Young Writers Society

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!





Of course, our content can’t come only from our staff. We also depend on you to help keep Squills successful. You’re all a part of a writing community, after all. If you’re interested in submitting to Squills, pop on over to the Reader’s Corner to find out how you can get involved by contributing an article or participating in other Squills activities. You can also subscribe to the Squills Fan Club , or PM SquillsBot to receive a notification each time a new issue is published!

Well, that’s all I have for now. So, what are you waiting for? Enjoy!

1. FM Interview
2. Adventures in Writing
3. Kanome's Rant of Media
4. New Arrivals
5. This Week's Roundup - 5/24
6. Shameless Plugs
7. Subscribers

FEATURED MEMBER INTERVIEW: DREAMWALKERwritten by Aley < PM: >

A new month brings a new featured member, and this month that position went to our very own @Dreamwalker! Dreamwalker is an all-around writer who has had a YWS account for a long time, though she's not always been active. This month, she's being featured with accolades in poetry, and novels. Starting out as a novel writer she's happily enveloped into the poetry circles as well. This friendly voice of writing has a lot of great information for new and old members alike as I found out interviewing her.



Dreamwalker: Honestly, extremely flattered. I was a little shocked when it happened because I had been away for a pretty long duration so coming back and being featured right out the door was very sweet.



D: School mostly. I didn't have as much time for writing during that duration so I had to make cuts. Unfortunately, YWS was one of them at the time.



D: I'd like to be back in general. I realized over the past year that this place helped me keep at writing more than being away from it. And as much as thinks got pretty hectic there, I think getting that extra push is more important than not.



D: I don't even know where to start with that one, to be honest. I joined back in 2008 with this big dreams to write this epic fantasy novel and, I mean, prose is something I'll always enjoy but this place not only helped me fall in love with poetry, but helped me gain valuable skills in writing it. I'm not the best poet but I'm much better than I was. Going through my old portfolio shows growth, and I like seeing how far I've come.



D: oh gosh, maybe one of these days. I love prose but I'm more reserved that I used to be. I think I'd like to write something that means something. I'm not so sure the 16 year old me sees eye to eye with the 22 year old me on exactly what that is, though.



D: Tons of poetry, mostly. I've been slowly hammering at this little work in progress novel about these two brothers from the north. It's a bit pretentious but the concept is one that's dear to me.



D: If writing is something you love, there isn't a better community to help you become the best possible writer you can be.



D: That people remembered me. I think the worst part about leaving and coming back is that you're not really sure if the same people are around anymore or if you're starting from scratch again. But the funny thing about YWS is even when people move on, the culture sort of stays the same. It doesn't really matter how long you've been around as long as you're trying your best to help and to get better. So I am a bit surprised because I didn't expect it, but it feels good to know that the community has welcomed me back.



D: Oh gosh, that's a hard one. Probably a tie between Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen or Richard Siken's poetry collection called Crush.


D: My Hogwarts house is Slytherin? ;D



D: Poetry is cool. All the cool kids do it.

As summer rolls in, we can expect new and old faces alike to be welcomed back into our midst. Many of us will drift away and return to YWS; Dreamwalker is an amazing example of reuniting with the site being featured for her dedication and commitment to helping along with her work around the site. No matter if you've been away for ages or just not really that active, you can always come back to YWS. Take it from our featured member!

ADVENTURES IN WRITINGwritten by BlueAfrica < PM: >

I’ve been working on The Book Man for two and a half years. It’s gone through six revisions already and is in the middle of a seventh round.

I meant to have this round done by the end of May. I figured that gave me a full month after classes let out (not including exams) to work on it.

Then my laptop went kaput. No big deal. I’ve been revising on paper, which makes for better revision anyway. I won’t change as much if I see a nice neat computer screen in front of me. It’s better when I can manipulate a physical page: scratch things out, write in new bits, and scribble notes to myself in the margins. Of course, that means I’ll have to take the time to then type up all the changes I’ve made, but the more in-depth revisions are worth it.

The new plan was to have the paper revisions done by the end of May and get them transferred to a computer by mid-June.

Then I ran into a real problem. There’s this whole part of the book that was first written mostly to stall writing the climax. Not something I normally do, but with this story I had no idea how the main plot could be resolved.

(The villain was different in that first draft. Different and sucky.)

I love so much of this part. The writing is decent, it’s humorous, and the characters are adorable together. But you know what they say: you have to kill your darlings.

Why do they say this, anyway? If the writing is good, why would you delete it? Based on this recent personal experience, here are three reasons.

It doesn’t fit stylistically. This is a part of the book that readers claim needs revision or deletion, even though you think it’s fantastic. Quite possibly it is fantastic--it just doesn’t fit. The writing style, tone, or voice is too different from the rest of the book.

Could you change the rest of the book to fit this style and thus keep the section? Perhaps. But if the rest of the book works as-is, you’re probably better off deleting this.

It doesn’t work with the plot. Alas, here is the biggest problem with my current, soon-to-be-deleted darling. The characters come out of an attack and then, rather than diving into the climactic battle, decide to sit around. And not for an hour or two, binding their wounds--no. They sit around for anywhere from several hours to an entire night, plus the next day (depending on what draft you’re reading). I’ve bent over backward to make flimsy excuses for why this is and to weakly tie all this sitting around to the main plot, but let’s face it: It just doesn’t work. I love the conversations and relationship-building that happen in this section, but it slows the book down just where things ought to speed up. If you find a section like this in your own work, I have bad news for you.

It’s unnecessary. Yes, relationship-building happens in this section of The Book Man. Several things happen that (I think) need to happen: injuries do need to be at least superficially taken care of before everyone marches off to battle, a certain character’s leg needs to be amputated, and the crux of a certain romantic subplot should probably be somewhere around now.

That being said, the book doesn’t need an entire section dedicated to nothing but making sure these things happen, to say nothing of all the extra conversations that technically don’t need to happen at all. Scenes can be shortened. Conversations can be broken up, slipped into other places, or deleted. There’s no reason to have part of your book dedicated to character development, world-building, or relationship development without also advancing the plot in any meaningful way.

What darlings have you had to kill? Are you mulling over any deletions right now? Let me know in this thread . Share your pain, Squillsamigos! Let’s all bemoan the murder of our favorite bits together.

KANOME’S RANT OF MEDIA

Written by Kanome < PM: >

Hello, Kanome here with a new review for you guys. Recently, I have been reading a book that I should probably not be reading…
I don’t know that this “certain” book shouldn’t have been published in the first place, but when it was published, people couldn’t stop talking about it. One day, I bought the book and started reading it, and all I have to say was…. Really?

This book is mostly romance, but this kind of romance… eh.
The book made me laugh mostly because of how weird and dumb it was written, at least, that’s my personal opinion of the book.

I am talking about the “famous” book out there, Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L James.


All I can say is that… wow. The whole story concept was weird in my opinion. I didn’t like how the characters’ relationship turn out to be. I thought it would be better than that.

I don’t think I have nothing positive to say about this book…
I will be updating this as I go along. I shall be reading the second book soon.
If anyone has something for me to review, feel free to PM me.

Until next time, Squillians!

Kanome

NEW ARRIVALS
written by BlueAfrica < PM: >

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

In just a few days of membership, @JKSockk has already earned infamy as YWSers try to figure out if this is someone attempting to impersonate @JKHatt. Join the game here to make a guess as to JKSockk’s true identity .

@DarkWarrior has earned their first review star! Stop by their wall to congratulate them .

@EccentricRose joined YWS after her sisters told her about it. Click here to find out more, including the identities of her obviously awesome sisters !

THIS WEEK'S ROUNDUP – 5/24written by megsug < PM: >

Coming at you! Four links! Can you handle them?


@BlueAfrica is in the midst of a rewrite of her novel now and wants to discuss the fairly famous advice of "Kill your darlings." Darlings in this case are the scenes, characters, or lines in a rough draft that you adore but need to get rid of for the better of the work as a whole. @BellaRoma talks about how she had to rework a great dramatic scene so that it would be a little more appropriate:







Have you ever had to kill your darlings? How do you feel about the advice in general?


@Widdershins has introduced this cool new website to us. While I haven't had the chance to try it out yet. Widdershins explains the concept:







Sounds pretty cool! Try it out and post your results in the thread.


@horrendous wants to know how to express personality and know a character's personality without writing a character profile. The answers so far have been interesting. @Prokaryote said, summarizing @Snoink:







Many of the answers are very useful though, so if you struggle with character profiles or just struggle with characterization in general, this thread would be a good one for you!


@DaFezGirl is wondering how much detail she should go into when discussing a character's childhood trauma. The two answers right now range from as much as is appropriate for the audience to describing the effects can be just as powerful. @Meandbooks explains:






This is a great thread for people dealing with heavy subject matter in their projects. If you have an opinion on how much detail is too much and how much is enough when dealing with traumatic subjects, leave your opinion in the thread.

SHAMELESS PLUGS

written by SquillsBot < PM: >

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