Young Writers Society

Welcome to Squills, the official news bulletin of the Young Writers Society!

What will you find here? Tons of interesting news about YWS, including but not limited to: articles about writing, art, and the world of humanities; interviews with YWS members; shameless plugs; link round-ups; and opinionated columns.

And where will all of this come from? Take a look at our fantastic creative staff!





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

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

1. Recap of the 11s
2. FM Interview with Stranger
3. Ask Gruno
4. Adventures in Writing
5. New Arrivals
6. Subscribers

RECAP OF THE 11swritten by Pretzelstick < PM: >

Bonjour Squillsamigos. Welcome to a nice article wrap-up to the YWS Birthday week! I have interviewed different people, and gathered up quotes from the radio show and replies from the various threads that were published in honor of this. I have worked very very hard on this, so please feel free to read until the end and then give it a like, or thumbs up

Here are two quick interviews that I had with the one and only @Carlito:



Carlito:I'm participating in the YWS [Evil] Scavenger Hunt by Rydia and Mesh.



C: It's been fun looking through the archives to find as many answers as I can. I've been a member a long time and it was cool to look back and remember some of the changes YWS has gone through. I've also learned a lot of stuff and learning is fun!


C: I love reviewing and I love a good challenge, so this is the perfect storm.

Here is what we are highlighting:

#11for11Challenge

@Pompadour has been hosting this challenge for those brave YWSers over the weekend, to write 11 reviews for 11 years-in 2 days.It's easier than you think it looks like. So far, @steampowered has completed it, and @BlueAfrica, @Stegosaurus, @Carlito and @Pretzelstick have taken liking and accepted this journey. (if you check out the thread, all of the participants seem pretty hyper)

A small surprise awaits [solved]

@Nate posted a series of eight clues in total, and had a small(big) surprise at the end of whoever unlocked it that would actually benefit and change the whole website-for a short period of time. He promised that he would post the answers to the questions for the clues, so please stay tuned if you want to know more about the correct answers.@StellaThomas was the first one to guess this and win the challenge so here is what we got:






Yay, Congrats to Stella for doing this, being I personally was way too puzzled by all of the riddles.

The YWS [Evil] Scavenger Hunt

Also, @Rydia has extended the deadline to a couple of more days, so if you were planning to do her evil savenger hunt but procrastinated or didn’t finish(like me ahem),then please feel free to jump in and do that, you know?






The 11th Edition

Have you heard about the 11th edition of the scavenger hunt? @Iggy is hosting it, and it seems pretty darn cool because there is 11 of 11s. The whole thing is based on the number: 11. If you are interested in participating in this, it is due Sunday evening, but you can still try to do it. Hey, what do you have to lose, you will still earn a badge either way!







The Radio Show Hour! - link that @Nate posted if you wanted to re-listen in! Or maybe you weren't present, so now's the time to catch up!

Here is a screenshot of what chat looked like:

There were 56 people inside the chat-room during the show! It was a fast-paced and crazy fun time with lots of people in there! And in total, 30 people that called in! Here is a recap of what some of them did/said.

@LadySpark publicly announced the date of the Shakespearan Festival, which was to be from Dec.12-19 but the actual reading and performing of the Shakespearan Festival will be held on Dec. 19. If you didn’t really catch that from the radio, then please make sure to actually note that in your calendars. I am sure that she will be posting more information soon.

@Pretzelstick-myself- read a poem Still I Rise by Maya Angelou out loud, and surprisingly I was the only one to read a poem out loud. This poem inspires me every single time that I read it <3

In a post on her wall, @LadySpark says that her favorite part about the radio show was when Nate said:





@EscaSkye thinks that her favorite part is when Nate said:







@Lylas think that:





and @CandyWizard agrees because they repost Lylas’ statement.

And that’s all that we have for this week. I hope that I satisfied you with my recap and I hope that each and everyone of you had a unique experience this week and memories that you will treasure forever. Hope to catch you next time reading this article!

Au reviour!<3

FEATURED MEMBER INTERVIEW WITH STRANGERwritten by Elysium < PM: >

Hello everyone! Elysium your community reporter here with a very short Featured Member interview with @Stranger! Let's dive in!



Stranger: No, actually, I wasn't expecting it at all. There were times when I had hoped I would get it, but then I realized I was perfectly fine with not getting it at all. So, yeah, I wasn't expecting this.



S: Writing poetry and or spamming chess links in chat because no one EVER WANTS TO PLAY CHESS.
Reviewing is also really fun!



S: Don't try just to become Featured Member. Just do yourself, no goals at all except for helping others on YWS.

Thank you for the wise words of advice on the last one! Stranger writes some of my favorite works that I read on YWS, and most of them might be your favorites too!

That's all for this edition Squills. Thanks for reading!

ASKGRUNOwritten by Gruno < PM: >

Welcome to Ask Gruno, the advice column in which stuff happens. Gruno will answer any questions you throw at him, be it advice, personal opinion, solutions or philosophy. This week 3 questions will be answered. My cousin Pruno has been busy at the wonderful school for Pruno people, so I will be taking over the column. Every now and again, Pruno may make an appearance, so never fear! May the question answering commence!

Dear King of Sarcasm,
Why are they called 'apartments' when they are all very much clubbed together?

-Pondering Piglet

Dear Pondering Piglet,
Because an apartment is where you go where you're either too old or can't live at home anymore without punching somebody but you can't afford a house. You need to be apart from those that royally pickle you off.

Yours Truly,
Gruno

Sadly, that is all this Runian has for this week! We need your questions to keep this column going so if you're interested in submitting, click here.

ADVENTURES IN WRITINGwritten by BlueAfrica < PM: >

I should not write articles about clichés and tropes (etc) in the middle of a month where I’m trying to push through and finish a story, because it makes me want to stop writing new material and go back over what I’ve already written to see just how many clichés I’ve used. But since I already clicked an article about tropes and clichés, I say...FULL SPEED AHEAD.

To recap last week’s conclusion: although people tend to think of tropes as clichéd, they can actually be useful in writing. You don’t want to use so many tropes that your story becomes predictable and dull, but if you try using no tropes at all you might end up with a convoluted plot and outrageous characters. Jami Gold puts it well in her blog when she says,






Additionally, drawing from different tropes can inspire a cast of characters who have the potential to interact in interesting ways. However, that doesn’t mean you should simply fill your story with clear-cut tropes! Here are some tips to help you out.

Know which tropes to avoid. There are some tropes that are best avoided unless you plan to parody or subvert them. The Mary-Sue is the most famous of cliched tropes; it doesn’t work because Mary-Sues (or Gary-Stus) are miraculously perfect characters. Readers can’t relate to them because real people aren’t perfect. Usually such perfection ends up annoying us.

Other tropes to avoid are those that are offensive, like the White Savior , the Noble Savage , or Women in the Fridge . Some are offensive for reasons of race or culture: the White Savior turns the white or modern MC into the savior of a non-white or “primitive” race (think Jake Sully in “Avatar”) and the Noble Savage reduces a culture to an idealized and two-dimensional version of itself (again think “Avatar”). Others may be perceived as offensive for reasons of gender, or possibly just lazy writing. Women in Refrigerators use female characters as props to motivate male characters--which would not be as big a problem if fully-developed women with more significance were also present in the story, but they’re usually not. Even when the “woman in the refrigerator” is actually a male character, this trope is best avoided. Your protagonist should have more motivation to fight the villain than angst or rage caused by a loved one’s death.

Let’s look at “Big Hero 6” for a moment. [Beware: A wild SPOILER appears!] BH6 uses Women in Refrigerators in the death of Tadashi, Hiro’s brother. I mention this as an example of how tropes best avoided can work if you somehow subvert our expectations of them. When Tadashi first dies, a villain is not apparent, so there’s some time before his death gives rise to Hiro’s angst. At that point, Hiro becomes obsessed with destroying the man who killed his brother.

Which is fairly typical of the Women in Refrigerators trope.

However, Hiro’s friends help him confront his grief and tell him they’ll bring the man to justice without killing him. Hiro has such a turnaround that he ends up not only not killing this man, but risking his own life to save the man’s daughter.

(Side note: The man became a villain through the typical Women in Refrigerators trope, which becomes something of a dramatic foil when Hiro does not follow through with the usual narrative.)

This subverts the typical Women in Refrigerators story, where the main character achieves peace only by destroying the villain. Additionally, Tadashi was a real character, with interests and concerns, rather than purely prop. And even after his death, Hiro learns from him; Tadashi was exactly the sort of person to risk his life for someone else.

Flesh the trope out. A trope is a good place to start, but a character that is a clear-cut example of a trope is predictable and uninteresting. As with any character, you need to dig beneath the surface. Fill in a backstory, interests, hobbies, and so forth. Your character will be more three-dimensional.

Give the trope a twist. Now your character is a person, but she might be predictable nonetheless. Time to throw a twist into the mix! WriteWorld gives this example.






That’s not to say that the compliant, scared variety of bookworm doesn’t exist in real life, but in literature it tends to be the most commonly sighted species. Write a bookworm who has lots of friends. Write a bookworm who also enjoys movies or videogames or technology in general. Even a character whose favorite books are graphic novels is a twist on the classic bookworm who most enjoys classic literature. With a simple twist, a well-worn trope can become new again.

Although my articles have focused primarily on character tropes, remember that there are also tropes of genre, plot, and so forth. Tv Tropes is a perfect way to waste hours of your time learn about different types of tropes. It includes examples from anime, film (both live action and animated), television, music, literature, and advertising.

Useful Links

WriteWorld: Stereotypes, Tropes, and Archetypes . A clear and simple breakdown of the differences between stereotypes, tropes, archetypes, and clichés.

11 Exhausted SF Tropes You Should Avoid. Really. Includes unevolved humans far into the future, the easy hack, and more!

Cliches to Avoid -- Or Reconstruct . A brief list of romance-novel cliches.

Academy Award Winning Movie Trailer . A video parody for your enjoyment.

NEW ARRIVALS
written by BlueAfrica < PM: >



@Enflicted has earned their first review star! Head over to their wall to congratulate them .

@sull191 is writing a action/adventure fanfiction called Princess of Hadees. Click here to read the first chapter .

@Dracstus has posted in the “10 Favorites” thread. Check it out to learn more about them .

SUBSCRIBERS

written by SquillsBot < PM: >

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