Young Writers Society

Sorry, I figured you weren't online and went to do something else. I'm still around, but if you're not, I'll just work on completing my profile.

@Haileyg21,
Sounds great!

All right, @Haileyg21, I've submitted my character profile! …It will take a while to read, since I went and expanded on one of the thirty provinces in my history section — I'm a sucker for worldbuilding, okay? XD

I'm excited for the rest of you to read it! I'll begin writing my post tomorrow, but hopefully the CP will be approved before I'm done. I've read your posts too, of course!

@LilPWilly, Ruel is a pretty chilled character! I feel sorry for him about his girlfriend having left him, but his friend seems to know exactly how to cheer him up! Although, I'm not sure Mexico actually exists in this world. The impression I got is that the storybook is set in a fantasy world distinct from Earth. (Though Romavek is sort of a combination of America and Europe, with modern technology available; Hailey confirmed as much when we last spoke.) But I'm sure you could make one of the provinces resemble Mexico!

@MadilynReads, Vicky is so sweet, and it's quite funny how you have this bright and positive person who just totally doesn't get why all the other Moon dorm peeps are so gloom and doom. I also like that the Water teacher appreciates a student with some evident positivity.

@piyaliarchives, I think it's hilarious that Clyde — really unfortunate yet amusing coincidence that Vicky's roommate is also called that XD — is a mermaid who kind of sucks at manipulating water, but at least she can walk on land! She also seems to be settling in easily, which is nice.

I'll post my character's schedule here once the CP has been approved, but I've already made it so that it overlaps as far as possible with Blake's and Vicky's. If anybody ever wants to collaborate on a post, let me know!

@AstralHunter, thanks!

I've posted! @Haileyg21 hasn't approved my profile yet, but he did say he won't really have internet access over the holidays. I didn't want to prevent anyone else from posting, though, so I've gone ahead and written my introduction post so long, with the CP in a spoiler at the bottom! I don't think Karim will interact with any of the other characters just yet, since half of them are in Water, but he may interact with Vicky if you skip to Illusions for your next post, @MadilynReads. I look forward to working with everyone in the future!

@AstralHunter,
I love your character! It brings such a different light into the improv! I will be exited to have my character get to know your character. Where do you derive your names and language from for your character?

I'm glad to hear you say that, Madilyn! I'm excited to have Karim interact with Vicky too.

(Just as a by the way, I shan't always tag people when responding in the DT, so be sure to subscribe to the thread so you don't miss any comments. I realise this might not actually be written down anywhere, and I'm not sure if everyone in the SB knows this.)

Karim's name is Arabic, and any non-English words he uses are also Arabic. I based Jazzah off Islamic Egypt — though I haven't actually established whether Islam is a thing, since this is a different world and I haven't discussed religions with Hailey — so I tried to model his background and dialect around that. Words like "baba" and "umm", for example, are Arabic for "dad" and "mom".

I didn't see your post earlier, @LilPWilly! I was working through my notifications, and the one for your post was close to the top. Anyway, I did enjoy your post, but I realise I should tag everyone at the start of this post, not the end, since I think there's something important I should share. So, @Haileyg21, @MadilynReads, and @piyaliarchives, please read at least the next four paragraphs.

The other moderators and I are working on refining and updating how the forum works, but in the meantime, I should explain a bit more about storybooks. They're… well, basically, they're collaborative novels, so while you do still roleplay your character as in any other story, you're allowed and actually expected to write for other people's characters. That makes this whole business a bit more complicated, because what if you aren't sure how to portray someone else's character? What if you get something wrong? What if you accidentally mess up their plans? X_x

These are all perfectly normal fears to have, and I promise you, we all go through them. But there's good news! In years past, storybooking was heavily focused on improvisation, so the idea was that you learn to write other characters better as time goes on. However, the focus has since shifted to collaborating on posts, so now, the habit is to discuss posts and even write them with the other participants before you submit one.

While this does make it a lot easier and sometimes quicker to write posts — and I personally enjoy it quite a lot! — it also slows things down a bit, because now, people need to find a time when they're both online to write something, and the more people you involve in a post, the trickier it becomes. But that's why we have the DT and PMs! If you plan on writing a post, it's good form to alert everyone else about it here first, because then they can keep that in mind as they work on their own posts. And if you want to include someone else's character, ask them! It might feel daunting, but nobody will be mad, and I think you'd all really enjoy the experience too.

Now, I know Hailey is limited in when he's available, so we'll definitely need to work around that. Here is a pad that we can use to chat live and also work on posts together. If you want to use your own, that's fine (Hailey and I discussed stuff in one of his; let me know if you don't know how to create a pad), but then just remember to post the link in here so we can all see it, and be sure to set the security option to Public.

All right, that's it for now! Just remember to tag people in here if you have a question for them or want to collaborate.

Willy, that brings me back to your post. I'm delighted you love Karim! And I will never mind anyone wanting to use any of my characters, in this SB or another, in their posts. The more we work together, the more enjoyable the experience will turn out to be! Communication is key, though, so remember to post here in the DT so we can easily keep track of in-character and out-of-character posts.

Now, I quite liked how you tried your best to keep Karim in-character! I think you did really well overall; he would totally be reserved, but not opposed to speaking to other people. I found it interesting how Ruel saw him as a wolf, since it's fitting that he wouldn't know which "animal" Karim actually is. I also thought it was interesting how Ruel thought the smirk looked weird on Karim, because yeah, if you're unused to seeing human expressions on anthropomorphic characters, it'll seem really odd.

About the setting, I'm not sure how many parallels there are between Romavek and the modern world, since Hailey and I didn't get the chance to discuss it yet. I know he said that the technological level is definitely modern, since we have busses and backpacks and aquariums and stuff. But beyond that, I've had to make things up as I went along and hoped it was okay with him. I do know that the academy is far away from the rest of the empire/kingdom (when any kingdom gets large enough, I feel you can reliably call it an empire), and it's in a region that mostly has plains, but I don't think it's a bad idea to put the academy next to a mountain range, as that would make it more defensible — and we know the school is getting attacked at some point. But I don't think Mexico or America really exist per se. I'd love to discuss that with you, since we can totally create a province that's like Mexico! As I told Madilyn in my previous DT post, Jazzah is basically fantasy-Egypt, so I see no problem with fantasy-Mexico being a thing.

So, for the time being, I think it's fairly safe to say that buses, airplanes, motorcycles, cinemas, ice cream parlours, and maybe even pizzarias would exist, but we should introduce things sparingly until we can hear directly from Hailey about what would and wouldn't be okay.

Could we arrange a time to discuss your post live? There are some changes that will have to be made, since we always want to ensure our posts don't contradict things said, done, or introduced in other posts, but the main goal is to apply the "Yes, and" rule, which means we only change what we absolutely can't improvise around. I could start discussing it here, but the post is long enough as it is. XD

My time zone is GMT+2, so assuming you live in one of the four North American time zones, I'll be available from your morning to your evening. If you're using EST, that'll be from 6:00–19:00; if you're using PST, that'll be from 3:00–16:00; and if you're using either CST or MST, it'll be somewhere between those two ranges. I go to sleep late and sleep through most of the morning, so I won't have much difficulty being up at the same time as you. Let me know what works and when you're next available!

Sorry for the extra post, everyone, but as a footnote, I think we should try to limit posts to one class per post, just so everyone can have the opportunity to interact with as many other characters on a given day as they can. This doesn't always have to be the case, but I think it does make things a lot easier to manage.

Also, Willy and piyali, if you two could post your characters' schedules for the first two days, I think it'd make it much easier for us to see where our classes overlap. If you need a summary of everyone's classes so far, I'd be happy to write it for you.

I’m not usually on here much, but thanks for all this. If anyone wants to put me in a class of theirs then cool. Idc what they are and my character doesn’t either, so except for interacting with your characters I prolly won’t mention them.
@AstralHunter if you want to chat I’m on now

Just to keep everyone else informed, @LilPWilly and I have agreed to start collaborating on a post! It'll basically be an edit of his latest one, since we've determined Ruel's schedule for the first two days as well, and right now, it means everyone has Earth together during the third period.

Here's what the schedules look like so far:

Order: Blake, Vicky, Karim, Ruel

DAY 1
1. Air — Water — Air — Water
2. Water — Illusions — Illusions — Air
3. Earth — Earth — Earth — Earth
4. Fire — Air — Fire — Fire
5. ??? — N/A — Abjuration
6. ??? — N/A — Alteration

DAY 2
1. Water — Water — Divination — Water
2. Air — Air — Air — Air
3. Fire — Illusions — Illusions — Fire
4. Earth — Earth — Earth — Earth
5. ??? — N/A — Fire
6. ??? — N/A — Abjuration

@piyaliarchives, I obviously didn't want to choose your classes or their order for you, so let me know once you've decided on something, and I'll add it to the makeshift table.

Here is the pad in which Willy and I chatted; if anyone wants to drop by, let me know first so I can actually jump into it myself. XD
• https://astralhunter.writerfeedpad.com/18

@MadilynReads, thanks for dropping by! But sorry that we couldn't really discuss your post. If you want to try again tomorrow, just let me know! And by the way, @LilPWilly, would you be available again tomorrow at the same time? Naturally, there won't be any NYE stuff to get in the way. XD

Yeah..... I could probably check in tomorrow!

@Astralhunter,
Are you available now?

I am! YWS wasn't responding for a bit, so I left to go speak with my parents. It's responding again, so I'm available now.