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My favourite thing about Young Writers Club is the fact that it is an inclusive and friendly space. I really appreciate the feeling of community that I get from the fortnightly sessions despite not being able to directly communicate with anyone besides Susan and Alicia. I do feel like my confidence has increased a lot over the past two years and the motto of 'there is no wrong way to write' has encouraged me to write the way I want to rather than the way I think I should.
My favourite term in 2022 was Term 4 but my overall favourite terms were Terms 2 & 3 in 2021 (detective stories and fantasy).
My suggestions for themes in future terms are:
Science fiction would be an interesting genre to explore. Some specific ideas might be to have a futuristic setting focusing on a specific technology which exists in the future, or a story focusing on alien life.
Fantasy is one that I think could be revisited. A different approach to the fantasy world might be either setting stories in an alternate version of the real world. Alternatively, we could do high fantasy. This seems similar to the fantasy we have already done, but the focus is different. Many stories from Term 3 had titles like 'Back to the South' or 'Lost in Zog' where a character's main focus was on returning to where they had come from, whereas in a completely high fantasy setting these characters would have different goals.
I also have a suggestion for the website. It would be really helpful to me (and probably others as well) if you could type in italics or bold text. Either ctrl/command I or B could work or you could type with underscores/asterisks. Sorry if there is a way to do this and I just haven't found it yet!
I have two miscellaneous suggestions. The first is that I think it would be fun for Susan and Alicia to do a story. I really enjoyed Term 2 2021 where they modelled and example story and would like to see that again.
My last suggestion is that Young Writers Club should add the infrastructure for feedback. Like many other Young Writers, I select 'anyone' and I also try to read all the submissions. I think that being able to hear everyone's positive thoughts (and constructive criticism) could be really beneficial to the club.
I'm not a programmer, but I think that there are a few ways this could be achieved. Anyone who enters an email has their writing linked. Potentially, feedback could be given to an author rather than to a specific piece of writing using this feature. As you need an email address to sign up for the club in the first place, no-one will miss out because they don't have one. Alternatively, you could create a 'feedback' task each week and if you wanted to you could just signpost who each piece of feedback was directed at. Or there could be a 'Give Feedback' function on each submission. Like with the writing submitted, Alicia and Susan could read it over before everyone saw it so that no-one could use this for harmful comments.
Thanks so much to everyone who is a part of this club. I especially thank Susan and Alicia and anyone behind the scenes for facilitating it every fortnight!
My favourite term in 2022 was Term 4 but my overall favourite terms were Terms 2 & 3 in 2021 (detective stories and fantasy).
My suggestions for themes in future terms are:
Science fiction would be an interesting genre to explore. Some specific ideas might be to have a futuristic setting focusing on a specific technology which exists in the future, or a story focusing on alien life.
Fantasy is one that I think could be revisited. A different approach to the fantasy world might be either setting stories in an alternate version of the real world. Alternatively, we could do high fantasy. This seems similar to the fantasy we have already done, but the focus is different. Many stories from Term 3 had titles like 'Back to the South' or 'Lost in Zog' where a character's main focus was on returning to where they had come from, whereas in a completely high fantasy setting these characters would have different goals.
I also have a suggestion for the website. It would be really helpful to me (and probably others as well) if you could type in italics or bold text. Either ctrl/command I or B could work or you could type with underscores/asterisks. Sorry if there is a way to do this and I just haven't found it yet!
I have two miscellaneous suggestions. The first is that I think it would be fun for Susan and Alicia to do a story. I really enjoyed Term 2 2021 where they modelled and example story and would like to see that again.
My last suggestion is that Young Writers Club should add the infrastructure for feedback. Like many other Young Writers, I select 'anyone' and I also try to read all the submissions. I think that being able to hear everyone's positive thoughts (and constructive criticism) could be really beneficial to the club.
I'm not a programmer, but I think that there are a few ways this could be achieved. Anyone who enters an email has their writing linked. Potentially, feedback could be given to an author rather than to a specific piece of writing using this feature. As you need an email address to sign up for the club in the first place, no-one will miss out because they don't have one. Alternatively, you could create a 'feedback' task each week and if you wanted to you could just signpost who each piece of feedback was directed at. Or there could be a 'Give Feedback' function on each submission. Like with the writing submitted, Alicia and Susan could read it over before everyone saw it so that no-one could use this for harmful comments.
Thanks so much to everyone who is a part of this club. I especially thank Susan and Alicia and anyone behind the scenes for facilitating it every fortnight!