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. A Ghoulish Review Day: October 2014
2. HHSSCC- Extended
3. Tips on the Tricky- Killing Characters by Their Own hand
4. Ask Gruno
5. Books for Bairns
6. How To Survive a Horror Movie
7. New Arrivals
8. This Week's Roundup- 11/2
8. Subscribers

A GHOULISH REVIEW DAY: OCTOBER 2014written by BlueAfrica < PM: >

Well, folks, we fell about a hundred reviews short of our goal for October, but 436 is a good, respectable number nonetheless…and our two review teams managed to clear out the Green Room. Wow! This month, the Reviewing Ravens were victorious with 207 reviews for a total of 23,868 points. Despite the popularity of squids around the site these days, the Wicked Squids came in close second with 194 reviews for a total of 22,877 points. This ghastly, ghoulish Review Day claimed the lives of at least one YWSer, and probably many more.

@Thewriter13 says,






Alas, we shall mourn the Review Day death of our dear friend, but perhaps we can put her in our haunted house when she rises from the grave as a zombie.

Be sure to join us at the end of NaNoWriMo for the November Review Day!

HHSSC - EXTENDED

written by JamesHunt < PM: >

In the previous edition of Squills, I had mentioned the "Haunted House Short Story Contest". I had set the deadline for Halloween, but soon afterwards, I realised the folly of that decision. Therefore, all who wish to enter now have until the end of November to submit their short story. Just to refresh your memory (or if you didn't read the previous article), I shall post the prerequisites again.

Your work must contain elements of horror, and it must be a short story. I am not particularly fond of word limits, so I shall give you free reign concerning that - mostly. It cannot be too short, so the minimum number of words is 1000, but it cannot be neverending either, so I shall draw the line at 5000 words.

That perfectly sums it up, though this is not simply an opportunity to show off your skills as an author of horror - it is also an opportunity to win some YWS-related prizes!



Submit your short stories to me via PM, with the subject "Haunted House Short Story Competition", and remember to include your short story's name. As I have mentioned earlier, the deadline has been extended until the end of Sunday, November 30 (EST) to submit your short stories. That means you have approximately a month to write and submit your short story. Any PMs received after that time will unfortunately be disregarded. Oh, and you may only submit one short story. The winners will be announced during the second week of December.

I look forward to reading your short stories, and may you have a nefarious November!

TIPS ON THE TRICKY - Killing Characters By Their Own Handwritten by AriaAdams < PM: >

Hello, all! After a while of absence, here I am to announce my return with another TotT article. This week, my topic is inspired by a question on Yahoo Answers, which I answered the other day, and which made me figure this is a thing that many writers could need!

Keep in mind, today's topic is something many writers might find personal, and that is still a fairly touchy subject in real life - suicide, or the action of taking one own's life.

Be sure, in this article, as always, I am talking about it IN TERMS OF WRITING. I am talking about characters - who in their own sense are people, granted - and this isn't a how-to guide or a counseling post. It's here to discuss how this subject can be written about, so that it seems realistic and that it makes your readers feel what your characters are going through.

If you feel strongly about this subject in reality, or any of it had crossed your mind, my own inbox and inboxes of other Big Brother members are open; send someone in dark green, red or black a message if you see anyone on the site expressing behaviour that might lead to the outcome I will write about here.

This topic is a fairly underrepresented one in literature. Every now and then, you will see side characters or the characters' parents/friends/relatives with tragic pasts, or suicides mentioned somewhere in the background, but the event itself is very rarely shown and very rarely something the main characters do, even when it happens to fit their story! Still, even though it's not used very often, I figured info on the subject can't hurt.
Not sure if any of you had the experience of writing about it so far, but personally I've had more than one suicidal character to learn from. One of them was trying to make it look like an accident, while the other didn't care and went with the easiest solution.
But really, same things apply to both cases!

On of the most important things to remember, and which is so often overlooked in literature, is that it's not as easy to do as it may seem.
It takes more strength - physical, that is - to cut deep enough, or to force oneself to not pull out of the water, sometimes even to open a bottle of pills or force enough of them down one's own throat. Not to mention things like breaking one's own neck or something equally dramatic, which writers seem to like but I would advise against - it doesn't really seem realistic, and the readers are usually aware of how complicated it would be. Keep in mind, also, that your characters would hardly choose such a way, unless trying to be drastically drastic and remembered as such =P

Which brings me to the next big point - Which way to go, and how to choose?
Quite simply put, there is many ways for a person to die, even if you limit it to death by their own hand.
Now, the way your character would choose depends on at least two major things. That would be

a) his personality and
b)the setting

Let's say you have a character whom you've marked for death and figured it should be quite nice if he did it himself. Let's also assume this character is a guy, for no specific reason other than not writing they or s/he for the rest of this article.

Have a neat list of questions that should shed some light onto how to approach all this!

For starters, you should answer WHY does he even want to kill himself; what are the events preceding it, what has he done or what was done to him? Keep in mind that depression doesn't have to play any sort of role in this whatsoever. Think out of the box - perhaps it would be to protect someone. Perhaps it would be so someone would get insurance money. There are so many possibilities!
Then, there's the perhaps logical, but nonetheless important to mention one; is he a normal human or supernatural in any way - will he rise back up or is his death final?
Does he have a family or anyone who'd care, does HE care about what his body will look like afterwards (or if there's others involved in the "accident", if he decides to pretend that's what it was for some reason)?
Related, and following the plotline of it being presented as an accident - how good is he with controlling his own body, how calm is he, how afraid is he of it, how important it is for him to succeed?
Also, how old is he? What does and doesn't he have access to? It's quite a difference if he's working as a pyrotechnic and can accidentally blow himself up or if he's working as a kindergarten teacher and there isn't really all that many lethal objects surrounding him very often, or doesn't have a job at all or is in fact a child.

Then of course, your story itself is just as important as the character.
Is it the Earth we're talking about? The modern world as we know it, the past, or perhaps a parallel one?
What's transportation like, what's medicine like? In a different world, they might have something we don't, and something that could bring him back somehow, and that could be a problem for him.
What kinds of substances or methods are available to people of his age/profession/status?
This next one is pretty interesting, really. Sometimes, it happens that you get an idea, or someone even proposes an idea to you, but something about it just doesn't feel right. So, if some things don't fit the story, why don't they fit? It just so might happen that you have a plot/setting/personality hole which you're only semi-aware of

Also, what genre or genres does your story fall into? Can he shoot himself or can his magic potion "accidentally" blow up into his face? Can he "accidentally" pick poisonous mushrooms and eat them, or is it more likely that his space suit will just happen to have a hole when he goes out on a space walk?

Those are just the starting questions, and ones which you should in fact answer here if you want people to give you the best possible answers.
When it comes to questions you should answer to yourself, they're mostly story- and plot-related. Take some of these as guidelines:
Why do you even want that suicide there, and why should it look like an accident, if you chose it should?
Is it important enough that you'd be willing to change some other things in the story in order to have that perfect suicide scene?
What happens if it doesn't look like an accident, or if it fails?
What would be the alternative if you decided against having it at all?
What's its main point, and how does it relate to the rest of the story and the characterisation of your MC?

When you're sure of your answers, you can figure out the best results! Do keep in mind these questions are just the ones I found the most important - as long as something about these scenes feels off, or you don't feel sure about it, ask yourself more things!

If you do and you still need some help with your ideas, feel free to poke me and I'll gladly assist. Also, as always, if you have an idea for a topic I should write about next time, my inbox is always open for you

Good luck~

ASK GRUNOwritten by Gruno < PM: >

Oh, Your Terribleness,
I have been wondering about this for a long time now. How is it that penguins, the most wonderful birds to ever exist, do not possess the ability to fly?

And they aren't even equipped with skates (or even roller-blades). They have to waddle. I consider that terrible unfair.

Should each penguin be brought into a facility and equipped with state-of-the-art wings to make up for their terrible neglect in designing?

Sincerely,

Mr. Ridiculous

My Dear Mr. Rid,

You know nothing about penguins. Each penguin is equipped with a pair of ice skates when they are born. Seriously, you never find a penguin in the arctic on rollerblades or even just walking. Take a look at all these wild penguins. Found in the wild.





Love,
Gruno

Dear Economically Wise One,
I'm shopping for my best friend's birthday present. I found these really cute socks that they would love, but they're $14! Since they're great for her should I go ahead and splurge or is $14 way too much for socks?
-CaughtBetweenCute

Dear CBC,
If it’s your very best friend, I think $14 is completely worth it. If they are indeed perfect for her and you think she will wear them, splurge a little bit.

-Gruno

Dear all knowing one,
Are you a wizard?
-Mudblood

Duh I’m a wizard! How do you think I manage to answer all these questions every week?
I don’t ever want to see the M word coming out of your keyboard ever again! DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME MISTER? (Or miss)
-Gruno

Sadly, that’s all for this week. We need more questions. You all have been fabulous as far as asking questions, but the more questions we get, the better. We live to answer your questions and solve your conundrums so if you have a query, click this link

Books For Bairnswritten by BiscuitsBatchAvoy < PM: >

The Kids' Codex #1 – Harry Potter

With exams looming in many of our futures, I thought I would provide a moment of respite by throwing back to the closest to universally loved book series that I think I'm likely to get. It's impossible to find any book, television series, film, music etc that absolutely everyone reading this will enjoy but I'm confident that HP comes close. At the very least, if you don't enjoy it, you quite possibly understand why others do.

When I was young enough to be scared by screaming faces bursting out of books, I watched Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone for the first time. Okay, fine, I'm still terrified of that scene in the Restricted Section at the age of sixteen. I have a vivid memory of hiding behind my couch at the moment Lord Voldemort emerged from Quirrel's turban and of not emerging until the scene in the hospital afterwards. I was possibly the biggest scaredy-cat on the British Isles so, naturally, my brain decided to label all thoughts of the Harry Potter series as 'for when I'm older'.

It was during preparation for some family holiday that I discovered Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets hanging around in the back of my book cupboard. I still don't have a definite explanation for how it got there. I took it on the holiday, tore my way through it and afterwards was smacking my forehead with disbelief. How could I have tried to avoid this? How could I have wasted all that time in fear of You Know Who? Harry was far more terrified of him than I ever was but that didn't stop him.

I ate my way through the rest of the books over the next year – often getting a row for staying up way past my bedtime – then borrowed the DVDs from my cousin and was caught up by the time Half-Blood Prince came out. I saw that in the cinema with my mum, Deathly Hallows Part One with my friends, then Deathly Hallows Part Two with my parents because all my friends had been so desperate that they couldn't wait to see it until after I came back from the caravan.

That's my Harry Potter journey – and not even half of it. I'm sure you all have your own. What's important, though, is what we all have in common – the way HP makes us feel. Lessons learned from the series may differ from person to person but there are a few feelings that occur for pretty much everyone. First of all, we all want to go to Hogwarts. Secondly, we want to know what house we'd be in. Third, we want to have adventures.

There are dozens upon bakers' dozens of reasons why I wish I could attend Hogwarts. Among them: I wouldn't have to do PE; I'd have a weapon – I mean wand, to defend myself with; I would live in a freaking castle. I'm far from the only one. Hank Green – whom some of you may know as 'John Green's brother' – is a wizard-rocker in his own right, writing songs like This Isn't Hogwarts to encapsulate how almost every high school age Potterhead feels about their school at one point or another in their lives.

The living accommodations are possibly the most romantic aspect of Hogwarts. The majority of high school Storybooks on YWS are centred around boarding schools. This is possibly because characters can be around each other all the time and there is therefore more opportunity for interaction. However, it is also arguable that this is due to the excitement of living away from home. Teenagers left alone in literature always seem to get themselves wrapped up in danger and adventure, something most readers can only dream about. We believe that if we lived in Hogwarts we would join clubs and societies, study with friends, take romantic walks around the grounds and have first kisses at the edge the Forbidden Forest. You know what, we probably would.



As for the wish to belong to a House, I believe this stems from two reasons, one slightly more important than the other. One, Houses in Harry Potter are like families and we long to be part of such a tight, supportive group. Two, those are some snazzy scarves. My house is Ravenclaw, which I was assigned in Pottermore. People ask me why Ravenclaw and I generally reply that we're most likely to have a book club. If I were to spend a day in Hogwarts, I'm sure a large portion of it would be spent in the Ravenclaw common room, reading history books without being called a swot. Similarly, my computing teacher would be off having adventures with his Gryffindor friends. Everyone has a place to be. Also, having the support of people like you increases your confidence to go out and talk to people from other houses, whom you may not understand as well.



Harry Potter's adventures are some of the most heart-warming, thrilling and classic tales of heroics, friendship and heart-wrenching loss. The series is as much about Ron, Hermione, Neville, Luna, Draco, Cedric, Fred, George, Ginny, Percy, Hagrid, Dumbledore, Snape – I need to stop now or I will keep going until I have listed every last one-line character who ever pops up. I can't count the number of times I've waved a pencil around like a wand when I get bored in class. School routines set in around this time of the year, or maybe a little earlier. You have probably memorised your timetable by now, got used to when you have free periods – or don't. In Hogwarts, you apparently get a new Defence Against the Dark Arts Teacher every year. No day is the same as the last. When you're marching through your third essay of the week, it is no surprise that your most potent wish is to defend your castle home from the Dark Lord.



Over the past few months, as I have advanced further and further into my final year of high school, I've become more and more nostalgic about the past five years. I seem to have forgotten that I was ever teased for having buck-teeth, or the tears I shed over Higher English. Every time I think about Harry Potter I seem to have forgotten that


that

and that


All I think about is the good times. I think this is important. A lot of bad stuff happens around us so it's important to remember the happiness we felt immersed in that world, and the hope we are capable of. Next time you hear about murder after rape after robbery after kidnapping on the news, just remember that every amazing wizard in Hogwarts is human, and humans are capable of incredible things.

HOW TO SURVIVE A HORROR MOVIEwritten by Gravity < PM: >

With Halloween having just passed, I decided to write a How To in honor of that. Surviving a horror movie can be difficult, especially if you’re that person who hates to go for a walk in the woods at midnight when there’s a serial killer on the loose.

Step One: Go For A Walk in the Woods at Midnight When There’s a Serial Killer on the Loose

The woods at midnight is definitely the safest place for you when trying to survive a horror movie. That’s the absolute last place the killer will be. If you really want to live, stay away from any brightly lit areas, that’s where our serial killer is bound to be. Especially in happy places like ice cream shops or school.

Step Two: Scream

Caterwaul. And I mean yell at the top of your lungs if you want to stay hidden from whatever monster lurks in the great outdoors. Scream until your throat is hoarse and you absolutely can’t speak. The monster, killer, or monster killer, or killer monster will not look for you if you are screaming. I promise.

Step Three: Graveyards Make Awesome Hiding Places

If you can’t find a nicely wooded area, or a spot with good acoustics for your screaming, go find a graveyard! Who could possibly be hiding in the misty cliched resting spot or behind the tall tombstones? No one. Duh. Besides, everyone there is already dead. Join them if you don’t want to join them.

Step Four: Clowns Are Your Friends

They’re completely not creepy, especially if you run into one carrying a chainsaw in your selected forest or graveyard. They’re sure to chop something in half… ah yes! A tree or a tombstone! I know this from personal experience, in no way whatsoever will the clown turn the chainsaw on you. However, watch out if the clown has balloon animals, that’s some creepy stuff.

Step Five: There Is Nothing In The Cold, Dark Room That Will Hurt You

Dark, cold rooms are great for scary movies. Surviving one, I mean. There is never anything lurking in the shadows, especially if you think you smell or see blood. Also, if there’s a trapdoor, make sure you open it and stick your head in and yell “hello?!?!?” at the top of your lungs. And if you happen to spot a clown similar to the one I mentioned previously, one with a chainsaw (KEEP AWAY FROM BALLOON ANIMALS! IF YOU SEE A BALLOON ANIMAL, YOU WILL DIE!) Dark, cold rooms are the greatest place to make friends with your neighborhood clown. Just a tip, ask him if he’ll show you how to use his chainsaw and you’ll be in for a surprise.

This is your guide on how to survive a horror movie. Happy Halloween!

NEW ARRIVALS
written by BlueAfrica < PM: >

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

@TeaLeaf has introduced themselves in the Welcome Mat forum and seems really friendly. Head on over and say hello .

@LiteraryAdmirer99 is just one review away from their first review star! Head over to their wall and say high !

THIS WEEK'S ROUNDUP – 11/2 written by megsug < PM: >

Order four links for $4.99! Delivery included!


@Iggy came up with the great idea of compiling a list of must see Halloween movies. She has gathered a bunch of her own suggestions, but several other people have added their own suggestions as well. @Vasticity added a bunch of really good ones:







The original list is split into family friendly and more mature films. The additions are not sorted yet.


@Tenyo has written a great article that will be of great use as NaNo gets going. It’s a dance when you hit an inspiration wall or get a finger cramp. My favorite part is:







Go click the link to dance out to the rest of the song.


@Gravitaxis created a great thread a few months ago. It’s a collection of several writing prompts created by him and other users. I think my favorite by far is @YcleptCimo’s






If you can’t seem to find any inspiration, I would definitely check these prompts out. If you have a few inspiration creators of your own, you should post them!


@Bellator needs to know who would come out the victor: space pirates or water ninjas. While I’m firmly on the side of ninjas with @fortis. @Tortwag brings up a fairly good point for space pirates:






This is a debate you just can’t not have an opinion on. I demand you to share now!

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