(Adapted from my Editing Young Adult Fiction course with the Editorial Freelancers Association.)
If you want to write for teens, the most important tool you have is… your memory.
You may be an adult now, but you were once the age of your characters. Can you remember what that was like? If not, you’ll have to find a way to step back into the shoes of your teenage self. It may be easier for you to remember if you have teenage children, but not always. Teens are famous for presenting a public persona that has nothing to do with what’s really going on inside their heads. If you’re a young writer who was a teen not so long ago, then you have an advantage over the rest of us! But be careful – things change fairly quickly in the teenage world. Of course, parts of the human experience are universal across time periods, like emotions, relationship dynamics and peer pressure, but what about the other parts that are reliant on factors outside of simply being human? Here’s a possible list:
- Fashion
- Slang
- Technology
- High school rules and protocols
What to do?
Getting up to date with today’s teens
A good way to remember what it was like being a teen is to read as much Young Adult literature as you can. The same applies to magazines for teens that are popular today. I share a list of children’s and teen magazines looking for writers that you can study for style, tone and interest level, and even submit to so you can practice writing for this audience. You can also watch films or series for teens or listen to the music they like. All of will help you get to know your target audience. Another way is to do field research. As there is no way ever that a group of teens will allow you to hang around with them and pick their brains, you’ll have to find another way for them to accept you. Volunteer at a community centre or library, tutor kids who are struggling at school or coach a sports team. If that doesn’t appeal to you, you can follow teens online to see what’s engaging their interests and how they react. YouTube, Instagram and Snapchat (or whatever new social media platform has cropped up since I wrote this) are great places to get your finger on the teen pulse. It doesn’t matter what you do, but find a way to infiltrate the target community without them realising what you’re up to. You don’t have to do it forever; just long enough for you to get a sense of what it’s like being a teen today.
Do you even…like, like teens, like?
This may sound logical, but it needs to be said anyway: if you don’t like or respect teenagers, then writing YA isn’t for you. A lot of writers want to write for teens as they think it’s the quickest way to getting published because of the way the Young Adult market has exploded in recent years.
Don’t be that writer.
There are so many areas of writing where you can find work; please don’t write YA unless you enjoy it and are fond of its protagonists and readers. Working with kidlit is not an easy and fast way to make a quick buck (as a lot of people mistakenly think). It wouldn’t be fair to all the teenagers out there who deserve a good book as much as you do, and who deserve to read books that have been treated with love and respect throughout the writing and editing process.
The don’ts of YA
Here’s a list of things to look out for when writing YA:
- YA is not a vector for preaching and teaching life lessons. Kids get enough of that in their everyday lives. Kidlit is first and foremost about entertainment as is literature for adults. Books for teens are not about imparting wisdom, and reading is not a one-way experience as your audience will be using their own experiences to make sense of what they’re reading anyway. At the end of the day, you have to trust in the fact that your readers are able to take in a theme without it being spelt out to them.
- If there is a problem in a YA book, teenagers get to solve it, not the adults. Kidlit is all about empowering children and teens. It’s meant to entertain, inspire, address the big questions and make the audience think. When a book is well-written, the audience identifies with the characters. But would that be beneficial if the characters were all dependent and unable to think for themselves? How would that empower readers?
- YA isn’t about chasing trends… even though trends are what make teenagers tick. Trends are short-lived and there are thousands of manuscripts that never get picked up because publishers know this. Writers who jump on a trend, hoping to milk it for all its worth haven’t calculated the length of time it takes to write, submit, sell and publish a novel. What’s hot today will be has-been in two years.
- Don’t confuse moral and theme. There is no place for a black and white moral in YA, but there is plenty of place for a theme which encompasses all colours of the rainbow. As opposed to a moral, a theme needs to be identifiable but not forced onto a readers experience as though there is no other option. If it’s obvious that a character in a novel supports one side of a theme, readers should generally be given the freedom to decide what they feel about the theme.
What is theme in YA?
Themes are not compulsory in fiction, but YA novels often use them. A theme is an underlying thread that is woven into the story and plot and drives the narrative. While the plot dictates what happens in a book, the theme tells us why. Common themes in YA include:
- Self-discovery
- First relationships
- Bullying
- Sexuality
- Family dynamics and relationships
- Depression
- Prejudice
- Racism
- Individualism vs conformity
- Suicide
- Coming of Age
- Illusion and reality
The theme must become evident through the events that occur in the book, not as a result of being openly stated. You must leave a trail of theme breadcrumbs for your readers to follow. In this way, the theme will be organic to the story and easily identifiable. Teens enjoy books with themes as they make them easily identifiable and comparable to their life experiences. If you have mastered the art of not talking down to your audience (preaching), you can use themes to make a story inherently interesting.
What YA is NOT
It may sometimes feel like the boundaries defining YA are quite loose, so it’s helpful to define it if you know what is NOT Young Adult fiction.
YA vs Middle Grade: The main difference between these two categories of kidlit is the age of the protagonist and how the characters see themselves and the world around them. While MG characters lean towards figuring out who they are, characters in YA are trying to figure out how they fit into the world.
YA vs New Adult: NA focuses on characters between the ages of 18 and 24. These characters are often – but not always – at university or just beginning their professional lives and the genres tend towards realistic and romantic. As mentioned before, narrative voice is always a clue. In NA, characters have found their feet while they’re still trying to find them in YA.
YA vs Adult: While I’m sure you have no trouble recognising a novel for adults, sometimes adult books feature teenage protagonists. The distinction you need to look out for here is that of life experience and perspective. In YA, the perspective is always the teen’s without additional layers of life experience added into the mix. There can be no hindsight in YA; the characters are in the thick of things trying to figure out where they fit in.
And that’s it!
While this may seem like a lot, it’s really only the tip of the YA iceberg, but will get you started.
So, go… start!
