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!






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

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1. SOCIETY PAGES
2. RANDOMOSITY
3. SHAMELESS PLUGS
4. SUBSCRIBERS

SOCIETY PAGESwritten by EternalRain < PM: >

With May the start of this week, many new things have pooped up around YWS. There’s the short story month challenge, and: #May100.

What’s this #May100 hashtag you keep seeing everywhere? Well, many members have decided to shoot for 100 reviews in the month of May. @Sheyren has 5 reviews 2 days in and @Hannah has 10. Everyone is off to a great start!

Another new hashtag that’s popped up this week is #fivefearsofmine , which is pretty straightforward. @featherstone9086 has a fear of needles. Something potentially poking into you? Not fun!

In other news, @Audy is flying to San Diego soon, @FairyLight likes it when the moon looks like a toenail (who doesn’t?), @megsug got to do the hokey pokey with a bunch of teens for a school project, and @LadyLizzLovelace has an aunt with 35 cats.

Yet another hashtag is #10thingsaboutme /#10factsaboutme. One of @PrincessInk’s facts about herself is that one of her favorite science topics is molecular biology. @Frinderman was born in the middle of a blizzard, and @honeymoon’s favorite Disney Princess is Rapunzel.

On the topic of Disney, @BlueAfrica is rewatching Disney sequels, starting with Atlantis 2: Milos Return.

@MJTucker’s local library has no copies of the Maze Runner, but has ten copies of each of the HUnger Games books!

@VegasLight’s ancestor is Pocahontas, which is pretty amazing!

And to end our week we have a reminder from @marms, when it comes to writing:

RANDOMOSITY: SHORTSwritten by Lumi < PM: >

Wa-wa-wa-welcome to Randomosity, where we find Random people in Random places across the YWS city and ask them your burning questions. Sometimes they're silly, but sometimes they burn too much. Today, we felt the burn as we encountered DragonNoir and LadyLizzLovelace to talk about Short Stories, the hot topic of May! Help me set our scene as we arrive in a crowded Red Lobster! But there's an empty seat beside our first victim of journalism!

Please help me welcome my first subject of speculation, @DragonNoir!


DragonNoir: Hello! Well, I like fiction because it goes past basic logic of the real world outside. It gives the writer full freedom to write about whatever they want to write about. As you stated, I also like short stories, which I like because they can be challenging to write and also writing them doesn't get as boring like with writing a novel.


D: Well, it does take a bit of good vocabulary choices, as well as a very clear idea of what you're writing about, then everything gets easier. Details are also important, since a short story doesn't go on for ten pages, so the writer needs to paint as clear a picture for the reader as possible. However, you shouldn't try to go over the top with descriptions and complicated words, otherwise the reader will just get bored of not being able to understand or picture what's written down.


D: I would suggest trying to absolutely demolish the reader's emotions, if you're writing that kind of stuff. Of course, you have to have a good idea of what you plan to happen in that space of time. First of all, think of what's going wrong. Try looking at the characters' personality traits and how they would react to a certain stimulus. After that, maybe try looking at what happens during the story, is there anything which doesn't have a lot of importance in there, or something which can be easily removed without you having to make any huge changes in your plot. If all of that fails, then you're probably writing something you are not ready to write yet, or the topic you chose is too complex. But by all means, try your hardest to find a way around this without making any very fatal moves which could impact the reader's opinion negatively.



Our second guest comes to us from the Knights of the Green Room, the Slaying Lady herself--fresh from the bowling alley where we found her eating a corn dog off her jousting lance: @LadyLizzLovelace!


Liz: In the way that we saw early during NaPo, that there are so many different types of prompts, many of them still fit for short stories. And a really good thing to write shorts off of, is certain lines of poetry or entire poems themselves that you like. I don't really like written prompts that much, I rather prefer music or pictures or just staring out window at random things. It's a lot of slowing down and looking at the many different things running by you, and just finding inspiration in one thing. Perhaps it's a leaf falling off a tree in a certain way or a bird sitting on your window, but I find the best way to write really creative stories, is to just look at what has already been created around you.


L: A lot of it depends on the circumstances and the emotional situation you're plunging the characters into. If you're trying to do like a close knit, very deep and emotional and involves a bit of crying (and as long as it's not an intervention), I'd say two characters. That gives you enough space to develop each of these precious fictional beings in such a short amount of time.
Time is really the main thing to worry about and how far you want the characters to go within the short. If you've only got 1 or 2 thousand, don't go with more than 1 or 2 characters if you want them to be fully known. But if you're leaning more towards these anonymous (still powerful) emotions, 3 or 4 can be placed in there. So bottom line is: think about how long it's gonna be, how many characters you have thought out and how many emotional periods they're going to have. And if you find the formula isn't working. either cut characters or add words.


L: The secret to pacing is relatively chill because it is to basically just chill. I mean there are slight cases where you're a bit too cool and slow but for the most part, people are rolling down the highway at 95 mph and the sirens are going. chill. Most pacing just needs to slow down a bit and examine what's happening. Writers often cruise past critical details because they think they just have to rush, rush, rush to the final marker and get past the checkered flag first.
And even if you have an overall pace under control, there's still the specific moments going on where you need to speed up and slow down accordingly. Tense and emotionally charge moment between two characters? Slow down and describe it in detail. Slightly boring but important to the progression of the story hours on the highway? Put the pedal to the metal darlings.


L: Always consider your characters before you put them through too much because you may eventually need them for another story.



You can follow @LadyLizzLovelace by visiting her profile, and follow @DragonNoir by visiting his profile, respectively by the tags. We loved having our guests today and we hope you all have an eventful and wonderful Show Us Your Shorts Month. Follow the action by the hashtag #showusyourshorts. And remember, readers: Stay Random.

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