The Writer's Alphabet - Y is for Young Adult

This is a timely post since I was just conversing on facebook with someone on this very topic.  I started my writing and publishing career with the young adult genre, so it is close to my heart. Over two years ago, I wrote a post on writing YA and I want to share it here today.  If I have missed anything, I'd love you to let me know.  Thanks and enjoy!

1. Remember at all times that writing for teens doesn't mean write as though they are stupid. They aren't. In most cases, they are highly intelligent kids, learning about themselves and the world around them, and feeling their way through some of the most enlightening period of their lives.  Respect that.
2. Don't trivialize what they are going through.  If your think the scene you wrote sounds like a bad after-school special, it probably is.  Treat your characters with dignity, no matter what you have them going through.
3. Don't think the lingo and terminology from YOUR youth will still play today.  It won't.  At the risk of aging me, the Valley-girl crap is O.U.T.  Your readers will realize it almost on the first page if you try and fake it.  If you intend to write for a specific age group, you have to spend time with them.  Join a library group and read to them, volunteer at a school, or just go hang out at the beach.  But do it A LOT.  One hour at the mall won't do it.  Teens have a whole different language and it will take time and dedication to master it.  There is no Rosetta Stone for teenspeak.
4. Understand a teen's attention span is about the same to us as our life is to the life of the common housefly.  SHORT.  You have to capture it on the first page or they toss the book/ipad/kindle aside and grab a DS/Wii/PSP instead.  There is no world-building/character-study/working-up-to-it-ness allowed in a middle-grade or young, young-adult book.  You have to slam them into the action IMMEDIATELY and keep them there for the whole first chapter.  They have to be asking questions at the end of the first paragraph and wanting answers or you already lost them.
5. Covers are EVERYTHING.  Splashy, gaudy, dripping with color, or with a teen just like them on the cover and they will buy it every time.  Think of every Sarah Dessen book you ever saw.  What's on the cover?  Something that relates to a teen-aged girl, right?  Look at her latest one....back view of low-rise jeans, bottoms covering the feet, hands stuffed in the back pocket in the classic "What-EVER." pose.  That cover SOLD that book.  Plus her name of course....synonymous with teen angst and empathy.
6. Here's the plus side:  If you get all that right, teens practically DEMAND books they love get
   
   made into movies.  They buy and buy and buy until agents and movie producers sit up and take notice and before you know it Mandy Moore and KStew and Emma Stone are lining up to play your angsty teenaged heroine in a movie based on your book!  (So I dream.  We all do.  Whatever.  Move on.)   
7. All I'm saying is everyone thinks it's so easy to write YA and I just want you to know, it's not.  Just remember, as complicated as you were when you were a young adult, consider putting all THAT done on paper.  Right?  I rest my case.

Things to Remember When Writing YA

I have been asked to be a judge in an upcoming short story contest being held on one of the groups I frequent on facebook.  I consider the request to be a great honour indeed.  Only three authors were asked and of the three, two of us appear to be receiving extremely favorable reviews for our book and one has a huge following for a book due out next month.  One of us is very active in the making of book trailers and all three of us are quite active in the marketing of ourselves, our brand and our published pieces.  We have given interviews, we blog often and mostly about writing, and all that being said, I believe we are all three wonderful candidates as judges.

We are myself, author of Spellbound, Scott Prussing, author of Breathless, and Kyberlee Burks-Miller, author of the soon-to-be released Compulsion.

The contest is a short story contest for a YA short, not to exceed 7500 words, beginning July 30 thru Aug, 6, 2011/  Get details here: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=108939899205399.  Anyone who is a member of  YA Reads on facebook is eligible to enter.  Check it out!

I thought it might be a good time to give some of my tips about writing young adult.  These are just my suggestions.  None of these should be cast in stone.

1. Remember at all times that writing for teens doesn't mean write as though they are stupid.  They aren't. In most cases, they are highly intelligent kids, learning about themselves and feeling their way through some of the most enlightening periods of their lives.  Respect that.
2. Don't trivialize what they are going through.  If your think the scene you wrote sounds like a bad after-school special, it probably does.  Treat your characters with dignity, no matter what you have them going through.
3. Don't think the lingo and terminology from YOUR youth will still play today.  It won't.  And your reader will realize it almost on the first page if you try and fake it.  If you intend to write for a specific age group, you have to spend time with them.  Join a library group and read to them, volunteer at a school, or just go hang out at the beach.  But do it A LOT.  One hour at the mall won't do it.  Teens have a whole different language and it will take time and dedication to master it.  There is no Rosetta Stone for teenspeak.
4. Understand a teen's attention span is about the same to us as our life is to the life of the common housefly.  SHORT.  You have to capture it on the first page or they toss the book/ipad/kindle aside and grab a DS/Wii/PSP instead.  There is no world-building/character-study/working-up-to-it-ness allowed in a middle-grade or young, young-adult book.  You have to slam them into the action IMMEDIATELY and keep them there for the whole first chapter.  They have to be asking questions at the end of the first paragraph and wanting answers or you already lost them.
5. Covers are EVERYTHING.  Splashy, gaudy, dripping with color, or with a teen just like them on the cover and they will buy it every time.  Think of every Sarah Dessen book you ever saw.  What's on the cover?  Something that relates to a teen-aged girl, right?  Look at her latest one....back view of low-rise jeans, bottoms covering the feet, hands stuffed in the back pocket in the classic "What-ever." pose.  That cover SOLD that book.  Plus her name of course....synonymous with teen angst and empathy.
6. Here's the plus side:  If you get all that right, teens practically DEMAND books they love get made into movies.  They buy and buy and buy until agents and movie producers sit up and take notice and before you know it Mandy Moore and KStew and Emma Stone are lining up to play your ansgst teenaged heroine in a movie based on your book!  (So I dream.  We all do.  Whatever.  Move on.)

All I'm saying is everyone thinks it's so easy to write YA and I just want you to know, it's not.  Just remember, as complicated as you were when you were a young adult, consider putting all THAT done on paper.  Right?  I rest my case.

Why I Don't "Cast" My Characters As I Write?

I read the blog post of a friend, a dear fellow author, wherein she admitted that she envisioned the Hollywood heavyweights who would play her characters once her book made it to the big screen.  Having read most of her manuscript, I checked out her "cast" and agreed with most of her choices.  I got to thinking about the idea of doing the same thing.  We write differently. I write YA.  Her, not so much, so we wouldn't have to worry about borrowing leads and what not.  Funny thing was, I couldn't do it.

I realized, reading through a couple of my manuscripts, I am not so heavy on the descriptions.  Not like, say, a sweeping historical fiction where the costume is pretty much another character on their own, my descriptions tend to be rather stock.  I'm light on them because I've decided that I want the reader to be able to create their own mental picture when they are involved in the story.  Writing YA is so much about the truth and raw realness about the emotion and the journey, that clothing and hair color, for me, is just so much window dressing.

I discovered something else too, while I was thinking about this concept.  If I did try and cast my male lead at least, they would all turn out to be a cross between my first love from high school and Jordan Catalano.  If you are anywhere near my age and don't have a Y chromosome, you know who Jordan Catalano is.  He was Angela Chase's love interest on My So Called Life and I was desperately in love with him and the unfolding of their love affair for the entire 19 episodes.  He was beautiful, and rebellious and proud and dangerous and accidentally profound and my 22 year old heart beat in unison with his.  Parts of all my characters now have a little Jordan Catalano in them, a little of his quiet dignity and his smoldering sexuality.  And those eyes, those swallow-you-whole eyes.  Oh.  Sorry.  I'm back.

Anyway, I think that's why I can't cast my characters.  Because for me, they would always be Jordan Catalano from 17 years ago.  And maybe my readers today want a sparkly vampire with deathly white skin.  Or a boyish charmer whose brother is dead but he goes sailing with him anyway.  Or a hot werewolfy guy who just can't keep a shirt on (and who'd want him to?)  For my reader, the fantasy is theirs.  As an author, it's my job to take them there.  The rest is up to them.  :-)

Writing YA

My post yesterday about the conference I attended made me dig up my old notes.  I found some great advice in there I had forgotten since I attended.  The best seminar by far was the one called "Young Adult: Why Write It, How Not To" taught by the editor-in-chief of an award winning small press.  Many of the things I learned I am employing today.  They may seem like no-brainers, but they were quite enlightening to me at the time.

Most importantly, don't dumb down or patronize your words just because you are writing for kids.  Kids are smart and will spot that a mile away.  Mine do.  They also have a strong sense of justice.  You have to decide how far you will go before your character offends your audience's sense of right vs. wrong.  I find I analyze that as I write now.

Another biggie is that while your story will have an antogonist, it won't always be the bad guy.  This was a stunner for me and helped me out of a writing corner.  Your antagonist can be the person who loves them the most, but just keeps them from getting what they want.  He or she will hinder, challenge, or outright deny them their goal, while loving them all the way.  In this way, the antagonist will illustrate the protagonist the most and help us understand him the best.  This conflict, then, drives the story.  Isn't that awesome?

Here's a couple more eye openers for me:  Dialogue should NEVER reveal the character.  Only action reveals the character.  That, for me, was the definition of show, don't tell.  Take a paragraph you've written that just isn't working for you.  Yank out the yammer and rewrite it with show words.  Now read it out loud.  Better, right?  I love, love, love doing that.  Works every time.  Layer in sensory words for taste and texture.  End each paragraph with a landing line, a pause that makes the reader WANT to read more.  Then you are exciting the reader's curiosity.  Kids bore easily.  You as the writer have to keep their world alive.

Another cool trick:  A one word paragraph punches the reader in the stomach with finality.  Here's an example.  The landing line would be:  She said she was pregnant.

Twins.

See how powerful it is when it sits by itself?  Do this on your first page and an agent can't help but be interested in what you do next.

Great notes, right?  See?  GO TO A CONFERENCE.  I'm telling you.  Worth the money.  :-)