Young Writers Society

Hi Everyone,

Skip to the last paragraph for the actual questions

I`m new to this site and creative writing in general. I haven't felt this lost since the first day of school my freshman year. I`ve never ventured into writing because of low grades in my English classes, thus my creative writing juices were drained early on.

Creating has always been in my nature, but I always seem to shoot myself down before anything comes of it. Hence, I`m hoping that by having a site of people reading my works will boost some confidence and steer me in the right direction.

I`m eager to get started so I figured that it would be quicker to create a new topic. Perhaps this will even help the next newbie so that they aren' t overwhelmed by the site (like I am). If I just try to find my way around this site it would take me days to know where to start, and by then I would probably have discouraged myself.

Main questions are below, sorry for the rant

I don't have a specific story to tell or message to make but the process of writing is therapeutic. Do any of you have any suggestions or insight on how to get the most out of this site and community? This whole writing thing is like staring at a blank page, how do I even start?

~Siren

P.S.- I'm sorry that this post is so long. I just don't want to give up on this before I start.

Ahh, I'm sure a lot of people would relate with you! The writing thing 100% started out as therapeutic for me -- creating something helped me get out of my own headspace -- and it still is, for the most part. I tend to have more direction when writing now, often setting out with a specific story in mind, but I don't think there's any right or wrong way to go about this

About the site, the main (well, arguably) feature is the publishing center, where you can post stuff that you've written, and people can read it and tell you what they thought. It doesn't matter if you've got no specific story to tell or message to make, people here are open to reading almost anything This is the first thing I did here, people were very nice and I learned about how the site works from watching them tbh

Until you have a piece of writing you'd like to post, you could try looking at the green room, which is where other people's writing is. Give some a read and you'll get a feel for what we do here. Maybe even leave a review to let the writer know what you thought about their story. Heck, reading other people's writing is a great way to get inspiration for your own!

If you're bored, there's a kinda long faq section you could read, but that's a little overwhelming haha :p

About your actual writing, I'm unsure if you already have penned works or if you're trying to figure out how to start. If it's the latter, I'd definitely recommend starting out small. Since writing is therapeutic for you, poetry or emotional prose is my personal recommendation. Just write out how you feel -- don't worry about word counts or the like. You could also try writing out small narratives in whatever your favourite genres are! Just don't push yourself too hard, no one writes a novel immediately


Hopefully other people will give you some more pointers about exploring the site, but for now try exploring it casually We like to have fun here~

welcome to YWS!

Haha, I feel you about the lack of confidence! I never feel sure of my own writing

Well to talk a bit about YWS, it has parts where you can submit your work (like Asith said above), the People tab which functions as kind of a tight-knit social media, forums where you can chat and ask questions, and the Storybook section where you can write stories around a center premise with others!

I know there's a lot so if you ever feel overwhelmed you can always talk to one of us. The best part of YWS is the community so just hanging out and talking is something I always do (even when I don't write)