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. REVIEW DAY COVERAGE
2. STORYBOOK COVERAGE
3. WHY YOU SHOULD TRY NANOWRIMO
4. POETS OF THE PAST (AND OTHER LESS ASSONANT DUDES)
5. LINGUISTIC OR LAZY?
6. NEW ARRIVALS
7. THIS WEEK'S ROUNDUP-10/5
8. SUBSCRIBERS

THE SEPTEMBER 2014 REVIEW DAY WINNER IS…written by BlueAfrica < PM: >

Avada Kedavra, the Green Team! Although the Black Team’s Review Ninjas ninja’d bravely through the Green Room and served with honor, the Green Team’s Dark Wizards ultimately won the day.

Tune into next week’s edition of Squills for a more in-depth article on the September 2014 Review Day!

PM BlueAfrica if you’re interested in answering some interview questions for next week’s extended Review Day article.

STORYBOOK COVERAGE

written by Judas < PM: >

What's this? Storybook coverage?! It so is.

While the october official storybook continues, others have been contributing to the forums, much to my joy and continued well-being. Let's take a look at what's going on recently.

@BasiltheCat has made their return on yws in the best way possible -- posting a storybook. It's called The Room and it promises quite a quirky sci-fi adventure. In it, the characters suddenly wake up in a mysterious room, presented with a series of dangerous challenges. With their existence on the line, will they be able to obtain matching furniture survive?

@iheartluciencarr has posted a quirky storybook presented in a quirky way. Untitled as of yet . The flavor text reads: 'A New Age host club lands themselves in deep water'.

@jessig833 gives us a Warriors fan-fic storybook, aptly named Warrior Cats .

@Craz presents us with their take on the high-school archetype, Griffin High School for the Gifted , and it seems it's going to be a rather dark tale, something of a small dystopia.

So does @Nike it has a different name though so it's okay. Lincoln Wood Private College Prep. It's actually the sequel to a storybook that has lasted for quite a while, Harmony High, so it certainly has a team of dedicated veterans.

@ReisePiecy has rebooted their storybook Forgive Us, Father , set in a very large dystopia, a post-apocalyptic world where Exorcists and Vanquishers must clean up the world of nefarious Demons. They're on a dangerous clock, however -- the Four Horsemen are rearing their ugly heads, and the Apocalypse is nigh...

Conversely, @Lylas presents us with a storybook based off of the eponymous novel by Kiera Cass, The Selection In it, girls from all over are selected to vy for a prince's attention. At the same time, however, rebel groups are causing trouble on the border. Surely, this will be a tense and dramatic read.


@Cynder's storybook Dragons progresses steadily. A quick glance at the characters revealed a vibrantly scaly (get it? get it) cast of diverse characters. If you enjoy the mythical lords of the skies, this is most definitely something for you to follow.

@Aurora99 is going for a trial two of her storybook, The Finriian Court , in which the conflict of princesses and their court spins a tale rife with adventure and suspense.

Meanwhile, in the misty dawns of time (July of this year), @TakeThatYouFiend, demanding iron dedication, put up a storybook which has a title that certainly doesn't mince words: High Fantasy . Despite my original skepticism on how it would play out, he has exceeded expectations and it continues even now. Thus, I decided to ask our resident Fiend some questions on it. Below are the juicy bits.




Fiend: Not at all, fire away.



F: Three main points: Enthusiastic players, found by demanding dedication (although this makes it harder to find players), bribery and threatening, and finally a wide choice. There is no excuse not to post save personal problems.




F: Set out a maximum length of time to allow without posting, and fine those who go over it (including yourself). Use the gathered points as rewards for those who post well or if it's going slowly for "the next person to post."



F: A combination. You see, the idea largely stemmed from your own "Just add Ninjas" article, where, should things slow down, anything can be added. This was also necessary to prevent there being any excuse not to post. However as always, new plot twists and directions are suggested in the DT, and we go with them. Things seem fairly fixed at the moment, but literally anything could happen.



F: You're welcome, may you live a long life and may energy shine on you from a million suns.



See, this guy knows where it's at. And with this, that's a wrap! See you next time, and remember to always praise the sun.

WHY YOU SHOULD TRY NANOWRIMOwritten by BlueAfrica < PM: >

At long last, here we are! October. Glorious month, October. Do you know why? Do you? Do you?

Of course you do. Everyone say it with me:

National Novel Writing Month is one short month away!

Which means that now is the time for me to unashamedly talk about NaNoWriMo in every single article I write.

(You knew it was coming.)

What is NaNoWriMo? According to the website, it’s 30 days and nights of intense literary abandon. Since 1999, writers around the globe have come together on the Internet to attempt the insane task of completing a 50,000-word novel between the first day of November and the last. It is also my favorite time of year. So now that this happy time is upon us, allow me to begin my peer-pressure campaign to convince you to try NaNoWriMo this year.

Get motivated. Now, you might be thinking, “I can’t do NaNoWriMo. I’m so unmotivated. I get stuck so easily. I can’t find the time. I can’t write 50,000 words.”

My friends, these are exactly the reasons why you need to attempt something crazy.

Let me tell you a personal story. My grandfather died last July. He was the person who was most encouraging of my writing, so I probably should have commemorated him by working nonstop on my story. But I didn’t—I was too depressed to write. Work on the first draft of The Book Man, which had progressed steadily since January, came to a grinding halt.

Now, however, you can find ninety chapters of a third draft right here on YWS. What got me started again? Why, NaNoWriMo, of course. It’s the perfect time of year to bust out of a rut, no matter what’s causing it. So many people participate that there are friends and fellow writers to encourage you every step of the way. Not only that, but you’re working on a deadline and toward a goal—and I don’t know about you guys, but sometimes a deadline and a goal are all I need to get my butt into high writing gear.

Learn to write badly. NaNoWriMo is all about quantity, not quality. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to get 50,000 words out of your head and onto a computer screen or the pages of a notebook.

This might seem counterintuitive. What’s the point of writing something if it’s not even good, right? But sometimes our focus on writing the perfect story is exactly what keeps us from finishing it in the first place. Do you constantly reread what you’ve already written? Edit individual scenes and chapters before completing a draft? Then you need NaNoWriMo. This is the time of year to tie your inner editor to a chair, slap some duct tape over his mouth, and throw him in a dark closet for the month. Shut him up, forget about writing well, and get your story out.

November is all about getting the story down on paper so you have something to work with. You can always edit in December.

Achieve something spectacular. Every year, there comes a point in the month of November when I’m dreadfully behind in my word count. Homework is piling up, I can’t find my bed amid the piles of dirty laundry in my room, my cat is grumpy because I’ve been ignoring him, and I’m freaking out because HOW will I ever this all done? Enter my husband.

Husband: Babe, why do you even do this to yourself?
Me (through stress-induced tears): BECAUSE I LOVE IT.

It’s a fair question. Why do I put myself through such unnecessary stress, year after year and despite the fact that, between school and two jobs, I’m already busy enough? Why do I push myself to write a ridiculous amount in a ridiculously short span of time, when I know the writing won’t even be good? As my husband rightfully asks: why do I do this to myself?

NaNoWriMo will turn you into a crazy, raging ball of stress and angst, but at the end of the month—when November turns to December and peace and quiet fall like new snow—you will have 50,000 new words on your computer. It might be 50,000 hackneyed words of plot holes and poor character development, but it’s 50,000 words that you can work with. It’s 50,000 words that you can show people. It’s the look on their faces when they find out you wrote a book…in a month. It’s the way you move from someone who’d like to write a book someday to someone who has done so. It’s the feeling of achievement, of empowerment, the almost-but-not-quite-overpowering urge to throw open your front door, run out into the street, and shout: I’M THE QUEEN OF THE WORLD! Because you did it. You survived NaNoWriMo—no, won it—no, kicked its literary butt! And therefore you can do anything you put your mind to. This is the proof.

So who wants to give it a go?

Announce your intentions in the YWS NaNoWriMo forum.
Get things started at the official NaNoWriMo website.

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

Welcome back to my erratic meandering of space-time, writers of YWS. I'm here with Poets of the Past, the column in which we appreciate the dudes who did everything we would like to do but can't because law and order matter these days. Today's writer was born some two hundred years after Archilocus, and was an actor, literary critic and conman. I speak of none other than Gorgias of Leontini.




Who was he?

Gorgias was born in circa 485 in (surprise surprise) Leontini, Sicily. He was founder and master of what would eventually become the italian tradition of running your mouth without saying anything of particular relevance (and getting paid for it).



What's he famous for?

A book called On the Non-Existence, the Encomium of Helen and the Defense of Palamedes. He also is credited for bringing sophistry to Greece and making the Attic dialect the most commonly used in rhethoric. What's sophistry, you ask? What a well-timed and not pre-reheased question! Sophistry is what a sophist does.

Sophists were like the candy vending machines at the backs of malls. You feed them money and they sometimes spit out something interesting, but usually it's soul-crushing disappointment and lies. They were peformers and orators, acting out their works in front of huge crowds of people. They also functioned as private tutors, saying they would teach the (extremely rich) how to be better politicians, and lead them to the arké, glory. This tended to be marketing more than actual fact.

Gorgias himself was one of the founding fathers of this tradition. Wikipedia tells us:






What that means is he spent his entire life spouting endless nonsense. In fact, he specialized in defending absurd or contradictory positions in debates and making them seem stronger. Gorgias was very, very, very good at this.

In his book 'On the Non-Existence', Gorgias theorizes that:

1.Nothing exists;
2.Even if something exists, nothing can be known about it; and
3.Even if something can be known about it, knowledge about it can't be communicated to others.
4.Even if it can be communicated, it cannot be understood.

This was written in refutation of Parmenides' theory of Being. Parmenides believed nothing changed, and everything stayed the same, always. Gorgias read that and thought 'huh, might as well tell people nothing is real'. It is 'On the Non-Existence' that earned him the title of 'the Nihilist.' His most famous quote regarding this book is the following:




That does, actually, seem like a difficult position to argue against. Nobody has really succeeded in debunking him (probably 'cause he's dead now), and I don't think anybody will really try. He did have one great critic, however, and that was Plato. Plato, along with Socrates, didn't really like sophists. He called them the 'prostitutes of culture'. He believed they were not only sellouts, but also dangerous, in that sophistry taught the ignorant to appear less ignroant and prevail over those legitimately competent. That does sound like Gorgias, now that you mention it.

Not content in radically altering the conception of existence, the man also wrote a defense of Helen. You know who I'm talking about. Most beautiful woman on earth, started a war, generally regarded by the greeks as a terrible sinner. In his Encomium, however, Gorgias staded that it wasn't her fault, really. In his customary logic, Gorgias proposed that the possibilities were four:

1. She had fallen in love with Paris;
2. Paris took her by force;
3. Paris persuaded her;
4. It was the will of the gods.

It is easy to prove her innocence if option 2 was the case, Gorgias says. It is also not her fault if option 3 is what happened: the word, Gorgias says, is a powerful tool, capable of influencing any discipline and bowing any man. If option 4 was the case, then Helen, as a lowly mortal, could never oppose the will of the gods. If option 1 took place, well, love is also a god, and what just individual can ignore the calling of a god?

Is your head spinning by now? Mine is. This is the kind of stuff Gorgias spent days, months thinking about. Even his recital style contributed to increasing the confusion. You know when I said Gorgias believed in the power of the word? When writing his pieces, he took great care in selecting each syllable, so that the final effect was a mesmerizing work that would lull the audience into a sort of trance.

Apparently the people loved him, though. Loved him enough that he had enough money to commission a solid gold statue of himself in a temple in Athens. I mean, that's exactly what I would do if I made a living off of toying with hard-working farmers.

How did the die?

Failed his bluff check on convincing the Grim Reaper that he had some fifty more years to go.
Well, actually, he passed away of old age in the abode of the tyrant Jason of Pherae. Very old age. He was, as rumor has it, something like a hundred and ten. On his deathbed, the tyrant asked him how he had managed to live so long. The much quoted reply is: 'by never having done anything to please another man.'

In conclusion

Don't worry, Gorgias, having you convince me this cake is a lie didn't please me very much.

I now have a question for you, readers! Who would you like to see featured in Poets of the Past? Do you enjoy this style of writing? Do the people demand cat gifs? Drop by my inbox and tell me what you think.

LINGUISTIC, OR LAZY?

written by JamesHunt < PM: >

Last week, I very briefly explained why correct spelling is essential to a writer. Well, that was only to introduce the actual topic of that article: the "I before E except after C" rule. There are simply too many topics concerning spelling and grammar to write a series of articles on it, which is why I simply address them. If that is the case, then it means I randomly write about a specific topic. So, before I do discuss another one, I shall present you with a proper explanation of what correct spelling is and why it is essential.

Firstly, the definition. According to the North American Encarta Dictionary of English, spelling is "the forming of words with letters in a conventionally accepted order". However, if one considers words such as cliché and crèche, this definition must be extended, as the acute accent and grave are certainly not letters. By saying spelling is "the forming of words with letters and diacretics in a conventionally accepted order," we make this definition more accurate.

Now that we know what spelling is, we should focus on how it works and why we use it. Well, spelling and the written word is based off oral communication, but can be more useful in certain cases, such as this: long-distance communication. I cannot possibly walk/fly/sail to each of your houses, so I use the written word instead. And that is where spelling comes in.

When you write a word down, the first thing you need to know is the alphabet. It is a collection of symbols which represent a sound. When we spell a word, we therefore use these letters in an attempt to transcribe the sounds of a word onto the writing platform. For example, Person 1 says the word "sleep" and writes it down. We want Person 2, who has not heard person 1 speak, but is reading the word "sleep" on the paper, to nevertheless be able to pronounce the word correctly. Naturally, if Person 1 writes "sleep" with the traditional spelling, but Person 3 writes it as "sliep" and Person 4 writes it as "sleip", Person 2 will be unsure about which of these spellings is the accepted one - or Person 2 may be so confused, he or she thinks all three are different words, either with or without identical pronunciations.

This is why standardised spelling is so important; not only does it make things easier for the writer because they only have one spelling to learn, but it also avoids potential confusion as to the pronunciation of a word. After all, we have already established that spelling wishes to convey what a word sounds like, as well as its meaning in context.

So, how do we decide which spelling of "sleep" is acceptable? Do we choose the one which looks the most attractive, or the one which is the shortest and simplest? Unfortunately, the answer is nowhere near as simple, for in fact, there are many factors which determine this. Generally, a word's spelling becomes standardised when the majority of that language's speakers/writers agree on a particular spelling. How do they decide? Perhaps it is because of the word's attractiveness and/or simplicity, but truthfully, who can say? The oldest languages were created millennia ago, and since there were not always records to indicate the speakers' motivation, we can only assume it was through popular consensus, or perhaps because some scholar wrote it down, and, being considered an intelligent and educated person, led the way.

But the above-mentioned languages are things like Hebrew and Germanic. More modern languages such as French and English are based off these languages, so the majority of those languages' words and their spellings are inherited. Sometimes, words are borrowed from other languages, such as "restaurant" from French. These words' spellings are oftentimes preserved, but other words derived from these might be spelled differently.

All of these spelling changes and adaptations were made long ago, however, and it is unlikely that the world's languages will be changing anytime soon. True, neologisms occasionally make an entrance - the word "selfie" being an excellent example - but the other words of a language remains the same due to tradition. Many words might indeed be easier to spell if it underwent some simplifying, but if you hold a national poll to change these words' spelling, how successful do you think will it be? People are protective and proud of their language, so the chances are slim to none.

If you are actually reading my veritable lecture and have made it this far, I applaud you! Not only may you know more about spelling than you ever did before, but you have proven yourself diligent, patient and resistant to distraction. As a reward, you may PM me any topic you want me to address, whether it concerns spelling, grammar, punctuation, or anything else which is related to language (not literature), and I shall make it the subject of one of my future articles. Thank you for being linguistic, and not lazy!

NEW ARRIVALS
written by BlueAfrica < PM: >

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

@greyalschwis is a friendly, eager new member, but she’d like a little help figuring out what YWS is all about. Go say hi and teach her all you know!

@torreygrace has already earned her first review star, but she needs some help! How do you guys combat writer’s block? Go to her wall and give her your advice.

@Castiel has graced us with her angelic presence. As you might expect from her username, she’s a self-professed fangirl who hopes to be a writer and paranormal investigator. Head over to her wall and say hello!

THIS WEEK'S ROUNDUP – 10/5written by megsug < PM: >

Is your life good? Make it better with four links from your weekly round up!


I’ve discovered another ancient, recently resurrected thread where users from the past and present have left interesting facts about themselves. I was most intrigued by the names I recognized like @ongoeslife and her fascinating fact:







I can see this as useful but also painful. What’s interesting about you?


This is a fantastic little debate that @StellaThomas started up. However, it seems that a point of contention is the exact definition of cultural appropriation. Stella defines it as one culture using elements of another culture they’re not a part of. @Karzkin has a different idea:







Before it’s decided exactly what qualifies as cultural appropriation, it may be a bit difficult to discuss it further. However, it’s a topic where the line between a healthy international relationship and one culture taking advantage of another is very vague. What do you think?


@Castiel wanted to know the down low on what the daughter of a blacksmith would be doing, and she’s got a few pretty good answers that could help everyone out. @Birkhoff gave out a lot of information that was helpful like this:







Other posters also had gems to give that might be useful for other historic fiction writers.


@fortis wants to know the best way to drink orange juice. The options are:






I love me some pulp in my orange juice, but I know tons of people who don’t. What about you?

SUBSCRIBERS

written by SquillsBot < PM: >

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