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.

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

1. ADVENTURES IN WRITING
2. REVIEW MY REVIEW PRESENTS: THE REVIEWING CONTEST
3. PREWRITING IS IMPORTANT TOO
4. HOW TO WRITE HORROR
5. TWO CENTS: WORLD BUILDING
6. LINGUISTICS, OR LAZY
7. MYTHS FROM AROUND THE WORLD: BUMBA
8. POETS OF THE PAST (AND OTHER LESS ASSONANT DUDES)
9. EXTERNALS
10. NEW ARRIVALS
11. THIS WEEK’S ROUNDUP – 9/28
12. SHAMELESS PLUGS
13. SUBSCRIBERS

ADVENTURES IN WRITINGwritten by BlueAfrica < PM: >

Hello, and welcome to the third and final installment of our series on writing synopses. Now that we’ve talked about the usefulness of synopses and some tips for keeping them short, let’s talk about what you need to include. An important thing to remember before we begin is that the main point of a synopsis is to show an agent that your story is well thought-out and cohesive. This isn’t the blurb for the dust-jacket, a book-talk, or a trailer. Although you don’t want to include too much detail, you don’t want to end halfway through with a cliff-hanger. You need to reveal the ending and show that the conflicts of the novel are ultimately resolved.

With that in mind, here are the three main things you need to include about your story arc (in true future-English-teacher terms).

The inciting incident. In case you’ve forgotten from your language arts class, the inciting incident is the event that gets the action started. Your main character might meet someone influential, discover a dead body, or find out something unexpected about herself. Whatever puts her on the road to adventure needs to show up in your synopsis. Some examples of inciting incidents:

In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, the point when Hagrid tells Harry that he’s a wizard and finally gives him his letter of acceptance into Hogwarts.
In The Fault in Our Stars, the point when Hazel meets Augustus.
In The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the point when Ford Prefect removes Arthur Dent from Earth, which is about to be demolished to make way for an intergalactic bypass.
In Death Comes to Pemberley, the point when the ball is interrupted by Lydia Wickham’s loud and frantic proclamation that her husband has been murdered.

The rising action. As we discussed last week, synopses exclude many of the details of your story. However, you can’t just have “at the beginning of the story, Harry Potter lives a miserable life with his aunt and uncle” followed by “at the end of the story, Harry has defeated the evil Lord Voldemort.” Hold up! How did we get from point A to point B? You need to fill in this information by including the most important events of the story—the events that drive the main plot forward and inspire the main character’s change.

For each event, ask yourself: Can someone reading the synopsis understand the plot without this event? If the answer is yes, cut it; if not, leave it. You’ll probably have to go to beta readers to accurately answer this question—you know how your plot works inside and out, so you might not be able to figure out whether or not an event is necessary to understanding the story.

The climax and resolution. Synopses do not end on cliffhangers! If the book ends without resolving certain plot points because it leads into a sequel, that’s one thing. But the agent reading your synopsis needs to know how the book resolves, so don’t leave off with a book blurb-style “how will character cope if x doesn’t work out?” Explain how the main antagonist or issue of the story is defeated or resolved (climax) and the important bits of the aftermath (resolution). Does your story have a happy ending or a sad ending? Is the romantic subplot between the main character and her love interest resolved in some way or left uncertain? Your synopsis should reflect this without going into detail about how every single character feels about the way things turned out in the end.

Basically, a synopsis is like a mini novel. A mini-mini novel. Depending on where you’re sending it, it might need to be as short as a page or as long as five pages. The main things to remember are: don’t be wordy, cut out all unnecessary details, and focus on the arc of the main plot and major characters. Include the three narrative parts we talked about above and how they affect the biggest characters in the story. Let the reader know that the novel has a definite plot, clear character motivations, and something to give us emotional investment in the story. Do that, and you’ll be fine.

Useful Links:

Hint: It involves brownies. How to Write a Synopsis without Losing Your Mind
This link is good if you’re writing your synopsis and feel like it sucks. Synopsis Woes
This link has examples of synopses written by real people and an agent’s comments as she reads each one. Crapometer Synopsis

Adventures in Writing will be on hiatus for the next two months as BlueAfrica turns her October articles toward National Novel Writing Month and spends November participating in that most splendiferous time of year. Keep an eye out in the next month’s issues of Squills for her articles on NaNoWriMo.

REVIEW MY REVIEW PRESENTS: THE REVIEWING CONTESTwritten by BlueAfrica < PM: >

If you’re interested in reviewing works around the site (as you should be), this week’s issue of Squills has news for you. There is a new reviewing contest beginning on October 1, courtesy of the Review My Review Club.

What does this contest entail? Each week for one month, contestants will need to complete five reviews per week. These reviews can be staggered throughout the week or done last minute all on the same day; the only requirement is that five reviews are completed before the next week of reviewing begins. Contestants will link to their reviews in the proper forum so that contest creators @RavenMoonStone and @Deanie can make sure they’ve completed the required number of reviews. At the end of the month, Raven will interview all reviewers who have completed five reviews every week, and Deanie will give each winner an awesome prize. A bonus prize will be awarded to those who have reviewed each chapter of a novel. The contest will restart each month from October to January, but contestants do not have to participate every month unless they’d like to.

This week, I talked to Raven to find out more about what inspired this contest and what sets it apart from other contests reviewers might want to join.



RavenMoonStone: I wanted [the Review My Review Club] to be more active. I kept on posting stuff like: We better get active soon... or else. I SAID, GET ACTIVE. *glares at club* Mother said to become active. Do any of you do what Mother wants? Nooo. *goes back to reviewing* I'll make this club active somehow...

Finally, I said something in a fit of anger: "Hey... would a reviewing contest make you happy? I would totally make a review contest to get you active. YOU'RE GOING TO BE ACTIVE." I sort of expected my notifications for that club to be dead for a little while longer... until Deanie said, "Let's have a little reviewing contest Anyone in?" I totally freaked out and replied in all caps basically saying that I would be in the Reviewing Contest.



R: Our contest doesn't really require being in it every step of the way. You can participate one week and sit out for the next. Also, with this contest, there are no "x many reviews per day" or "how the reviews have to look." We just wanted to help people get their stars and empty out the Green Room. I would love for more people to join the contest and subscribe to the club. That would be a dream come true. Plus, since the club is called Review My Review, if you have a question about your reviewing skills, you can just ask us in the very same club! @TimmyJake made the club so people can get help with reviewing.

Although the focus of this contest is the Review My Review Club and creating club activity, anyone on the site is invited to participate. For more information, be sure to contact Deanie or RavenMoonStone.

Subscribe to the Review My Review Club
Check out the Reviewing Contest Thread

PREWRITING IS IMPORTANT TOOwritten by megsug < PM: >

@Aley has come up with a great activity, and if you haven’t seen it in your People’s tab then you’re not following the right people. It’s called a prewriting journal, and you make it by creating a thread in the Writing Corner After that, Aley has all kinds of resources and challenges just waiting for you to pick and choose from to use at your own leisure or whimsy.

Aley has been releasing challenges each week, and they’re very interesting. The first one involves making a graph of the stress level of each chapter of your story. @ScarlettFire has a pretty interesting one:



It’s interesting to see the stress keep rising in her map.

The second challenge is character profiles, and several of the participants have created profiles. There’s an interesting column that I really appreciate in the profile: the patience breaking point. @MarbleToast ‘s Darna Rulda has a patience breaking point that I can completely understand:






The third challenge is focused on the resources Aley has provided, including generators, mapmakers, and many other fun things to play with. @Noelle has completed this challenge very creatively:






The interview is definitely worth reading through. Milo looks like he’s going to be an interesting guy to read about.

The fourth challenge is about identifying the beginning and ending point of your plot, and challenge five is making a mind map. @Silverlock’s looks very intricate:



The last challenge so far is making a list of laws, punishments and unspoken rules. @r4p17 has some pretty rocking law codes so far. An interesting aspect of one of his kingdoms is:






Twenty three users are participating so far, each with their own purpose and hopes. Several other users are commenting on the journals. To have a journal, you don’t have to have a new idea, and you don’t have to do the challenges. Fill the journal with whatever helps you in whatever stage you’re in with your project. For more information about the activity in general, any of the resources, or the challenges, look at the original thread . The following list is the twenty three journals currently in existence. Feel free to browse and comment.

Aley's Prewriting Journal
Ancient's Prewriting Journal
Aria's Little Notebook of What's Yet to Be
The Black Journal
Bluesy's prewriting journal
Biscuits' Writing Journal
Deanie's Prewriting Journal
Duncan's pre-writing journal
Knight Onyx's Pre-Writing Journal
The Lost Journal of Lostiness
Megs' Pre-writing Adventure
Noelle's Prewriting Journal
A Piece of Toast's Pre-Writing Journal
Pompadour's Pre-writing Jungle
R4's Pre Writing Journal
Raven Luna's Pre Writing Journal
Rurouni's Prewriting Journal
Scarlett's Prewriting Journal
The Silver Journal
The Timmy's Pre-writing Journal
The Wolf's Prewriting Journal
Wolfare's Journal of Prewriting

HOW TO WRITE HORRORwritten by Defyingravity01 < PM: >

I thought it might be a good idea for you guys to get the scoop on Horror from someone who loves to read it. I did an interview with @Payne to give you the information that you need to know on what audiences like to read in a good horror short.



Payne: Of course!



P: I like a Horror story that gives me chills. Definitely something scary, not too much gore. I’ve never been a fan of gore unless it’s necessary



P: I like psychological thrillers. You know, stuff that can actually happen in real life. Basically just situations that I can imagine myself in.



P: Not really. Just that getting a good scare from a story is something that all Horror readers look forward to.



P: No problem and I’ll make sure to check it out.

The key to writing Horror is knowing what your audience expects, and doesn’t expect from your writing. The interview I did with Payne really gave me some insight into what some Horror readers like to see. It’s definitely important, though, to keep in mind that no two readers are the same.

Horror can be tricky to write, especially since your goal is to scare people. Some people aren’t easily chilled by stories, others are. The first step is to figure out how badly you want to scare your audience. If you just want to slightly creep them out, then feel free to use cliche horror movie techniques. These techniques include the creepy dolls in movies that aren’t that scary, mentioning creaking noises, and including creepy children. Pretty much anything with a “creep” factor that doesn’t make people actually scream but is enough to give them the chills.

To really truly scare people, you need to use their senses against them. The human brain is full of paranoia and curiosity. If you have a good hook at the beginning of the story, they won’t be able to stop reading, no matter how hard they try. And if you include little details here and there, like the creak of floorboards or a dark setting, you can paint a picture for them that creates a sense overload. You need to describe creepy things for each of the senses. These are some of my favorite examples.

1. Sight: Sight is fairly easy. You can use gore. Some people like it, some don’t. If you don’t want to use gore, then describe the setting. A nice dark setting is always good to set the mood for a horror story. Colors are great too. If you’re going to compare things or describe things, make sure just to include dark colors like red or black.

2. Sound: Creaking of floorboards. OH! What was that? That was your paranoia. Make the reader think they are hearing things that they really aren’t. What else is creepy sounding. Screams? Whispers? Sometimes, sound is all about what they DON’T hear. Is it quiet? Is it eerily quiet? Describe it.

3. Touch: Your MC is going to be touching things, or if not, he/she will be feeling things. Goosebumps, maybe? Sometimes touch can be psychological and not physical. It can be an instinct thing. Maybe the MC could just have a feeling that something bad is going to happen. Sometimes it’s when you give the reader that feeling, “Don’t open the door” or “Don’t go into the dark woods that are obviously hiding a serial killer” stuff like that.

4. Taste and Smell: I kind of combined these because taste and smell are extremely similar. It’s difficult to create a creep factor with taste other than possibly having a smell be so strong that they “Can almost taste it”. Or maybe the MC tastes blood in his/her mouth. Again, not much you can do with that. Same with smell. Smell can be incorporated into a good Horror story by using dead bodies. There’s something about the smell of decay that just really gives people the chills.

The last advice I have for you is just to imagine what could realistically happen. Put yourself in a situation before you write about it. As @Payne said, there’s something just so creepy about being able to imagine yourself in a chilling story. So, I will leave you with this great page I found with Horror Writing Prompts below. Good luck my dears and Happy Writing.

Nighthag’s Writing Corner: Writing Prompts for Horror Writers

TWO CENTS: WORLD BUILDINGwritten by Aley < PM: >

Hi everyone! Welcome to another biweekly update of Two Cents. This week we'll be looking at World Building because there's an event going on right now that you might have heard about. It's a journal making challenge hosted by none other than moi.

So what is world building and why does a poetry person care about it? World building is actually something that has to happen no matter what you're creating. It's a process of gathering information about anything that might be involved or influence your story. Most of the time for poetry, world building is actually what the poem does. For instance, if you are talking to your mom one day and she starts yelling at you for no apparent reason what so ever, and you write a poem about it, trying to figure out her point of view, that's world building.

How is that world building? It's world building because not only do you start to investigate the motives behind another character [a real person in this case] but you begin to condense reality down to words and explore the world you're within. Most of the time world building will be for stories, but you do have to know some of the world you're building for a poem too.

For instance, take a concrete poem like "Daddy" by Sylvia Plath found here . This world she created is a very sing songy place, but the message is very dark. What sort of world is it that Sylvia Plath has created? Why has she created it this way? If we read it without any biographical information, we would see that Syliva Plath's dad was a Nazi and that she felt prosecuted as a Jew by him. Was that really the case? There are other things we can find out, like that she tried to commit suicide, and that she was married seven years. There's a lot in this poem that may or may not be biographical.

That, however, is the problem. People can assume that a poem is or isn't biographical, or "confessional" in style, without ever really knowing. Sometimes they're right, a poem can be confessional, or about the personal life of the individual, other times, they're wrong. Poems are not always confessional which means somehow, we need to get from what is real, to what is created, and that created world has to be just as real as the world in which we live so it cannot be told apart from that which is confessional, and contains all the emotions of a poem.

If we go to Wikipedia and search "Daddy" by Sylvia Plath or click here we can find out that Sylvia Plath did not describe this poem as confessional at all, though it might have been influenced, as most things for writers are, by events that she was familiar with.

This leaves us with two choices, either Sylvia Plath just didn't want to admit that it was confessional and all poems are confessional, or world building is in poetry because she needed to create a world where this wasn't her, but someone else, and write from that other person's perspective. I'll submit the argument that even if we do write a confessional poem, there is some world building involved, but at the same time, I'll also accept that on the fly poems don't require hours of thought about the character and the situation like writing a novel. What's the balance?

The first thing we have to do is understand how world building works for poems. For a poem, world building can be instantaneous as we write out one word after another because as we choose the words we choose, we are analyzing what we are creating just as a reader reads what we create. There is a theory in rhetoric about this too, especially rhetoric about teaching in particular. The argument doesn't always hold up, but it does explain something, sometimes the front of the poem is smarter than the end, or in a long poem, like "Daddy" we don't really know how we'll end up, even as writers. This is because as we write, world building is taking place.

The other type of poetry world building that happens is the time when we consider and think about an idea, and write and write and write on the same idea until we get a poem we think exemplifies it. The thought and planning put into what we will say is the world building of our poem as we start to narrow down what we want in the poem, and what doesn't matter.

Taking "Daddy" as our example, we can see that she didn't want to get into too much about any husbands or stuff like that. Sylvia's key was on how those things related to the father. This means that even though she could have gone into how, what, when, who, and all of those details about the man who married our narrator for seven years, what's most important, and what stands out about this relationship is why. Sylvia writes, almost as a side note for the narrator, that it was seven years, which shows us another aspect of this narrator's world. Time doesn't matter very much.

Sometimes, it is only in reading that we can create the world of our poems. Sometimes, they create themselves by omission of facts. Other times, our world is the world we live in every day, and it's something of a confessional poem, with an autobiographical nature, but no matter what we do, we can always use more understanding ourselves than the reader gets. This means that even if you don't want to, you should always read your own poems repeatedly before you post, and consider all the different ways that people might think about it checking to see if the world is reality or if the seams are sticking out.

LINGUISTIC, OR LAZY?

written by JamesHunt < PM: >

Spelling is such an atrocious beast, yet it is one we must endure. Some would like to shoot the demon already and rid the world of it, but that would be a fatal mistake. You see, civilisation is directly dependent on language, for without language, there can be no communication. True, oral communication does not require spelling, but writing does, and since all YWSers are writers, I am afraid you cannot ditch it.

Well, if spelling is so essential to society, why do so many hate it? Simple: knowing what a word means and how to use it is easy, but remembering how to correctly spell all of the words in our vocabulary is not. Simply memorising these words' spelling is one option, but another is creating clever associations or catchy jingles to help us remember those hard-to-spell words. One of the most famous jingles used in the English language is undoubtedly:






I am certain this rule has assisted many a writer in a test or exam, and after all, it actually works.

1. I before E:

There once was a brave knight who reported to his chief
And was instructed to catch a notorious thief.
He polished his steel until he bore a shiny shield,
And the same he did with the sword he would wield.
The fiend was soon found and attempted to save his hide,
But engaging the knight was foolish, for the knight had experience on his side.
Nevertheless, their struggle was fierce, albeit brief,
But that he would win had always been the good knight's belief.
The cutpurse saw he was losing and fled to a field,
But the knight quickly caught up and forced him to yield.

2. Except after C

The brave knight returned to his sherrif, but it was not praise he received;
Instead it was the results of a plot he could never have perceived:
He was struck on the head - by the sherrif he had been deceived.

3. Or when sounded like A

The sherrif and his partner jumped onto their horses
And rode swiftly away, their pockets heavily with gold weighed,
But inside the office, the knight rose (not a scratch on his chausses!)
And jumped onto his horse, who in anticipation neighed.
He grabbed his horse's reins and swung in the air a flail -
The beige horse galloped onwards, and the riders soon neared.
The knight vowed he would expose of protective lies the two's veil;
He would deliver them to the Justice they both so greatly feared...

Unfortunately, this jingle does not address all of the words which contain "ei", e.g. weird and foreign, but does that not mean it cannot be improved to include more of them? Take three words from my above attempt at a poem: weigh, neigh and beige - all three's "ei" sound like "a", but the "ei" also appears before "g" everytime. Take three different words: foreign, sovereign and height - their "ei's" are also followed by "g". Therefore, we can replace the original guideline's "or when sounded like A" with a more effective phrase:






Like the sherrif and his criminal associate in the poems, a few more "ei" words have been apprehended.

4. Or before G

The pursuit continued for quite some time, but reached its height
When a horse tripped and they tumbled across the border of a country foreign.
This country was ruled by a fair man, a wise king, a just sovereign -
And he would not take kindly to the two criminals' sleight.

However, even after building upon the jingle, there are still some examples which, like many people I know, obstinately refuse to fall under a specific category. Weird is exactly one such word (given its definition, that's not much of a surprise), but there are others as well - seizure, leisure and forfeit, to name a few.

5. ???

In fact, he had his soldiers seize the two crooks
And enquired of the valiant, righteous knight his name.
The knight took his leisure not, but bowed and replied swiftly,
After which the king invited him to the castle.
The knight was offered eight skeins of golden yarn for his courage,
But he respectfully declined - serving Justice, not gathering wealth, was his game.
The weird trial found neither villain innocent, but guilty of all charges.
Hence, they forfeited their freedom and were sent to the dungeons.

And so ends the story of a knight who sought Justice, and not Fame.

Since there is no catchy jingle or simple guideline by which to remember these words, I recommend that you learn them by heart. Of course, there is another, final alternative through which you can be certain of the spelling of a word containing "ie" or "ei" - use a dictionary. After all, you should be linguistic, not lazy!

MYTHS FROM AROUND THE WORLD: BUMBA

written by whitewolfpuppy < PM: >

Mbombo, also called Bumba, is the creator god in the religion and mythology of the Kuba of Central Africa. In the Mbombo creation myth, Mbombo was a giant in form and white in color.

The story of Mbombo's creation tells that in the beginning Mbombo was alone, and darkness and water covered the all earth. So it was said that the great Bumba came to feel an intense pain in his stomach, and then Mbombo vomited the sun, the moon, and stars. The heat and light from the sun evaporated the water covering the earth, creating clouds, and after time, the dry hills emerged from the water.

Then Mbombo vomited once more, bringing forth nine animals: the leopard, called Koy Bumba; the eagle, Ponga Bumba; the crocodile, Ganda Bumba; the fish, Yo Bumba; the tortoise, Kono Bumba; a black leopard-like animal, Tsetse Bumba; a white heron, Nyanyi Bumba; a scarab; and a goat named Budi. Mbombo also vomited many men, one of them was called Loko Yima.

These nine animals went on to create all the world's creatures. The heron created all flying birds but one, the kite, and the crocodile created snakes and the iguana. The goat, Budi, brought forth all the horned animals, the scarab all insects, and Yo Bumba, all fish.

Three of Mbombo's sons then said they would finish creating the world. The first to try, Nyonye Ngana, vomited white ants, but died after. To honor him, the ants went deep in the earth for dark soil to bury him and transformed the barren sands at the earth's surface. The second, Chonganda, created the first plant, which in turn gave rise to all trees, grasses and flowers. And Chedi Bumba, the third son, made the last bird, the kite.

Tsetse Bumba caused trouble on the earth so Mbombo chased him into the sky where he became the thunderbolt. This left people without fire, so Mbombo showed them how to make it from trees. Once the creation was complete and peaceful, Mbombo delivered it to mankind and retreated into the heavens, leaving Loko Yima to serve as "god upon the earth".

This is an interesting way in how the world was created. Learning about different myths that are from different cultures tell us how we are all similar. From the Norse myth to the Central African’s, each of us has our story. What is yours?

POETS OF THE PAST (AND OTHER LESS ASSONANT DUDES)written by Judas < PM: >


Yo yo, writers of YWS. I'm here to tell you how cool the writers of the past were, cause some of them are underappreciated. Today's writer is a colossus, a poet spoken of in reverence by the ancients, Archilocus of Paros.

Who was he?

Archilocus was an ancient greek poet, born in Paros (surprise surprise), who lived around the seventh century before christ. This guy practically coined the term 'haters'.



What's he famous for?

We know that Archilocus was, though his poetry has only arrived to us in fragments, incredibly prolific, dabbling in everything the muses gifted man with -- fables, myth, prose, poetry, music -- but mainly he's credited for inventing the iambic style, also called 'blame poetry'. The Alexandrian critics called this style 'informal poetry that was meant to entertain'. Its main characteristic is the use of profanity and obscene imagery, which was right up Archilocus' alley. His poetry featured strong language and vulgarity, and was burgeoning, burgeoning I tell you, with pathos and passion. Archilocus did not do things by half. I'll let Quintillian
briefly take the mic on this.






When you're next browsing the web and trawling through endless amounts of smut fic (don't lie), you have this guy to blame, pretty much. He liked talking about his conquests, and he did so in very creative ways. This is from fragment 41:






Let's just say he wasn't talking about the seaside.

His passion wasn't limited to just the fine flowers of womanhood, however. Archilocus had fighting spirit to sell, and sell it he did -- or rather, delivered it at sword point. He fought for the Parian colony of Thasos against the Thracians as a mercenary, but quickly realized it wasn't his thing, and resorted to biting poetry once again ("Thasos, thrice miserable city"; "The dregs of all the Greeks have come together in Thasos"). He was actually the first poet-warrior to abandon his shield in battle (a crime that warranted the death penalty) and brag about it.






Despite his ill-fated path, the guy still loved bragging about it, oh how he bragged about it.






He kinda bragged about everything. At the time, however, this was pretty rad stuff. It was unheard of a poet being a warrior and being proud of it. They say Homer actually based his style off of Archilocus when writing the introduction to the Iliad. He was just that highly-regarded.

When he wasn't fightin', lovin' or swaggin', Archilocus wrote about mythology in an objective, dignified manner. He also sometimes wrote moral fables, with animals, most commonly eagles or monkeys, as protagonists. What a polyhedral, sensible individual.

How did he die?

Killed fighting against the soldiers of the island of Naxos by a certain one named Calondas. History doesn't say much about this man, save for Plutarch, who tells us that, while it had been a fair fight, the gods punished him. In fact, when Calondas went to the oracle at Delphi, it said to him: "You killed the servant of the Muses; depart from the temple." What a no0b.

In conclusion

Please note, kids, this article by no means encourages you to re-create any of the events discussed. Do not embark on wars against neighboring colonies. It is bad for your health. Otherwise, to you poets and snark knights, I have to say:

Stay fiery, stay Archilocus.

EXTERNALSwritten by Aley < PM: >

Welcome to a news column for Squills. This column will briefly cover stuff that happened in the news this week in a way that will help you get back to the basics of the story. It will also let you go more in depth, and more up-to-date with the story through links to multiple sources on most stories.

Syria
To start out with this huge topic, some background. Syria is a small country in turmoil and civil war. Right now the government and the people are feuding it out and thus, it's an unpleasant place to live. Rumor has it, more Syrians live outside of Syria now than inside due to the turmoil. Some of the things that have happened include terrorist groups taking charge of towns when the government was chased out, chemical warfare on citizens, and now, bombing on ISIS, or Islamic State, or ISIL, or that crazy terrorist group from the news. To start, we have to go over something else though.

Back in 2011 there is something called the Arab Spring in which a lot of nations people began to revolt against their oppressive governments. Syria began then. What starts as peaceful protests turn bloody when the military begins to arrest people for protesting. The rest of the world tried to help by urging their leader to step down, he hunkered down instead, and terrorist groups started to talk to different towns and coaxed them into believing they were worth supporting, then they, of course, turned back around and oppressed them just like the government had been doing, if not worse.

Then the chemical weapons happened. It was a huge thing because chemical warfare is outlawed by Those That Be, and the law is upheld by people like The United States, The United Nations, Russia, and so on. The US responded by saying they had to send troops to stop the conflicts. Russia suggested that Syria give up the chemical weapons and that be that, and that's what happened. The United States oversaw the dismantlement of the chemical weapons and left it alone.

Now we can get to ISIL/ISIS/Islamic State. The United States is in a long standing war against terrorism ever since 2001 when a terrorist group flew two planes into the World Trade Center, also known as The Twin Towers because they were two huge skyscrapers, the tallest in New York City. This helped devastate the world economy and killed lots of people. Some people are still dying through developing cancer as an effect of being near the area, or being a first responder. ISIS is an extremist group that the United States has declared cannot be ignored, and they've proceeded to bomb them.

Why does it matter? Syria matters a lot to the whole world because not only does this show a disregard for bombing another state due to a terrorist group, but chemical warfare against citizens is a terrifying thing. Most of all, Syrian refugees need a place to go, and they've been pushed out of their homes, or if they are still in their homes, they're terrorized by both the government and terrorist groups. If we don't care about that, then we should care about the unrest causing oil production problems and hurting the economy as well as creating strongholds for terrorist groups which may threaten the safety of anyone they choose to dislike.

• Syria's Civil War
• Syrian Refugees See Future in Continental Europe
• Britain joins war on ISIS: UK Parliament backs air strikes in Iraq against 'psychopathic terrorists' but not in Syria

Wolves

Across the United States there are states which are beginning to see wolves as 'no longer endangered' due to the numbers of the population, and certain internal workings of the organizations such as lobbyists who want to hunt them, and those who want to protect them working against one another. These two sides have been at war for a while, and they will continue to be at war until the day they stop. That's just the nature of hunters and conservationists. In the news Wolves can be a hot topic because sometimes the legislature messes up and plays with the language too loosely, or too strictly. In one case recently, that's exactly what happened. A judge had to get involved and ruled the new law was unlawful! Now it's back to the drawing board with this one.

State Scrambles to Fix the Wolf Problem

Water Me Old

Researchers have discovered that between 30% to 50% of our water is really old. predating even our sun. They've got a number of theories about how this could happen including comets colliding with the surface of our planet when it was formed, to heavy water. In other news about water, they have found another planet with water. They're calling it an exoplanet, and basically the cool thing is that science can actually tell by light rays what the composition of these planets includes. That article is last if you want to take a look.

• The ancient heritage of water ice in the solar system
• Water on Earth predates the solar system, and even the sun
• How Scientists Have Interpreted The Finding Of Water In An Exoplanet?

Don't say I didn't tell you so!
See you next time.

NEW ARRIVALS
written by BlueAfrica < PM: >

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

@lamchux has already earned their first review star by reviewing five different novel chapters!

@Charizard821 is happy to be at YWS since his former favorite site, Quizilla, closed down. He’s cheerful and has left several short but thoughtful reviews. Be sure to visit his wall and give him a friendly hello!

THIS WEEK'S ROUNDUP – 9/28written by megsug < PM: >
Tired? Take a refreshing look at the Roundup!


@carbonCore has created a thread in the Serious Discussion and Debate forum about the possible correlation between violent media and violent behavior. There has been a variety of points both for and against the correlation. @Taxi has a rather interesting idea:







Others disagree and say that video games and other violent media merely make violence the norm. What do you think?


@r4p17 has created the 10,000 Word Contest for those of you who don’t have time for NaNo this year. 10,000 words may sound daunting, but don’t worry! One of the rules makes it a little bit simpler:







Anyone who writes 10,000 words in November gets five hundred points, and the person who r4p17 thinks did the best will get an additional 500 points. What will you do with your 10,000 words?


@Buggiedude2340 needs us to fill out a quick, two minute survey about the social media sites we use most. However, there isn’t much time:







Help out a fellow YWSer and fill out the survey!


@MarbleToast is curious about what the perfect Sunday morning is for YWSers. There have been some pretty interesting answers ranging from Harry Potter marathons to chocolate chip waffles. I personally agree the most with @Iggy:






How about you? What makes Sundays the best days?

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