Young Writers Society

Hey everyone,

We have a lot coming up over the next few months. YWS: Buran is well underway, and that means a whole slew of changes. Here's a quick run-down of what to expect:


Black and white, and read all over

Minimalism is the name of the game these days, and the design aesthetics of the mid '90s is all the rage. After much discussion and input, YWS will be adopting its own minimalistic style: all black and white. Of course, it won't be glaring white (more like a soft grey), but it's still going to be a huge change.

Once in place though, YWS will be simple and clean. Besides the text and the logo, there will be just two action buttons. The first button will refresh the page, and the second button is a page-specific menu that changes according to the page you're on. Getting to your desired section will take a few more clicks than what you're probably used to, but the beauty of simplicity will more than make up for it.


Pay to post, now actually pay to post

YWS offers some of the best critiques online. Even sites for adult writers such as scribophile and writer's cafe often pale in comparison, and it's time we begin monetizing this.

Beginning with YWS: Buran, it will cost $1 USD to post a poem, and $2 USD to post anything else. This is a small cost so it shouldn't affect things too much, but it will mean higher quality works as well as higher revenue.


Guess who! Username changes

By the time YWS: Buran is released, the site will be 10.5 years old. That's old for a site, and it's time we do our first ever complete username refresh. The short-term benefit of this will be a very large initial burst of activity as everyone excitedly begins to figure out who everyone else is, rebuild their profiles, and rebuild their friends list. The long-term benefit is an overthrow of the established way of doing things, allowing for a complete rethink of what YWS should be. After all, it's been 10.5 years, and the art of writing has changed at an astonishing pace in that time. Perhaps we should begin considering celebrity gossip items, twitter novels (140 characters a chapter), and more topics with titles such as "You won't believe this!" or "An ant and a beetle meet. You'll be astonished at what happens next and your faith in humanity will be restored."


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Yes, I'm locking this. The last update about YWS: Buran led to heated debate about whether black & white is too much, and if we should just go to all black. We don't need to retread that argument. Please do not unlock this thread.