{"id":653,"date":"2018-08-27T10:59:15","date_gmt":"2018-08-27T10:59:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/refiction.com\/?p=653"},"modified":"2022-05-30T15:41:20","modified_gmt":"2022-05-30T15:41:20","slug":"how-to-write-ya-fiction-like-a-pro","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/refiction.com\/articles\/how-to-write-ya-fiction-like-a-pro","title":{"rendered":"How to Write YA Fiction Like a Pro"},"content":{"rendered":"

Young Adult Fiction, also sometimes called YA Fiction, is a hot market to be in right now.\u00a0It\u2019s estimated that<\/a>\u00a0more than 10,000 new young adult titles were released just in the year 2012. Among these were \u201cThe Fault in Our Stars\u201d by John Green, \u201cInsurgent\u201d by Veronica Roth, \u201cAristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe\u201d by Benjamin X and \u201cCurveball: The Year I Lost My Grip\u201d by Jordan Sonnenblick.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve taken a closer look at common tropes and elements found throughout Young Adult fiction to help you write it.<\/p>\n

Internal Dialogue<\/h2>\n

Internal dialogue is a common part of YA fiction, but there\u2019s nothing more painful than seeing internal dialogue written badly. Readers want to see something realistic, so never try too hard to sound \u201ccool\u201d or \u201cyoung\u201d or \u201chip\u201d or\u00a0anything<\/em>, really. Most of the time, teenagers talk just the way adults do, give or take a few slang terms. Just make sure your language is right for this decade.<\/p>\n

If you feel out of touch, read other YA fiction (see the resources at the end of this article) to find out how other writers are approaching it, read through message boards and social media (this is how people tend to\u00a0really<\/em>\u00a0talk) and interview sources \u2013 as a writer, surely you can find someone who is around nineteen who can tell you if teenagers really still say that.<\/p>\n

Internal dialogue allows you to get under the skin of your characters more, and expose the character\u2019s innards more to your readers. Use it.<\/p>\n

Drugs<\/h2>\n

Drugs are a very real thing, and it\u2019s something that most people will encounter at some point in their teenage years. This is something you have to touch on carefully when you do: There are a lot of stories that don\u2019t mention or allude to drug use at all \u2013 and they don\u2019t really need to.<\/p>\n

If you\u00a0do<\/em>\u00a0touch on drug use, then represent it realistically. Realize that most of the information people have had in their head about drugs have been inaccurate, and a lot of research has changed. Check up your current facts first, and speak to people who have actually\u00a0taken<\/em>\u00a0the drugs \u2013 and we don\u2019t just mean people who advertise themselves as reformed addicts.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a hard topic to write about, so approach it the right way if you\u2019re going to approach it at all.<\/p>\n

For writing about drugs, go to the effort of conducting the interviews and looking up the research, the facts, the usage and the slang terms.<\/p>\n

Parental Conflict and Divorce<\/h2>\n

Do you remember how you felt about\u00a0your<\/em>\u00a0parents as a young adult? For most people, it\u2019s a normal emotion \u2013 and it\u2019s generally something part of YA fiction. This creates a lot of natural conflict. Some parents and teenagers get along just fine, others don\u2019t \u2013 but keep this in mind as you write your characters and your plot.<\/p>\n

Divorce is another very real statistic that can add to the parental conflict that\u2019s seen in a YA story, and it\u2019s commonly seen in plenty of YA books as a plot device \u2013 just because it\u2019s a real-life thing that affects a large percentage of people.<\/p>\n

Relationships, Romance and Sex<\/h2>\n

Relationships and sex have their place in YA fiction just as they do in real-life, though it\u2019s a subject that you should approach with care when it comes to writing YA fiction \u2013 because it\u00a0could<\/em>\u00a0turn out to be illegal.<\/p>\n

You want to represent sex and sexual development\u00a0realistically<\/em>\u00a0\u2013 as do you the internal dialogue about it. Sometimes this means saying four-letter words, other times it doesn\u2019t. It\u2019s up to your story, your characters and the reader you\u2019re aiming the story at.<\/p>\n

Sex in YA fiction has been the subject of plenty of controversy. \u00a0It can be a very useful plot device, but should not be approached from an overly erotic standpoint for YA fiction \u2013 in blunt terms, you\u2019re not writing YA fiction to get teenagers off.<\/p>\n

Friendship<\/h2>\n

This article in\u00a0USA Today<\/a>\u00a0references a study which found that about half of friendships made during high school didn\u2019t last for a full academic year. This is something that reflects in real-life, and something you should bring through in your fiction.<\/p>\n

Some friendships will last a lifetime \u2013 most won\u2019t. People form friendships, people lose friendships, some friends are trustworthy and others aren\u2019t. There\u2019s not a fiction book on this earth that did not have relationships between people, friends and enemies as plot points \u2013 and it\u2019s worth a lot when you\u2019re penning your fiction.<\/p>\n

Relocation and Disruption<\/h2>\n

Relocation and disruption of routine are common topics that show up in YA fiction: How many of the Goosebumps books started off with a character moving to a new house or neighbourhood? This was for more than just the purposes of it being great for horror.<\/p>\n

Relocation, moving from one house to another, is something that happens to a lot of people during their teenage years, and it\u2019s something that sticks out \u2013 so naturally, it\u2019s also a common plot point, and for many writers it\u2019s a great way to kick off their story.<\/p>\n

Psychologically, moving house is one of the most traumatic things that can happen to someone, next to the death of a loved one and a divorce. It\u2019s bound to\u00a0disrupt<\/em>\u00a0friendships, routine and life \u2013 represent this accurately in your work.<\/p>\n

Sexual Orientation<\/h2>\n

Sexual orientation is a topic that comes into focus when people enter puberty. This is the point in time where people start to question what their sexual orientation is in the first place, and where teenagers start to explore their sexual identity more.<\/p>\n

Love, sexual orientation, sex and confusion all go together while you\u2019re still trying to find your feet in life. You don\u2019t have to make a character\u2019s sexual orientation the focus of the plot, though you would be a fool if you wrote an entire story without considering characters and their sexual orientations first.<\/p>\n

Peer Pressure<\/h2>\n

Peer pressure is often dealt with in YA fiction, though you want to make sure that you deal with it in a realistic way. Again, presenting peer pressure in fiction is something that can easily come across as trying to preach to the reader if you\u2019re doing it with some kind of \u201cmoral lesson\u201d behind the story.<\/p>\n

The best approach you can take to peer pressure is the fact that it happens from several different fronts, including friends and parents, and it\u2019s up to you to decide how your characters will handle it.<\/p>\n

Make it\u00a0realistic<\/em>, and if you\u2019re having trouble defining this, then ask someone you know how they would react in a situation like that, or put yourself in your character\u2019s shoes.<\/p>\n

Death and Loss<\/h2>\n

Death and loss is a common element seen in YA fiction. Sometimes the story only touches upon a near-death experience instead. Why? Death and loss are as common in real-life, too, and most people remember starting to understand grief for the first time at some point during their teenage years.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the time where you might experience a friend dying for the first time, or even a parent or grandparent: This, and the emotions surrounding death, loss and grief are common in YA fiction for this reason \u2013 but should never be overused or dramatized to the point where characters are dying on every second page of the story.<\/p>\n

Destroying YA Fiction Completely: How Not To<\/h2>\n

A lot can be said for YA fiction that doesn\u2019t achieve what it sets out to do. You want to avoid that as a writer.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re setting out to write YA fiction with some kind of moral lesson in mind at the end, stop right there. Real life doesn\u2019t come with moral lessons to keep you away from stress, drugs, promiscuous sex, and neither should your books.\u00a0Cause and effect<\/em>\u00a0is as moral as you should go when you pen your plot, anything else will seem preachy.<\/p>\n

YA fiction that tries too hard to make a conversation seem \u201cyoung and cool\u201d will backfire. Want to know how kids and teenagers talk? Then go out and talk to them. Everyone\u2019s got a nephew, a friend with a kid, something relatable \u00a0– and sometimes they also make great beta readers.<\/p>\n

More about the Market<\/h2>\n

According to\u00a0Amazon.com<\/a>, the best selling Young Adult fiction titles of all time are \u201cHarry Potter and the Sorcerer\u2019s Stone\u201d, \u201cThe Hobbit\u201d, \u201cThe Outsider\u201d, \u201cThe Little Prince\u201d and \u201cThe President is Missing.\u201d This should tell you either that Amazon\u2019s system has no idea what constitutes what young adult fiction is \u2013 or that young adult fiction is a very broad genre.<\/p>\n

What do young adults read, and what falls into the realm of Young Adult fiction?<\/p>\n

Well, what the heck did\u00a0you<\/em>\u00a0enjoy reading at that age, and in retrospect, what kind of thing do you wish you could have read at that age? This is a great starting question for plenty of writers who are still finding their feet in the genre.<\/p>\n

Simply, young adults read the same thing as older adults. They want a good story about topics and characters they give a damn about.<\/p>\n

Resources for YA Fiction Writers<\/h2>\n

Need some more resources for writing YA fiction? Take a closer look at some of these articles and websites.<\/p>\n