleplay Month is to encourage collaborative storytelling with extra challenges and events, but it's not an "all or nothing" type deal. Try to be mindful of not biting off more than you can chew, and communicate with your RPs' DMs if you need to take a step back at any point.

Happy Roleplay Month, YWS, and may the wind be ever at yer sails!

REVIEWING SCOOP MAY-JUNEwritten by Liminality< PM: >

Since May, we’ve had a bunch of fun reviewing events keeping YWSers on our toes! Here are some of them:

@NadyaStatham and @Wolfi ran a new reviewing event, the Baking Review Challenge. YWSers completed review challenges themed after steps in recipes for baking delicious treats. The Chocolate Cake challenges seemed to be the most popular - they involved writing one review on a short story and one review on a novel chapter. Sets of challenges were baked into cakes, croissants, cookies and more, with @Valkyria and @RavenAkuma earning the Master Baker title for completing 6 and 5 recipes respectively. Meanwhile, @Omni, @niteowl and @Wolfi earned the Mini Baker title for completing one recipe each. A hearty congrats to all the bakers!

Later in the month, the May Review Day was a smashing success. Team Purple Prose Eaters competed with Team Mint, and ultimately Team Mint emerged the victor. Both teams collectively wrote 122 reviews! In total we had 33 YWSers reviewing on this day. (Someone even used the word Fahrvergnügen in a review . . . Who exactly, remains a mystery.)

Over the course of June, the Great Team Tortoise Race of 2025 has been steadily crawling on. For those not in the know, this is an annual challenge to write a review a day for every day in June. Three tortoises, @Plume, @vampricone6783 and @daisyletters made it to week three, and as of me writing this (28th June), @Plume and @daisyletters are still making their way to the finish line. Nevertheless, hats off to everyone who attempted the Great Tortoise Race this year! It’s a wonderful YWS tradition and a fearsome feat to pull off.

We also had another exciting new event, the Viral Review Day. This event challenged YWSers to write 1 review each, hoping to spread a small but wide reviewing craze, with an eye-catching poster by @ToastK . We managed to spread the (benign) reviewing epidemic to 24 YWSers. Some even dipped in for a second review!

Thanks so much to everyone for hosting, running and participating in these reviewing events! Reviews make the YWS-world go round, and hopefully we’ll all be motivated to review when we can, even as we move into July.

If you’re looking for a review activity in the meantime, here are some links for you:

Team Hare (club) - a fun counterpart to Team Tortoise.
The Knights of the Green Room - the timeless association for rescuing works with <2 reviews.

NEW ARRIVALS
written by Liminality< PM: >

Take a moment to welcome this month’s newest members to the site!

@Mir0l has already written some reviews and posted a short story.

@pixels has jumped in with some thoughtful reviews and earned their first review star! Go say hi to them on their Welcome Mat thread here.

@lalalucky has been writing detailed reviews and poetry.

@LizzyRose is making a splash on the People’s Tab.

@Croven has been active in short stories and poetry.

@JustMeBeingMe has entered the poetry section of the site with some thoughtful reviews and a poem of their own.

@Viv111 has been writing some poetry reviews and currently has a poem in the Green Room!

@SanaPathan has already earned their first review star. They’ve also been posting chapters of their YA spy novel. Give them a warm welcome on their Welcome Mat post!

THE YWS TIME MACHINE: YWS'MORE - FIVE YEARS OF S'MORE MAKING

written by alliyah < PM: >

As your resident YWS time traveler, I'd like to invite you to jump into the time machine today for a special history feature! Today we're going to look into the origins of the YWS'more Review Template!

So today, many users are fairly familiar with the "YWS'More Review Template" found in the Forums -> Knowledge Base -> YWS -> on page two of @Nate's YWS Critique Sandwich article. Where back exactly five years ago I posted it! And today many have even tried their hand at making their own spin-offs from the sandwich and s'more, but today I thought we'd look at how those all got started!

The "YWS'More" Review Template was actually first inspired by this goofy poll from 2014 started by @Messenger then later resurrected by me in 2020 when I shared it on my wall 6 years later, which @Lib responded to misinterpreting (or re-interpreting) "yws'more" to be about S'Mores instead of the opposite of "yws-less" / "yws'ome"... this commenced in a ridiculous debate over what the terms meant, and what the new YWS-related saying should be, and eventually we did settle on "YWS'more" being the ultimate "YWS" spin-off phrase.

The whole dialogue inspired me to make a spinoff of the Critique Sandwich as I had been describing to new users how to use the critique sandwich with a slight variations from Nate's original version for years, but never really had formalized it into a post. So this seemed like the right time! I posted the new version of the YWS Critique Sandwich Review Template but re-imagined in a S'more version.

Here's the post that started all the s'more conversation:

alliyah wrote:

YWS'ome

... or YWS'derful?

vote here or on your wall for what the new ~cool~ YWS saying should be

Link to original comment

Original Graphic

Modern Graphic

Since then the s'more graphic has gotten an upgrade, as well as the spelling of "marshamallows" standardized to "marshmallows," and it also made an appearance in a scavenger hunt / search for Tuddy the YWS pig!

Why the S'More Works

There are a lot of opinions about reviewing out there and what a "good" review is probably has as many opinions as there are YWSers - one reasons I think the S'more method is a good starting place, is it actually encourages engagement the interpretive element of a review (the top graham cracker) - I find with poetry, so many people miss the "interpretive" aspect of the poem and then it can feel like they are talking around the piece, instead of talking about the piece or actually engaging with it. By starting with an interpretation, I think the reviewer necessarily has to begin their review from a point of understanding rather than from a point of critique or deconstruction of a piece, and at least to me, that is a more fruitful point to begin with!

If you're curious about knowing more about those review layers of the Review S'More you might enjoying my expanded version from a 2023 Squills Article.

CAMP NOVMO | THIS JULY

written by alliyah < PM: >

If you're new to YWS, you've probably started to wonder about all the acronyms people have been throwing around lately! Here's a few you might have seen on the people tab this last week:

YWS -> Young Writers Society
RPMo -> Roleplay Month
Camp NovMo -> Camp Novel Writing Month
FM -> Featured Member

Wooo! So now that we've got that all figured out! Let's dig into "Camp NovMo!" Camp NovMo is the slightly more chill / loose version of what has formally been known as "NaNoWriMo" or National Novel Writing Month, on YWS we now just celebrate this pursuit as "NovMo" as we are in no way officially affiliated with the "NaNoWriMo" community. That being said we have many novelists that like to take on big writing challenges throughout the year to make a dent in their novel writing!



The traditional goal is 50,000 words - however in the more loose version in July, the goals are really up to you! As General Lit Mod @NadyaStatham said in the Information Thread "the aim of Camp NovMo is up to youː you set your own prose writing goal, and you work to achieve it."

So how do you get involved?

If any of the above sounds interesting to you, take a quick look over at the Information Thread (also found under "Special Events" -> NovMo -> Camp NovMo in the Forums section). And then browse through a few threads and consider making your own to keep track of your project and let folks know what your goals are. As you update your thread with your progress you can check in to see how other folks are doing and cheer them on too!

Not sure where to start?

One fun way to tackle your writing challenges are through a "Word Crawl" - according to @Carlito who is our YWS Word Crawl Queen and Cheerleader of all things NovMo - "Word crawls are great when you're struggling with motivation or when you need to change up your writing routine. They can be short or long, with a little story or without, but they all have short writing challenges designed to keep you writing and advance that word count! " You can find some Word Crawl options to participate in the thread that Carlito has put together right here !

Enjoy the month ahead, and happy writing!

RPMO MOD INTERVIEW

written by alliyah < PM: >

Roleplay Month is just around the corner! Here's some information about this upcoming event taking place this July from @winterwolf0100.

Squills: What exactly is RPMo for those that are completely new to this?

winterwolf0100: RP Month is a month-long event where RP moderators run fun events and challenges to encourage roleplay activity! It's low-pressure, loads of fun, and gives unique opportunities to meet new people and earn points!

S: How many years have you participated in RPmo and what's been your favorite aspect?

w: I've participated in RPmo every July since I joined the site in 2019, so I guess that makes this my 7th year, which is crazy! My favorite aspect is how it brings the community together. It's a time when lots of people put aside time to write with other cool writers, so there are tons of opportunities for collaboration and hanging out with friends.

S: That's a lot of years! Advice for those brandnew to RP-ing on how to get started?

w: Roleplaying can seem super intimidating if you're first starting out, but my number one piece of advice would be to just go for it! Everyone is here to have fun, and is happy to answer any questions you might have, so don't hesitate to reach out! If you like writing novels on your own, then Storybook Sanctuary might be where you want to hang out, and if you like writing shorter pieces, then you might want to start in Roleplay Realm or Roleplay Hollow.

S: Great points! Any advice for those who've been RP-ing for a while but want to enhance their skills even more?

w: If you're looking to level up in roleplaying, the best way to do that is to keep doing it! Collaborating with other writers is the most important part. Write with people who are better than you and learn from them. Ask questions about how they achieve things you struggle with, or ask for advice on how to write that one scene you've been having a hard time with. Push yourself out of your comfort zone by exploring genres you don't usually write in, or trying to write a different type of character than you're used to. That's how you grow!

S: You've been roleplaying for a lot of years! What characters do you tend towards when RP-ing?

w: I try to make sure that each of my characters in every roleplay is different, so generally, I end up making the character that seems the most needed in the roleplay. I look at the types of characters everyone else has made, and I fill in the gaps to try to round out the team! If we're talking purely just what characters I gravitate towards, I love a good "I know a guy" character who brings nothing to the table except connections. I think they're hilarious, and extremely fun to write.

S: Interesting! What's been some learnings you've picked up from being involved in collaborative writing?

w: Roleplaying on YWS has helped me grow immensely as a writer, specifically because it teaches you how to collaborate with others from a creative standpoint. It helps you learn how to write when you can't compromise a character's personality for the plotline. Even if it would be easier if a character said one thing, if it's out of character and the writer says they wouldn't say it, then you have to figure out another way to make the scene go where you want! That creative problem-solving in plotting and guiding the narrative is probably the biggest lesson I've learned from getting to work with so many talented writers.

S: That's wonderful! Before we go, anything else you wanna say or share?

w: RPMo is such a fun event, and it's NOT just for old pros! Maybe you've never tried roleplaying, or it makes you a bit anxious. That's completely okay. There are so many people here to help, and we want everyone to have a good time, so if you're having any problems or you have questions, please ask! My PMs are always open, and my wall! I'm happy to chat about anything you have questions on :]

SHAMELESS PLUGS

written by SquillsBot < PM: >

RPMO - THIS JULY

More Information Here: Roleplay Month 2025

CAMP NOVMO - THIS JULY

More Information Here: Info Thread: Camp NovMo July 2025

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