When we talk about “world building” in young adult novels, people often think it only applies to fantasy/paranormal/urban fantasy genres, but world building is just as important in realistic fiction novels. Many times contemporary fiction writers forget that or need a few writing prompts to get their world building going. What exactly is world building? … [Read more…]
Every year when I begin teaching a commercial fiction class for adults, I have at least one student who, when we start discussing Young Adult/Teen fiction, asks something to the effect of “YA fiction is just dumbed down writing, right?” I can’t tell you how disheartening this YA fiction stereotype is. Let me state it boldly … [Read more…]
I wanted to revisit the topic of “Why Write YA?” since it’s a question I get asked so frequently. Why write YA? Why read it? What’s the appeal, especially with adult readers? Why Write YA? The alternatives. Most YA authors are not teens or even young adults themselves, nor are a good percentage of young … [Read more…]
This month I’m going to talk about craft–specifically, plotting a young adult novel or structuring the plot of your YA novel. Often when I’m instructing writing classes, I find that there’s some confusion about plotting. If I ask “What’s your book’s plot?” I get vague answers along the lines of “It’s about a girl who … [Read more…]
Head to the Young Adult section in your local library or bookstore and flip through a dozen or so new releases, and you’ll find that a good percentage of them are written in first-person present tense–a dramatic shift from, say, five years ago when most YA novels were written in first-person or third-person past tense. … [Read more…]