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. March 2015 Review Day: Magical Sauce
2. YWS Mods' Notorious April Fool's Prank
3. Adventures in Writing
4. Two Cents: Poetry Month
5. New Arrivals
6. This Week's Roundup - 4/5
7. Shameless Plugs
8. Subscribers

MARCH 2015 REVIEW DAY: MAGICAL SAUCE

written by AstralHunter < PM: >

The March 2015 Review Day was one I am certain will go down in YWS history. I should start by saying that it ended with Ketchup having written 183 reviews for a total of 20303 points, and Cair Itthryn having written 137 reviews for a total of 16578 points. The rest of the statistics can be found at the official Big Brother forum for Review Day statistics .

As the start of any given month's Review Day comes nearer and nearer, you would expect both teams to be as prepared as they can be. Well, last month, that wasn't entirely the case. Ketchup had their team name, avatar and banner ready, and though all of those were unorthodox and quite amusing, the Red Team awaited the coming of Review Day with chests swollen in pride, their captain, @EscaSkye, at the front. Cair Itthryn, on the other hand, was experiencing slight disarray; while their team name was certainly creative (it means "Blue Wizards" in Lord of the Rings Lore), they displayed neither their avatar nor their banner - both of which had basically been chosen already.

Nevertheless, when Review Day finally broke free of its literary chains and sent its minion, the Green Room, charging at the brave YWSers, both teams daringly descended upon the mad beast. Despite the reviewing frenzy, it soon became clear that Ketchup was in the lead. It stayed that way for much of the day, but by midday, it seemed the Sauce Sorcerors had finally slowed down enough for the Blue Wizards to catch up. The latter came close too, but alas, it was in vain.

When three-quarters of Review Day was already history, Ketchup had a definitive 4000 point lead. EscaSkye valiantly faught alongside her comrades, cheering them on all the while, but it seemed disaster had struck the Practitioners of Magic. Their champion, @donizback (who, in the early hours of the day, had written 37 reviews for a total of more than 5000 points), had long since been forced to take a much needed rest, and while the other members gave it their best and wrote reviews that would make even @TimmyJake proud, their leader had still neglected to put up the team's avatar and banner. @TheWanderingWizard found the despair so overwhelming, he even posted the following on Ketchup's wall:






Unfortunately, Ketchup showed Cair Itthryn no mercy and maintained their lead to the very end. However, there were many accomplishments by members from both teams, particularly when it came to breaking personal records, such as with @Deanie, @TheSilverFox and @Tuesday, to name but a few participants. That, and more than 200 users received a review - not that many, when compared to previous Review Days, but enough to make a great many users happy.

Hopefully, next Review Day will have more participants, more spirit, and most importantly, more reviews! (And maybe we can get to clear the Green Room too.)

YWS MODS NOTORIOUS APRIL FOOL’S PRANKwritten by Gravity < PM: >

As many of you are aware, the “staff forum” was available for viewing by YWSers on April 1st. However, this staff forum was so real looking, it had some YWSers (cough cough, myself) panicking. There were outrageous threads in the topic but because of the well execution by our amazing mods, it was truly believable. These topics included @StellaThomas leaving the site because of a so called quarrel between she and @Demeter. Not to mention @Nate leaving the site and charging YWSers $1-$2 for each literary work posted. And the last forum that I managed to read before flipping out was about J.K. Rowling repeatedly trying to join our community.

However, knowing how awesome YWS is, I wouldn’t be surprised if that last bit was actually true.

Now the next question you must be asking is, who was behind this? Who was the evil mastermind behind it all? Could it have been Nate, the creator of YWS? Or maybe it was @Rydia, the one user known for pranking people and her greenification of everybody’s username’s last april fool’s day. Wait, could it have been the silent but deadly @BlueAfrica?

Any of these guesses is wrong.

The person who schemed the whole prank was (according to Rydia herself) @AriaAdams. In her Squills interview (which can be found in a spoiler below the article), Rydia says:






After being asked if there were any threads that had some truth to them, Rydia said that yes, @Widdershins really doesn’t ever get to make stickies. And me being the ignoramous asked what a sticky was. For all you fellow YWSers in the dark ignorami?, Rydia kindly defined it for us.





Last but not least, Rydia outlined some past April Fool’s pranks and not a single one of them measured up to this year.






Personally I completely believed that the forum was truly and completely legitimate. Here’s what some other YWSers thought. @RainbowPowerPonies said…



From @Gringoamericano:



If you’d like to check out the hilarious forum yourself, Click Here

Rydia’s Interview:

ADVENTURES IN WRITINGwritten by BlueAfrica < PM: >

If you saw the narrative I posted recently , you can probably understand why words are on my brain. In addition to that, we’ve been talking about building students’ vocabulary in my language arts methods class (a popular topic last semester, as well). So I’ve been thinking about words a lot lately, and that brought me back around to The Book Man. After all, that’s the novel that’s the subject of my friend Josh’s admonition in my recent post.

I want to spend the next few weeks talking about vocabulary use in writing, but first I’m going to define some terms that are likely to come up.

Diction. This is the English-teacher term for word choice. I use it because a) you hear it a lot in literature classes and b) it’s good practice for when I actually am an English teacher.

Denotation. This refers to the dictionary definition of a word. I don’t use it much (even though it is also an English-teacher word), but it helps to know this term because it goes along with the next one.

Connotation. While denotation is the actual definition of a word, connotation refers to the associations made with it. Denotation is fixed, but connotation is shifting, nuanced, and more personal.

The reason I bring this up is so that none of you will have any excuse for failing your next English test.

Wait, no. That’s not right.

I bring this up because connotation is important in the choices I make in my own writing. It might be important to you, too, even if you don’t realize it.



Have you ever used a word in a story or poem but felt that it wasn’t quite the right word? The word means what you want to say, technically, but somehow it just doesn’t fit. Why not?

It could be that the problem is with the subtle associations you make with the word. Take, for example, a moment when your character is speaking in a low voice. You have several options for the dialogue tag:

said softly
said quietly
whispered
murmured
muttered

Technically, all five of these options mean the same thing: to say something in a low or nearly inaudible voice.

But would you use any of these five in the same dialogue tag? I wouldn’t. Why? The denotation is more or less the same. The connotations, however, carry subtle differences. Yours might differ from mine for these words, but here’s my list:

“Said softly” implies a certain amount of tenderness in tone.
“Said quietly” is more serious, or else a mark of someone trying to hide her emotions.
“Whispered” is breathy. I’m most likely to use it in moments of fear or anxiety.
“Murmured” could be any number of things that I don’t feel are covered by the other four options. A character could be murmuring thoughtfully to herself; she could be trying to seduce someone; she could be trying to comfort someone. That’s just to name a few.
“Muttered” is an expression of irritation--like the character is angry or annoyed but also too passive-aggressive to say anything right out loud.

With all these slight differences in meaning, you can see how connotation helps me decide which word is the right one. I’ll be bringing it up in future articles, so don’t forget! Pop quiz on Monday.

Wait, no. That’s not right, either...

TWO CENTS: POETRY MONTHwritten by Aley < PM: >

There is a blurred line between short stories and novels. Short stories focus on a point, a single aspect of something which quantifies it as important to say, and everything else is shredded like extra weight. What's left is just the core, the last nugget of a whole ecosystem, just the cell. So if that is a short story, then what is left for poetry?

As we are into the first week of National Poetry Month, I think it's important to have some personal understanding of the differences between short stories, novels, and poems. This isn't to say that my way is right, but it is hopefully a way that you can develop your own understanding of what it means when something is a short story, a novel, or a poem.

For me, the difference between a poem and a short story is that the short story tries to describe the events in a way which will support, in the end, some emotional draw through the characters' actions, responses, and words. It is based more within parameters which stay fairly solid. A short story isn't going to suddenly end up in Texas when it started in some mythic land without taking you there, or having it addressed within the text itself. This is different from a novel because a novel is an attempt to get something across which cannot be boiled down to a 5,000 word story. It's more complex, deals with more moving parts, and is the ship to the life raft.

It's also different than a poem because with a poem, there are fewer constraints. The use of metaphor and imagery presents the ability to jump between the jungle to the desert, to the ocean in a matter of a few lines. The nature of a poem is more to create sounds than to maintain a clear narrative. While stories, novels in particular, can do this as well, they do it scarcely and reservedly. They delve farther into metaphors they create, sometimes spending entire chapters on a single metaphor and how it would present itself, rather than looking at multiple metaphors, or dealing with the reality and the metaphor together.

That being said, there are a lot of similarities between poetry, short stories, and novels. All three deal explicitly with emotional responses, "the human condition," and thoughts about life. All three can be used to examine personal motives, ideas, beliefs, as well as the beliefs, views, and motives of others. Poetry and stories both deal with boiling things down to the base essence of what they're trying to say, and both have their own big sisters, so to speak, who expand on that. For a poem, it is the epic, the chap book, or the anthology. For a short story, it's the novel, the novelette, or the anthology.

In this way Novels are like really long short stories that have more moving parts, and long poems which have more depth laying for all to see, but that's just my interpretation.

I'd like to challenge you to come up with a short story that you really liked. It might be something you read in class like "The Yellow Wallpaper" or "Monkey's Paw," or it might be something you read just because you liked it such as a one shot. Consider whatever this is, and try to think about what you would need to add to make it a poem, or a novel.

For me, I'll be picking "Nada" by Judith Ortiz Cofer in the anthology The Latin Deli. In Nada, I'd need to add more of a poetic structure, and probably dialogue from the main character of some sort, whether that's completely changing the point of view, or just adding more things that she said directly, I'm not completely sure. That would make it more poem-like. If I was going to make it a novel, I'd add more time, and more characters. I'd expand the story beyond just the one thing which makes it Nada and really try to embody the height of things rather than just the fall to nothing.

Try this with some of your own writing too. Some people think the difference between the three is just size. A poem is a poem because you can say it only in a poetic way to get your voice across, while a short story is a short story because what you have to say doesn't need to be any longer than that, but if you've got a novel, well then the only length able to express your entire intent, is through something long like that. These differences are a little different for each different person. For some an essay is a creative way to explore something in a matter of fact attitude without having to stick to a narrative, where-as for others, short stories don't need to stick to an exact narrative, but they have to make a point. Consider these categories for yourself, and see what you decide for your differentiating characteristics.

NEW ARRIVALS
written by BlueAfrica < PM: >

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

@Marshymallow posted in the Welcome Mat on her very first day of membership. Stop by to welcome her to YWS .

@Ashkitten83 has earned their first review star. Drop by their wall to congratulate them .

@TimmyAlly has posted the first chapter of a novel called The Only One. Click here to read it and leave a review .

THIS WEEK'S ROUNDUP – 4/5written by megsug < PM: >

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s… THE ROUNDUP.


@Audy has put together a thread where she’ll be posting prompts, tips, pictures, and poems throughout NaPo to inspire you as you beat the challenge. If you don’t know what NaPo is check this out, and join because you’re nobody until you attempt NaPo. Audy’s third prompt was pretty cool:







If you’re struggling to find a topic to poet about, I’d suggest running to this thread.


Writing Gooder is back! You heard right! Take a moment to jump up and down in excitement then go take yourself right on over there because @Rydia has revealed some pretty great articles coming up soon:







Get ready for amazingness!


Not in a revolution kind of way though. @godlypopo and @steampowered thought of some examples where spellings differ between Britain and America. Other users added some other examples and a little history as well if you’re extra interested. Did you know:







You can thank @Firestarter for that tidbit, and check out the thread for more linguistic differences.


@octoberskye is interested in learning who would win in a fight: Superman or Batman. She has her opinions and her reasoning:






Miss, while I find your opinion to be hard to argue with, I am about to grow heated! Batman foreva! Right now Superman is winning with the only two votes given. Which DC superhero would you side with?

SHAMELESS PLUGS

written by SquillsBot < PM: >

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Translature

Have you noticed the sudden rise in the number of non-English languages you see on the People feed? Do you happen to know one of these languages?

There is now a new magazine you can submit to - Translature - where you can submit your work in a non-English language along with a translation into English AND get a chance to record yourself reading your piece in that language!

What:
Any creative work!

When:
Last date for accepting entries : 26 April 2015


For details, click the image. Grab your chance to be featured on the first-ever issue of Translature!

SUBSCRIBERS

written by SquillsBot < PM: >

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