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. GREEN ROOM GALLERY
2. HOT SEAT: KAOS
3. PAGE BY PAGE
4. TWO CENTS: ANALYSIS
5. NEWSFLASH
6. NEW ARRIVALS
7. THIS WEEK'S ROUND UP 8/7
8. SHAMELESS PLUGS
8. SUBSCRIBERS

GREEN ROOM GALLERYwritten by Lightsong  < PM: >
 
As of seventh of August, there are more than 100 pieces in the Green Room, waiting patiently to be rescued. That is a lot, so I encourage reviewers, new or old, to save them from the mold spreading in the Room. Here are the ten pieces you can choose to review. Remember, reviewing a Green Room piece would give you an extra points of 25!
 
The Chronicles of a Public Bus (part 3.22) by @Buggiedude2340
The Chronicle of a Public Bus is an LMS novel. Its genre are fantasy and adventure. To check the first chapter, click here .
 
District 16 - A Collection of Memories (2) by @fkuyateh17
District 16 is a novel that revolves around culture. To check the first chapter, click here .
 
Hell is Other People (novel, Part 2 chapter IV) by @Lemons
Hell is Other People is a novel of literature and historical fiction. To check out the first four chapters, click here .
 
War of Dawn - Chapter 19 by @Costa
This is a fantasy, action/adventure novel. To check out the prologue and first chapter, click here .
 
 Chapter3 (BÖÐÚLFUR’S P.O.V) by @ofmonstersandmen1234
 This is a science fiction as well a teen fiction novel. To check the prologue and first chapter, click here .
 Warning: This work has been rated 18+ for language.

Adventures in Eridell (temporary title) by @Sabershark21
This is a fantasy, action/adventure novel. This is its first chapter.
Warning: This work has been rated 16+.

Serena and the Apocalypse (Part one) by @iceberg
 This is a science fiction, adventure novel. It is the first part of the novel!
 
 And that is all for this week's latest edition of Green Room Gallery. Stay tune to find out more Green Room's pieces that are in need of your reviews, and help reduce the amount of pieces there!

HOT SEAT: KAOSwritten by Aley  < PM: >

This week @Kaos was in the Literary Spotlight after an @Audy Jam which focused on theft! It was a Steal-ath-o-lon extravaganza and the result was a three-people co-write on a poem in our literary spotlight! The one who started it was our very own, chat-frequenter Kaos who enjoys poetry to the max. She has yet to miss one of Audy's Tuesday Jams and her presence on YWS has been felt.

If you're looking for a good chuckle, read the interview as Kaos is quite the comedian.



Kaos: Uh, sure.



K: It was 'cause I kidnapped them and made them-- It was 'cause of Audy's last Poetry Jam.



K: There's usually some prompt that she comes up with and then Audy's all like "OKAY WHO CAN FIGURE OUT WHAT TROMBONE POETRY IS" And it ends up being nothing like I expected it to be ;-; Still awesome, though.



K: They're on Tuesday nights but sometimes my brain fools me to thinking it might be Thursday. You can't fool me, I listen to public radio!



K: Well, I was thinking about the black market and organs before it even started but then we were supposed to steal a line(s) from the poem she used as a prompt. Then we wrote for about 10 minutes of our poem and I table flipped when I found out that we jumped down to the next person's poem and wrote for them. And there were two people that wrote for mine, because Audy did this twice. B)



K: Because it was a very home-hitting and relatable poem. I'm sure everyone has had this happen to them in their lives. It's a part of growing up.



K: For me, it was about my real life experiences. I have to duct tape plastic containers so nobody knows that I'm dealing with this type of thing. It was a combination of what's happened in my life so far.
I make a good profit, though.



K: Yugioh cards. If someone sees them, they'll try to steal them right away. It's terrible. I sell them in bulk, so it's always heavy to carry them around as well.



K: YOU'VE ACTIVATED MY TRAP CARD! It depends on the card. Right now, some of the Blue Eyes White Dragon sets are going for $40, but it depends on if it's a meta deck or not and all that. Also, I sell Snapple bottle caps. They always have neat facts.



K: My main competitor in this business is Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream. They have some hardcore weeaboos.



K: They definitely added the type of depth I find in something like my favorite anime, Cory in the House.



K: Yes. I would, actually. To @Sachiko I would like to say "Holla" and to @fortis I would like to say, "You make a good poet and a good dentist. Keep it up. Proud of you. "



K: Crikey, I don't know about that. I'd hope so =) =) =)



K: I can probably count how many times on all 147 of my hamsters.



K: My third kidney started acting up because I was so hyped.



K: "What's your favorite pig character in film?"





K: I just finished my shape poem. I'll upload it tomorrow, though.



K: This one, actually.



K: You're welcome.

If Kaos sounds familiar, but you just can't put your finger on it, that might be because of the name changes. This user was recently known as Yams, and had yet another username before that, so while they've been around for a while, they haven't always been Kaos. Hopefully this new name will stick like duct tape.

For more information on the Poetry Jams and updates about when they'll take place, follow Audy and get the latest information when she posts her weekly advertisement the day before or the day of the jam.

PAGE BY PAGEwritten by Holysocks  < PM: >



Hello!  This week on Page By Page, where you get all the latest on the best upcoming novels,  we’re going to be looking at a novel that is just re-starting out on its journey!   

First up we have a lovely novel that just recently got revived!  @Justlittleoleme2 originally wrote the first chapter in 2013!  Can you believe it?  I think it’s pretty cool that Justlittle has gone back to it after three years!  I know I can certainly relate to having a story in your mind that always seems to be there, begging to be told.  Justlittle’s story has this feel of mischief and magic that’s just beautiful. 

In case you don’t believe me:




Why not check out Justlittle’s story for yourself! Frost and Flame

Now, if you’re looking for a thrill, and want to jump in on a novel in the middle of it’s trek (you know you want to!) here ya go!

The Chronicles of a Public Bus (part 3.23)

This work by @Buggiedude2340 has zero reviews!  Show it a little love for me?  In the name of chocolate cupcakes?

District 16 - a Collection of Memories (2)

For those of you who’d rather start a bit closer to the beginning of a work, this story by @fkuyateh17 might just be the thing for you!  Check it out and see what you think!

That’s all for now, folks!  If you stumble upon a great novel on Young Writer’s Society that you think needs some extra love or deserves some attention, shoot Holysocks a PM!

TWO CENTS: ANALYSISwritten by Aley  < PM: >

After such a reminiscent article last week. I decided to base this article on how to write an analysis of a poem. It's not very often that I stretch these muscles anymore, but when I see a work that is in the Green Room, and doesn't want to be critiqued, I sometimes decide to critique it in a different way, analyze it. Here's one example where I did that this week on @CandyWizard's poem, dear reader

So why write this type of thing? It takes a little bit of time, but it is worth it in the end. For me, it's a question of what the writer needs to hear. If it's someone who needs a confidence boost, or a poem where I just don't know what to critique, then I might go with an analysis because it gives the writer a chance to experience their poem from the outside. It's a way to say "hey, this is what I felt, and how I experienced your art" without saying "this is right, this is wrong" and getting in the way of their process. I give the reader my opinion about how they used poetic devices and tactics, and it can be helpful because they might not have seen it that way themselves.

Oftentimes artists just paint. They don't paint in a certain way in order to do something particular, they just paint what they want and practice how to make it look good. They don't see the theory behind the art. Well, the same thing happens with Poetry. I bring the theory behind poetry to the forefront with an analysis, so people can see that they're already using these poetic devices I keep talking about.

So how do you write an analysis? First off, you want to approach it as a reader, not a writer. You also don't want to include I or Me in the story. Whenever you want to talk about yourself, use the third person "the reader" and whenever you want to talk about the poet, use either "the poet" when you're talking about what they did for the craft, or "the speaker" if you want to talk about what was actually said in the poem.

Do two read throughs and during the first one, follow the following steps.

1) Write what you noticed.
2) Explain why you noticed it.
3) Explain how it made you feel.

Now this isn't the finished product. You have to work with it a little more than that. After you've completed the list of things you've noticed, which needs to be done quickly so you don't miss anything, follow this next list of steps.

4) Ask yourself "What did the author mean?"
5) List why you think that's what they meant.
6) Use the things you noticed to support why you think that's what they meant.

The first thing is to ask yourself "what did the author mean?" and write that down. This gives you something to write about, something to analyze. After that, here's the important thing, write why you think that's what the author meant. A lot of times it's underlying connotations that you're picking up on, and when you actually go back and paraphrase the poem as you read it again, you'll notice that the denotation of the lines individually is different than the connotation of the poem together. These should already be explored in what you noticed in the first three steps.

As you get more experienced writing these critiques, you'll begin to see that you can actually give commentary and suggestions as you analyze the poem. You'll develop a checklist of things that poets do and don't do as you develop an understanding of how poetry affects the reader.

The more you write it like an essay for English class, usually, the better it turns out. You get a system for organizing your thoughts, and developing your point as you write an analysis to a poem. Most of the time that point is "This poem is saying THIS" and that's it. You're just trying to prove that you know what the poem means.

The biggest difference between this and a review is that most of the time you're talking about what the poem is doing, instead of what the poem needs to improve. It's generally more positive feedback than negative. The "what to improve" part of these reviews comes when the poet actually reads it and says "Oh god, they're really off the mark, I need to figure out how to get my point across better," and you, as someone who is analyzing the poem, could be none the wiser of this experience.

So when do you do which type of review?

If you're choosing between which type of review to do, analysis is easier to do than the critique on poems where you can't find anything wrong, you don't want to be offensive, or the poem is one that you really don't like personally.

The reason is because it forces you to stay unbiased and neutral about the poem itself. You write it without including "I think" and all of those other emotional personal words, and take a step back like someone observing another person reading the poem. It gives you a chance to just focus on determining how the poem does what it does. Regardless of whether you tell the poet what they did good or bad, it also gives them a chance to examine their poem from your perspective.

This can also be really good practice for writing a critique without involving your personal grudges or biases, and learning to just explore what a poem could do better. Neither one should change whether you like a poem or not. Both of them need to focus on what the writer needs to improve.

I enjoy writing these because they're more challenging than a traditional review, but traditional reviews in YWS style are really good for situations when you have something you want to say, know exactly how you want to say it, and want to go into detail about how to improve.

In an analysis you can't really go into detail about methods to improve because you're not approaching it as a writer, but as a reader. If you want to suggest ways that the writer can improve their craft, you can't do it because you're just looking at the results instead of the system of writing. You don't make assumptions about how the writer did or did not make the poem in an analytical review.

In a traditional review, you can do that, and you can make challenges, offer suggestions about method, and directly talk about the different poetic devices as things they can use. It's really useful for a site like YWS where you're mostly going to be commenting on how to improve, rather than what you're reading. However, the drawback of these critiques is that you're constantly going to be looking at it like this is not a finished product, and that can be really disheartening to new writers.

Every once in awhile, it's nice to get a review that's not badgering you to improve, and is just looking at what you are saying and how you are saying it.

Considering I wrote this article because I thought originally I'd be writing analytical reviews for Squills, I'd like to offer analytical reviews to my readers for coming issues of Squills. That's right, if you want an analytical review on your poem, send me a PM, with a link, and I'll use it as my next article. I'd enjoy stretching my analytical legs and you can see first hand what this is like.

Have a topic you want to hear about? Send me a PM! I'd love to hear about what you want to read.

Until next time, keep reviewing!

NEWSFLASH
written by Lavvie < PM: >

Nervous that your summer plans have kept you in the dark about the latest news in the world? Have no fear - seriously, terrorism isn’t as bad as the media say - because Squills has you covered.



The first country to ban the popular mobile phone application, Pokemon Go, is Iran! Iran’s High Council of Virtual Spaces was not very clear on the reasons why the game has been banned, although vague claims pointed to so-called “security concerns”. Some of these concerns might point towards moving around late at night, trespassing on private property, and the “pokemon effect” of large numbers of people gathering in public places. Other governments looking at the effects of Pokemon Go include that of Singapore, which is analyzing how the game plays a role in the daily life its citizens.



Since the infamous Brexit vote that took place in late July and left the United Kingdom in a state of EU-annexation, applications from Britons applying for an Irish passport has gone up 70%. Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs claimed that the applications are up 73% from the same point last year. In July 2015, there were just over 4 000 applications, whereas this July 2016, close to 7500 applications have been made. There has also been a spike in applications coming from Northern Ireland. The Irish government has been urging people to stay calm, as the United Kingdom will not leave the EU for at least another two years.



Vinh Xuan Hoang is Vietnam’s national hero this week, as he garnered the country their very first Olympics gold medal when he took first for the 10 meter air pistol competition. Hong was able to score 202.5 points, beating Brazil’s Felipe Wu who scored 202.1 points. Although, Wu was able to take the lead for a short time during his penultimate shot. Nevertheless, Hoang was able to outshine the home favourite and will certainly be heading home as a lauded hero and true Olympian.



Following the failed coup attempt in Turkey, the country’s president, Tayyip Erdogan, spoke to a rally of one million people, stating that recent events were a historical milestone towards building a better Turkey. He also went as far to defy criticism from Western countries concerning his government’s current action to purge all those possibly linked to the coup. Entitled the “Democracy and Martyrs’ Rally”, the event boasted people waving red Turkish flags and signs that read, “You are a gift from God, Erdogan”. Many were core Islamist supporters, but secularists and nationalists were also among the roaring crowd.

NEW ARRIVALS
written by Lavvie < PM: >

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

@clarevelyn13 posted a Robin Hood-esque chapter of their novel, which currently has zero reviews. Click here to leave a review!

@Malamaya is introducing us to her character, Lazarus Lupei, in Character Interviews. Check it out!

@graphiteshimmer earned their first review and has some fun status updates involved Lord of the Rings memes. Need I say more?

THIS WEEK'S ROUND UP 8/7written by megsug < PM: >

For this round up, I found a few things you should put into your life, and one thing you should cut out!

 
The Writing Olympics started August 4, but people can still join in! With six events still to come, anyone could still have a chance to place, and the prizes are pretty alluring:







Each event has a first, second, and third place with points assigned to each place. The person with the most points at the end of the Olympics wins!

Check out the Writing Olympics Forum to see what event is live now.


@Unintentional has shown off some “unintentional” art that’s beautiful. One of the most impressive is:



They draw the design and cut it with a precision knife. Very talented!

 
...Or putting it in, and it’s really not your heart. It’s emotions that need to be removed or added from your poetry. @Aley has compiled a set of articles dealing with recognizing whether your poetry needs or is overwhelmed with it and how to fix said problems. Something I’ll be using to check my cliché game is:







Check it out for tons of great tips!


@DukeofWonderland is holding a contest on works about your religious perspective, whatever that may be. The works can be in any format or style from essay to stream of consciousness. The Duke’s looking for insight into how specific views (or lack thereof) are misunderstood. The judging is based on likes and the decisions of two judges, and the prizes are pretty great:







This contest is also a great way to get involved with Duke’s blog about diversity!

SHAMELESS PLUGS

written by SquillsBot  < PM:  >

We love to run articles and questions, but we also love to advertise for you. Let people know about your new blog, a poem or story you’re looking for reviews on, or a forum thread you’d like more traffic on through Squills’ Shameless Plugs. PM @SquillsBot with the exact formatting of your advertisement, contained in the following code.

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Poetry Wars is looking for voters!

This is your chance to say which type of poetry you like better, so check out the two poems in the Battle Thread: Poetry Wars: The Battle, Updated:8-5 and decide which contestant you think did a better job!

This week, for the first time ever, we have someone coming back for more! @DragonWriter22 is a former competitor who has gone up against the formidable @bluewaterlily who ended up taking the competition back in week one . Now, they are going up against the recent-spotlighter @Kaos who entered this poem at the start of these competitions. Come see how these two brutes face off against one another in this week's duel of spaces. Kaos has a strong poem, but will it be enough to beat experience? Your vote could decide their fate!

Once you're done, head on over to the main thread of Poetry Wars and offer up your own poem as sacrafice for a chance to be pitted against other competitors.

The next round and the results of this round will be out next week, so get voting while the getting's good. You can even choose to offer yourself as a guest judge if you're eager to share all your thoughts on a subject and get the inside scoop of Poetry Wars.





That's all folks~ Now send us yours.

SUBSCRIBERS

written by SquillsBot  < PM: >

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