Hey

Hello people of YWS.

I'm kind of new here... yah i'm sure you probably realised this.
I'm just trying to break the ice really. I hope to start posting up some of my chapters and such and i do love reading what other people have written. i believe i'm fairly alright at reviewing although i'm still unsure of how this website works. so yes. Nice to meet you.

Welcome The.Dreamwalker.
Just somethings you might want to know, check out the rules forum, I am sure someone will post the link up here and before you can post anything you have to at least review twice for other peoples stories then you can put up you own.
I hope to see you in the forums, and let me reasure you that people are nice here and you don't have to worry what other people think. People will surely help you with your writing if you need help.
YWS is fun.
Don't get nervous, because there is nothing to be nervous about.
~Incognitio Temptation.

Hi and welcome! I'm Stori, as you can see, but everyone calls me Kite. There are just two rules you should remember:

1. Post two reviews for every piece. That means chapters, songs, and entries in Advanced Critiques.

2. Refrain from using cat-speak. Dont talk lik dis, dood.

Anyway, we're all glad to see you. Hope to see your work soon!

Thank you so much. I amvery grateful for your kind words and i hope to learn a lot about my own style of writing and everyone elses.

hey.

welcome to the family.

what type of genre to do you?

if you need anything, feel free to pm me.

I really love the fantasy genre but I'm mostly a romantic when it comes to writing. I really want to go into different styles but prodominantly i am a romance writer.

Thank you for asking.

The.Dreamwalker wrote:I really love the fantasy genre but I'm mostly a romantic when it comes to writing. I really want to go into different styles but prodominantly i am a romance writer.

Thank you for asking.

no problem. i am a romance writer too.

Hello Dreamwalker, and welcome to the Young Writers Society. My name is Andy and I'm one of the instructors on the site. What does this mean you may ask? Well pretty much, I'm your slave on YWS lol. If you need a higher level critique from someone, be sure to give me a ring as that's pretty much my job on YWS. I'll come so fast, I'll make Super Man look like a total slow poke lol.

Anyways, if you really want to help break the ice, I highly suggest that you help other authors out by critiquing their work. Critiquing work is a good way to not only learn off the author's pros and cons, but to learn more about that person through their style, characters and the themes/ideas they portray.

It's alright if you are new to critiquing, it takes a while to learn how to critique efficiently and effectively. You should had seen some of the critiques that I did when I first joined the site, they were horrible lol. Here's some advice: Do not address trivial issues and mistakes in the piece (eg: grammar, spelling) unless you have to. Rather, focus on the story as a whole. What do I mean by that? Simple:

-Dialogue
-Characters
-Setting
-Style
-Themes/ideas
-Originality
-Accuracy and/or depth of the society/culture that the author is portraying

When reviewing, consider the following elements and ask yourself if they are realistic or convincing for you. If they are not, you have to go back and try to elaborate/explain as to why that is so. Do not type in something like "This is cliche". You have to give a good reason as to why that is so. Also, when reviewing, do not look at other's reviews as it will tend to bias your review in some way or form. Oh yeah, do not congratulate the author just to make them feel good. Give your honest opinion of their work, but do not go overboard and insult them. Give praise to authors where it's deserved.

It's also nice to know that you like fantasy. I'll let you in on a secret...I like fantasy too. "high fives". I think I like fantasy because it's quite a challenge to make the implausible plausible and to develop your own society (I personally think our world is pretty boring lol). But if you haven't noticed, lately, there is quite a lot of poorly written fantasy pieces on the fantasy forum. One of the reasons for that is because there's no actual logic in the writing, isn't tailored for a specific purpose or target audience and it "tells" rather than "shows". With any piece of writing (especially fantasy and science fiction), things have to happen for a particular reason or purpose. Without it, anything can happen in your fantasy. And if anything can happen, then what's the point of reading it? Why not have all the conflicts in the novel resolved by one single spell?

Lastly, I cannot stress this enough, but please be honest with your writing. Some of the authors on the site worry too much about being fancy. As a result, their story often ends up being convoluted and mangled (and at times even inaccurate). You want the audience to be able to relate with what's happening, nto to be repulsed by it.

Anyways, that's all I have to say for now. Remember, if you need anything critiqued by me, give me a ring. I'm there to help.

Good luck, and enjoy your stay on the site.

Andy.

Hi The. Dreamwalker. I'm alwaysawriter but you can call me any varation of the name or Kat. Like Andy, I'm also an Instructor. Andy is right about everything he said so I'll just go and talk about other things.

Everyone here is extremely nice and friendly. You may feel a bit left out that everyone knows each other and everything but don't worry; you soon will too. It's important to become active when you first join, though, because it'll make it easier; it took me about a month before I came around and posted after I joined and even though everyone was nice, it was still hard. Gah, I don't mean to make us sound scary and everything; we're not. I've made a few friends here that I probably couldn't live without now because we talk so often and about tons of things. I hope it becomes that way for you.

Another thing about critiques: Don't take the reviews you get so personally as to that it makes you feel bad. Reviews are meant to help you, not hurt you, and there are some harsh critiquers out there. I'm normally not one of them so if you ever post stuff other than fantasy (that's Andy's area right there; I don't know much about it), just send me a private message or sign my guestbook and I'll gladly help you out.

More good things about YWS: We like to have fun too! We have usergroups, or UGs, which are basically clubs within YWS. They can be found here (http://www.youngwriterssociety.com/clubs.php) and there's everything from Anime to character development to cartoons. There's two fantasy usergroups too so be sure to check them out! To join, just click on the name and right next to the picture, there's a button that says Join Group. Click on that and, unless it's a group that you have to request membership (there are a very few of those), you're in! Just press Return to Group Information and say hello.

Our Randomness forum (and usergroups) are great fun too. They get rather addictive, though, so watch out.

Here are some tips that may help you out around here:

For the codes, be sure to press the button twice; before and after the word (or words) you want to bold/italize/underline/whatever. As long as it looks like this (random example) [e]word[/e], you're good. Make sure that there's this / thing at the part I showed you, otherwise it won't work.

Review, review, review! People who have a lot of reviews get looked up highly upon from others or at least I look at those, like Andy, who have over 500 and think "Wow!" You're somewhat more likely to get reviews for you own stuff if you review others as well and don't forget, there's no shame in begging for reviews! We have an entire forum for that under the Lounge (http://www.youngwriterssociety.com/forum188.html).

Be friendly, nice, and don't use chatspeak. That's the easiest way to get along with people.

Anyway, welcome to YWS, and have fun!

Oh, one more thing! We have a mentor program here. Not many people know about it or at least they don't use it, but it's there! Basically, a mentor takes a new member under their wing for a one month period, answers all of their questions, and reviews all of their work.

I'll be more than glad to help if you have any problems; just pm me and I'll respond as soon as possible.

I hope I didn't scare you in the beginning; as you may notice, I tend to ramble.

Have fun and I hope to see you around!

-alwaysawriter

Hi there, Dreamwalker!

Welcome to the greatest site on the web! It's so good you have found your way here. Have you been writing long? Well, I can't really say I'm good with fantasy. I prefer to read other genres, and I'm almost certain I couldn't write proper fantasy. I've tried, though. With no success, haha. Although it might be just because it was about three years ago or something like that. But yeah, I'm more of a poetry, romance and other fiction supporter.

Haha, Squall and alwaysawriter have covered basically everything there is to cover, so that leaves me unoccupied. =) But I can always chat about random meaningless things. Like... I'm really bad at buying Christmas presents. I noticed that today. I was Christmas shopping for two to three hours and all I got was a box of chocolates, a candy bar, two big chocolate bars and a packet of green tea. I really lack imagination there. But it's so difficult! Though I'm planning to make earrings for my friends, but that's basically it. Chocolate and earrings. Woohoo. [/useless ramble]

I really hope you enjoy your time here, but I don't think I have to worry about that. I got hooked the day I joined, so...

If you have questions, need a review or just want to talk, I'm just one PM away!

See you around,

Demeter xxx

(or Demi, Dem, Meter, etc.)

*sits in Dreamwalker's lap*

We all enjoy cuddling here on YWS -- or maybe I just like sitting in laps? Have fun with that one guys.

It appears everyone has given you the low-down on the rules and so forth, which personally, I tend to side-step when I greet members. I'm here to welcome you to YWS, not shower you with regulations and so forth, right? Exactly. I knew you'd see it my way.

I like the username you've chose for YWS. Dreamwalker, to me, gives me thoughts of stepping to a world yet not known to man, such as Fantasy, and I absolutely adore fantasy, though I don't have much experience writing it sadly enough. As for me, I seem to have a horde of nicknames on YWS because of my old name before I changed it, which was "fishr." I believe I was once called, fishface? Someone would have to clarify, hehe. You'll, I'm afraid, be exposed to my list of nicknames, my geekdon as I'm a history buff and incoherant rambling at some point in time, especially in the chat room. In the chat room, I know no bounderies... Muwahahaha....

Greetings anf good tidings to your new family at YWS.

Cheers!
Jess

*The.Dreamwalker

Wow. I am late with my hellos. Never mind that...

You have one more person that wants to say hi to you.

Hi!!

I wish you Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas!!

*Merry

Heeyyyyyy, dreamy, welcome to YWS!

*resists urge to make bad dream jokes*

I'm just working on my hellloooos to everyone now. Now that I think about it, I never had one of these threads myself. Regardless, helloooo again and welcome to the site!

If you have any questions at all, don't be afraid to ask...because it'll probably be something I'm wondering, too!