Young Writers Society

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

See an empty position you'd like to fill? Find position descriptions and instructions to apply here .

1. Different Methods of Reviewing
2. Code Breaker Crosswords
3. Two Cents: Preachiness
4. Out And About In The Spotlight: Lake
5. Featured Member Interview: JoeBookman!
6. Pop Culture Corner: The Andy Griffith Show
7. 3 Guests, 3 Questions: New Years Resolutions
8. Shameless Plugs
9. Subscribers

DIFFERENT METHODS OF REVIEWINGwritten by JustPerks < PM: >


Hey guys! Since I myself have problems figuring out how I should review, I wanted to ask more experienced users to get some good advice!

The way I would describe my review technique is simply trying to pick out individual pieces and go over them individually. I try to weave the parts into bigger chunks, but I’m not sure how effective it is.

To start off is @Iggy who says





I really should remember do something in this capacity, since it’s easier to scan blocks of text for specific parts to focus on.

Next, @Rosendorn explains their unique way of reviewing





This may see harsh, but it does make sense to see how a critic would review your work. I can see the appeal and how helpful a review this way would be for writers trying to make a novel to publish.

Ending this article is @Mea who explains that






This is usually how my reviews are written as well. I don’t know if I can mix in my thoughts so nicely into actual paragraphs, but I try.

I hope this article and these lovely reviewers help to determine what kind of method is best for you! One more hint is that it’s okay to change to a different way if it seems better. Good luck with reviewing!

CODE BREAKER CROSSWORDSwritten by JustPerks < PM: >

Hello YWSers! It’s my pleasure to present a little challenge for you all - a crossword puzzle! You can, of course, solve this puzzle by whatever means necessary, but I’d love for you to use certain places on here to help pave the way!

Rules for the Code Breaker Challenge

- Teams will not be allowed. You will be required to explain or show your work when you submit your answers.
- If you do not solve a Code before next week’s edition, then your answers will not be accepted.
- There’s nothing to stop you from using Google if you wish, but the purpose of this column is to get you to use YWS, your mind to solve each puzzle. We’re watching you.
- The first three to complete the challenge will get rewards.

Last Week's Winners

None

I’ll give you one hint - look at the 2 Down clue.

I hope that caught your eye, since the crossword puzzle is below:



Clues



If you're stuck, open the spoiler.





Happy solving, everyone! I wish you all good luck!

TWO CENTS: PREACHINESSwritten by Aley < PM: >

Hey everyone, I can't remember if I have talked about this or not in a Two Cents so I figured I'd bring it up. Preachiness in a poem is when the poem sounds like it would make a good sermon. For me, it's an unattractive way to write a poem because I enjoy being able to read about the intimacy of thoughts rather than being told what my thoughts are, so I thought I'd go over a few details of preachiness with you so you can avoid the pitfalls with me.

A preachy poem is usually a poem that has a lot of commands or "you" statements in it. For example, I'm going to write a preachy poem that we'll edit through the article and show you how it changes.

Sitting on the lonely bed, you sigh
like an atom bomb on a lonely coast,
you dread the quiet nights which follow
the silence of the crickets,
the contagious wind which can eat your skin.
You don't want to leave, despite being able,
opening those doors to go among people is too hard.
You are at the epicenter of madness
among a crowd of laughing people
and you are the cause of their desertion.
You have such blackened stains of char for hands
you are nothing, you are no good, like a broken record,
and you feel guilty of it all.
You feel like the reason the world ends.

Okay, so the first thing to notice is how many "you"s the poem has. Let's count them! In total, there are 11! So that must mean the speaker is yelling at someone, right? Well, no, this is actually a poem in "second person" which if you've ever learned point of view in English, isn't really something you want to write in. Same with a poem. So, the first thing we need to do to get this out of a preachy poem, is to get it into first person.

From personal experience, "you" becomes "I" much easier than "he/she/they". I can tell you this from personal experience because when I was a baby writer, I used to write quiz fanfiction and that was in second person. When I realized that was a no-no, I changed my 100+ page word document to first person after attempting to change it to third for about 20 pages.

Not fun.

Sitting on the lonely bed, I sigh
like an atom bomb on a lonely coast,
I dread the quiet nights which follow
the silence of the crickets,
the contagious wind which can eat my skin.
I don't want to leave, despite being able,
opening those doors to go among people is too hard.
I am at the epicenter of madness
among a crowd of laughing people
and I am the cause of their desertion.
I have such blackened stains of char for hands
I am nothing, I am no good, like a broken record,
and I feel guilty of it all.
I feel like the reason the world ends.

I have outlined the "you" to "I" changes in red to show you that sometimes you need to change your verb. Yeah, "I are" is not really how we talk in most places.

Now that we've got that done, let's read the poem again and see if that's gotten rid of all of the preachiness or not.

To me, this erased 90% of the preachy vibe, but it left something else which is almost worse than preachiness in the poem and needs to be watched for when you do change something to first person, naval gazing.

Naval Gazing is when a poem's speaker sounds like they live so far inside their belly button, they don't see other people and they're just obsessed with themselves. Poems with naval gazing are considered weakly worded, and often just need some assistance getting the message across.

In most cases, taking out weak words can really affect the drama level of the poem and improve it to be something that might be better than naval gazing. Let's try it.

Weak words are things such as "such as", "like", "feel", "such", "want", "could", "should", etc. They are words which are being used to modify something else. Obviously you can't remove them all of the time, but you can remove them most of the time, so let's do that now. I'm also going to create any metaphors possible, so where something was doing something dramatic, I'm going to change it to have that something dramatic to begin with. I'll show you what I mean!

Sitting on the lonely bed, I sigh
like an atom bomb on a lonely coast,
I dread the quiet nights which follow
the silence of the crickets,
the contagious wind which can eats my skin.
I don't want to leave, despite being able, can't leave,
opening those doors to go among people is too hard.
I am at the epicenter of madness
among a crowd of laughing people
and I am the cause of their desertion.
I have such blackened stains of char for hands
I am nothing, I am no good, like a broken record,
and I feel am guilty of it all.
I feel like am the reason the world ends.

Now that you see what I'm removing, I'm going to remove it to get a clean copy of the poem.

Sitting on the lonely bed, I sigh
like an atom bomb on a lonely coast,
I dread the quiet nights
the silence of the crickets,
the contagious wind eats my skin.
I can't leave,
opening those doors to go among people is hard.
I am the epicenter of madness
among laughing people
I am the cause of their desertion.
I have blackened stains of char for hands
I am nothing, I am no good, a broken record,
I am guilty of it all.
I am the reason the world ends.

Now that we've removed some of the weak words, we can see that there are some lines here which are weak in general. For instance, what's the point of "opening those doors to go among people is hard."? When I wrote it, I was bringing in the actual meaning of the poem: a shy introvert's feelings, but here, the metaphor is too strong and it makes the poem sound weak.

Same with "among laughing people" because they don't really exist in the metaphor. Everyone's been wiped out by an atom bomb in the metaphor.

Sitting on the lonely bed, I sigh
like an atom bomb on a lonely coast,
I dread the quiet nights
the silence of the crickets,
the contagious wind eats my skin.
I can't leave,
I am the epicenter of madness
I am the cause of their desertion.
I have blackened stains of char for hands
I am nothing, I am no good, a broken record,
I am guilty of it all.
I am the reason the world ends.

Now this is a stronger poem, but with all of the "I am" statements, it loses some of it's power. Let's fix that.

To fix repetition in a poem, you can remove or rephrase things in order to break it up. Here, I'm going to use more metaphors and descriptions, or remove lines which sound like they're from a sobbing child.

Sitting on the lonely bed, I sigh
like an atom bomb on a lonely coast,
I dread the quiet nights
the silence of the crickets,
the contagious wind eats my skin.
I can't leave,
I am the epicenter of madness
the cause for desertion.
My hands are blackened stains of ash
I am the reason the world ends.

The two bolded words are words I had to change to create a more powerful metaphor. I changed "of" to "for" so I could remove the "I am" at the beginning and work it into the phrase before it as a re-wording of the phrase. I also changed "char" to "ash" so it was more "human remains" feeling.

Last, we need to read over the poem and look for awkward sentences, missing punctuation, or things that don't feel right. To do all of that, I'm going to put it in a paragraph, edit it, then put it back as a poem.

Sitting on the lonely bed, I sigh like an atom bomb on a lonely coast. I dread the quiet nights, the silence of the crickets, the contagious wind eats my skin. I can't leave, I am the epicenter of madness, the cause for desertion. My hands are blackened stains of ash. I am the reason the world ends.

I have bolded words which I feel do not fit with my initial purpose of writing the poem, which is to create a poem that talks about the feeling of being an introvert among a crowd. Next, I'll change them in order to better fit that meaning of the poem.

Sitting on the broken bed, I sigh like an atom bomb on a roaring coast. I dread the raucous nights, the silence of the crickets, the contagious chorus eats my skin. I can't leave, I am the epicenter of madness, the cause for desertion. My hands are blackened stains of ash. I am the reason the world ends.

Here I've changed the words and I'm going to put it back in lines, and I'll add stanzas as needed as well since I see a good place for one.

Sitting on the broken bed,
I sigh like an atom bomb
on a roaring coast. I dread
the raucous nights,
the silence of the crickets,
the contagious chorus eats my skin.

I can't leave,
I am the epicenter
of madness, the cause
for desertion.

My hands are blackened
stains of ash.
I am the reason the world ends.

And here is the result!

As a re-cap, we:

• Took it out of second person [you to I]
• Took away weak language [adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, etc.]
• Removed lazy repetition of the same phrase for no reason
• Checked the clarity and meaning of the poem

If you do this with one of your poems and give me a before and after, I would be happy to review your progress with the poem in the next Squills! Just send your poems to me using the link to my PM box up above, or PM me through my profile page.

You can also post it to my [url=https://www.youngwriterssociety.com/clubs/1712/forum/77135]Author Page [sign]External-link-icon[/sign]

OUT AND ABOUT IN THE SPOTLIGHT: LAKE

written by LadyLizz< PM: >


It's not often we see a streak like this but when we do, we call it in the hot seat. That's typically referring to a long stretch of time and these events have taken place in a few days, as reasoning to why in titling this different. One new person we have found having such success is the lovely @Lake, who has agreed to sit in my studio today.



Lake:I would say the secret to my success would be just writing from the heart, using your emotions to write.



L:You are part right on that, at first, when I had two poems in Spotlight, I was happy that I was getting that much attention. But as people encouraged me to continue writing more poems to get into Literary Spotlight, I felt sorta bad, because only two people would have one poem in Spotlight, so I tried saying no, but, eventually, I gave up and wrote more, evetually taking over three spots, then four.
But I have been enjoying my time on YWS, I already feel like a part of the family here, everyone is so welcoming and kind. And you are correct, I have not been around long here, almost two months.







L: There are definitely a few important people here that I would love to give a shout out to: @Flumadiddle, @emolemon, @DemonGoddess, and @KatjaDawn.



L: I've been working on two books that are in chapters that I plan on publishing eventually, just not at this particular moment, I want to publish them, but I want people to like the stories I make.



If you want to read this poet's works, a few are still currently up in the Spotlight and of course always in their portfolio. Don't touch that dial, because we'll be right back.

FEATURED MEMBER INTERVIEW: JOEBOOKMANwritten by Aley < PM: >

One of our animal experts was crowned the Featured Member from January 3rd to January 17th! This expert has created an Animal Questions thread where you can ask him all sorts of questions! That's right, this month's FM is none other than @ JoeBookman

Here are some of the questions he's answered:

@Wolfical asked





This was brought up when @Basil started asking about the Okapi, and the discussion continued afterwards. You can see the responses and read JoeBookman's information here .






Again, JoeBookman responded with an award winning amount of information. No seriously, he's the featured member because he caught moderator attention doing this according to his congratulations thread. Look at this marvelous information on dolphins! Look at it! .

Oh, and if you know stuff about animals too? Guess what JoeBookman has said?






And with this high sense of humor, we can be sure that this thread is a hoot to read, so if you haven't already, this is a good time to subscribe!

Onto the interview:


JoeBookman: Sure, I can do that.


J: Surprised. I don't consider myself to be in league with many of the more active members on the site. I've just enjoyed being in the community and somehow that lead to being noticed.


J: Reached out. My priority is to have a good time, and to do that I think it's necessary to put yourself out there. In December I tried my hand at leading a Review Team which I think was fun for everyone involved. Before that, I started a thread where I just answer questions about animals. People seem to enjoy it as much as I do.


J: Nothing glamorous. I have some ideas for a club and I'd like to lead another review team if I have the opportunity.


J: Not until the idea is better developed.


J: The community and the amazing writing talent. The economy is rooted in helping one another grow so I've found that people here are incredibly generous and talented. The internet can be toxic. Finding a writing site like YWS where the community is friendly, positive, and engages new members is refreshing and energizing.


J: Can never have too much whipped cream.

With that said, you can ask Joe any of your questions about animals in the thread or you can just enjoy reading about every animal other people ask questions about.

Personally, I'm really looking forward to eventually getting a review from JoeBookman in the future when I eventually get into noveling, or I write a poem that catches his eye.

POP CULTURE CORNER: THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW

written by LadyLizz< PM: >

What does the term 'classic televison' mean to you?

Depending on how classic you're thinking, this could be the 90s or this could be the 50s. I like to use it in referring to the period of television in the 50s-70s (even though the late 70s are not so much so). This is the time commonly referred to as "when comedies were still funny."

Now there are many things to disagree with in these works, such as the gender roles and outdated jokes, mainly in the concern of politics. But there's one show that you must have already guessed from the title, that managed to tell it like it was, while still making the plot line funny.

From the title, you will have hopefully already guessed which televsion show I have decided to open this series with, the Andy Griffith Show.

There are a few aspects of Mayberry that remind me of my own home town, mostly the fact that no one realizes it's there and the people are mostly okay with that, outside of the Mayor. The show had two mayors actually but I'll be honest in saying that they both had the same agenda. And the only way to tell the two different characters apart, was that the first's Southern accent didn't sound fake.

The summary you might obtain from wikipedia about the show, goes like this:




That's about as accurate as you can possibly be for the baseline of this show, except if you want to have the wrong assumptions about those "temperamental girlfriends." Because yes Andy went through a string of girlfriends and Barney was too much of a womanizer for the looks God gave him, temperamental isn't the way the women should be described.

There's always that looming question of "what exactly happened to Andy's wife?" and from what I remember, they just said she died. And then considering how old Opie is at the beginning of the series, there's some doubts about him going out and dating. That implies it hasn't been all together too long since his wife passed and the first set of relationships shown in the early seasons, don't go well.

Nothing goes too well in this show because everything always gets screwed up and a combination of Aunt Bea and Andy have to fix it, but the issue with the relationships is that the women got blamed for it.
That's what upsets me with the series and generally that decade, the women getting blamed for the issues in the relationships.

This is why it's hard to appreciate shows like this since they hold onto some aspects like this, but they were more forward than others of the time. The fact that it comes down to Aunt Bea often fixing things, shows who is really in control here, as is made clear every time she goes out of town.

Honestly I love this show. I love the earlier seasons more because towards the end, they started to shift into Mayberry RFD. That spin off wasn't very good, but Gomer Pyle USMC was actually great and that character could operate alone. It's still got the overtones of the Vietnam War, like several series of the times did, but it's comedic and I like.

Another series I want to note here, because I don't think I'll write a whole article for, is Matlock. Which if you don't know what Matlock is, please search it up and watch it and you'll understand why I like it.
Bottom line, Andy Griffith plays a lawyer from Atlanta who is stingy and might want to change his diet. The cases are honestly a bit stupid and this was during that era when the crossovers and cameos of your friends and their shows happened. Don Knotts eventually got to being a main character and Dick Van Dyke showed up a couple of times. And then legit everyone else in Hollywood from the 50s and 60s showed up to be murdered or be a murderer.
My favorite description of the series is " legal drama", because most of what they did was barely legal and it was rarely ever set in with drama shows. This isn't Law and Order or something like that, this is just a continuation of his previous show in a bigger city. The names change and I'mm 99.9% sure some of the writers died, but it still feels the same and that's probably why so many people stuck with it.

This wasn't much of a review of these series, really just an advertisement telling you to check them out and to be wary of some lingering things.
Next week will follow in the same series and I'll put the options for next week in my forum, and see how many votes I manage to get.

I'll see y'all next week and remember same Bat time, same Bat channel.

3 GUESTS, 3 QUESTIONS: NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS

written by marms < PM: >

Look who’s back! It’s marms and I’m bringing you 3 Guests, 3 Questions again. We’re two weeks into the New Year so I decided the topic for this week’s edition should be resolutions. A huge thank you to @BlueAfrica, @Londone, and @Mea for taking time out of their days to answer my questions.



BlueAfrica: I like New Year's goals. A couple years ago I stumbled onto an article about how New Year's goals are more achievable than New Year's resolutions. Basically think of a "resolution" as something like "I am going to exercise more" (vague) while a "goal" is something like "I am going to work out for ten minutes a day, five days a week" (specific).
So I like setting specific goals for Near Year's. Of course you could start a new goal at any time of year, but I like starting with the New Year because it's a new beginning and the perfect time to start something.

Londone: I was very excited about this New Year’s. I felt that last year was the mark not quite hit, and I want to set higher goals for myself in 2018 and have more confidence as to what I can do in the near future. Nothing like a clean slate and a time to refocus on what you want to achieve.

Mea: I think they're useful if you know how to make them work for you! For me, that means making them specific and actually setting up a plan on how to achieve them *before* the New Year starts. Since I'm in school, however, I tend to think of things in school years, and so I'm more likely to want to change my life at the beginning of a new school year than at New Year's.



B: - Work out for five or ten minutes every day (more is obviously fine)
- Write at least 100 words a day
- Keep more healthy snacks around, which is really more of a resolution than a goal, but I don't like a lot of healthy foods (like basically any fruits and vegetables) so I kept it generic so that I can choose whatever snacks are healthy and appealing to me.
Those are pretty small goals for the year, but I'm going back to university in fall, so that seemed like a big enough life change without coming up with a big workout regime and a strict writing regimen or anything.

L: I do, actually. One of them is to finish my novel, which I really hope to accomplish. I haven’t finished a story yet that I am proud of, and I am determined to do so.
Another resolution is to remember that I come before others. Not like in an arrogant way, but in a way expressing that I need to focus on my own problems before trying to help someone else’s with theirs. I haven’t really taken as good care of myself as I’d like because of that.

M: This year, I don't have many specific resolutions that I'm really hoping I can keep. Mostly I want to be more active and chatty here on YWS, and also spend more time with family before I graduate. A measurable goal I have is to finish the first draft of Eos, my sci-fi novel that I started for NaNo and am completely re-writing now. I want to finish it by the summer.



B: So far I am 9/9 on my daily 100 words and my daily exercise. Whenever I don't feel like doing something, I tell myself that it's really not that much after all - 100 words, 5 minutes, that's practically nothing. And then I always feel better after I do them. So I think I'll keep up on them pretty well, even if I sometimes skip a day or two.
Which p.s. is the important thing about goals and resolutions - don't beat yourself up if you miss a day. I think that's when a lot of people give up, because they're like, "I'm such a failure, I couldn't even keep this up for a week," but every day you work at your goal is a day you've done something good for yourself. Don't beat yourself up because you missed a day, or even a week or more. You can come back to it any time and keep going.

L: I think I will complete them. It just takes confidence and the effort. I hope to put both into each as best I can.

M: I think I'll complete the first two, just because they don't require a lot of specific commitment and I enjoy doing both of them. I don't know if I'll finish Eos by summer, since senior year is really busy and this novel is longer than other ones I've written, but I think I'll get faster at writing it as I go along, so we'll see.

Well that’s it for this week’s 3G, 3Q! I wish you all the best of luck with your resolutions and a happy New Year! Stay safe!

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