Young Writers Society

What if for novels, you had the same kind of sidebar that you have for roleplays / storybooks? There'd be the cover art, chapter summary, characters (maybe notes instead?), novel synopsis, and then the chapter list. That'd replace the "about the author" and "share this" sections, but I think both of those are pretty much ignored.

I think this would be such a convenient addition! I've only reviewed about 2 novels and both of them were off of YWS on Google Docs, similar to @Snoink , and I genuinely think the organisational aspect of it is what we need most to make novels generally less intimidating to review

and I think if posting long works still cost the same we'd actually have a worse problem of more works from the increase in points, and still the same amount of reviews.

And I also think it really is helpful every 6 months to have a friendsgiving/gift-weekend to deplete the point market too. Right now I think there's so many points in the yws-economy that offering more points or requiring more points is not very motivating.

THIS!!! if we're considering offering extra points for reviews posted on novels, then we would also require a way to ensure those points are spent on things other than new works, which would only clog up the GR more. Friendsgiving/gift giving weekend is an EXCELLENT way to get users to spend their points. I think there are other ways we could create opportunities for users to spend their points (maybe a few extra customisation options or features that can be bought with points? A YWS market? a day where users are incentivised to spend away their points towards something and are awarded with trophies and badges? Badges during friendsgiving for users who gift the highest number of gifts?)

I love this discussion, and I really hope it helps us reach some good resolutions with this particular issue !

Hey, I’m just jumping into this thread so I’m not sure if this is too similar to what others have said, but here’s my idea:

Instead of each chapter being posted as an individual work, I think it would be better to group all the chapters together. And there could be a feature to label your novels as finished or unfinished, just so new readers know beforehand. I also think there should be a feature where you can be notified if a novel you’re reading gets a new chapter.

If novel chapters are going to be grouped together, though, it would make more sense to have a separate green room just for novels.

And, uh, yeah, that’s all I have

Thinking about badges has me dreaming about like, what if once you finished the last chapter of your novel, anyone who reviewed all (or a certain percentage) of the chapters could earn an exclusive badge designed for that novel?
Like the author or someone they choose could design it to look really cool, and the coolness of the badge could be an incentive.
I have more thoughts about the potential benefits or downfalls of this idea, but idk if anyone else will even like it so I'll leave them unsaid.
I also like a way to indicate if the novel is finished or not, or if it's a second draft, or if it's been fully written but is in the process of being incrementally posted.
The idea of the "graveyard" is appealing to me thematically. The green in greenroom is supposed to mean freah and new, as in it's just recently been posted, but when something is half a year old, it doesn't feel like it fits the vibe anymore. It might be fun to have an offshoot of the knights of the green room that are the necromancers of the graveyard or something, and have special badges for that too. It's motivating to have goals to work towards! And if you can kill 2 birds with 1 stone (green room and grave yard at the same time), that's some more motivation.

It might be fun to have an offshoot of the knights of the green room that are the necromancers of the graveyard or something, and have special badges for that too. It's motivating to have goals to work towards!

^ Oh love that idea Rook! I currently work on KotGR stuff (along with @looseleaf & @KateHardy & @KotGRCommander of course) and we could totally have a special order or new challenges incorporating that if there was a new place for works to go!

I think a special badge for those who've commented/reviewed on every chapter of finished a novel or 90% of a novel would be really neat too. <3

Okay so I attempted to make a visual representation of what I'm envisioning and it turned out ugly xD but still gonna share it:



1. Adding the ability to add a prominent T/W at the very top in bold/red text would be helpful! Of course, that wouldn't replace the rating system, but an 18+ M tag for a smexy bedroom scene is a very different thing than an 18+ M tag for self-harm or suicidal ideation, you know? Some people might be okay with reading ~spicy~ things but have a specific trigger and not want to read a piece that alludes to said trigger. I generally just put it in bold and all caps at the top of my lit work but it'd be nice if there was a built-in section for it.

2. Have a collapsable section at the top for an optional summary of the novel before this chapter. Would be super cool if it auto-populated from what you wrote before that you could then just add to with each new chapter for what happened immediately before, but if that's a nightmare for coding, it would be easy enough to c/p it between chapters, I think. But would be nice to have up there.

3. A link under the portfolio that links to a section in the author's publishing center that has all the extras for that work collected into one place. Maybe have a tab for characters, a tab for map(s) or cultural/magical/religious summaries of each country that's helpful to know, have a tab for all the chapters, a tab for extra stuff maybe (i.e., family trees)? Not sure.

I know when @GrandWild and I started our iconic duo that's now nearly to part 20, she started a Discord server that is literally just the two of us and a tonnn of information about her world and it was invaluable as I was learning geography and politics and such. She put in a channel for characters, the continent in general, a specific realm that was important to the story, politics, religion, gender and sexuality, one for an important/complicated character, and one for general planning. I think a large part of why our RP has been so successful has been having that resource so we can stay on the same page and have a sense of continuity. And I think that would be helpful for novels as well ^^

4. Have a section for a map that can expand to a new window so it's actually big enough to read, but readily accessible.

5. Have a collapsible tab for characters that leads to something like C/P for RPs, including a spot for character images.

6. Have a collapsible tab for chapters. And within each chapter, have the ability for a drop down to individual chapter parts grouped together. And also have little checkboxes so when you're reviewing the novel you can keep track of which sections you've already read and/or reviewed if it's been a bit. Usually, I just search through my recent reviews to see what's the last chapter I reviewed if I'm following a novel, but that can be irritating if I've reviewed other things since the last time I touched a novel and I have to scroll forever or click through a ton of their chapter parts to figure out where I left off.

7. Have a direct link at the bottom of the work to the next chapter part.

(P.S. I think all the stuff at the top should be kept -- my screen just wasn't big enough to get it all in the screenshot)

~

Also, I love the idea of custom badges for following along with a novel! I think that's a super good idea and would definitely motivate me to stick with reviewing longer works!

Hi!
A new writer with thoughts. First, I'd like to say I'm a novelist. Two of my novels are on YWS. (One currently in the making) So, I am of particular interest to this topic.

That said, I think it is a fabulous idea to have rewards for followers of a particular novel, particularly a badge. That would keep people wanting to earn that cool badge. (Especially if the writers themselves get to design it! That would be so fun!) Plus, I think it would be cool to have a number by the badge that says the total number of chapters that person has read. And then when people finish a novel, their badge reads something like "finished" and they get additional points. Not quite sure how that would work for the unfinished novels, though. Maybe "Waiting for Next Chapter?" Lol, that's just a thought. I'd certainly LOVE to award my faithful reviewers with that!