Writing Young Adult Fiction For Dummies

by Deborah Halverson

  Ages 14 and up

  Young Adult

  High school, grades 9 and up; generally understood to cap at age 17

  Age groupings aren’t hard-and-fast. They can vary from publisher to publisher, imprint to imprint, and bookseller to bookseller thanks to subjective preferences and the ever-morphing readers themselves. The topic of age ranges can make even the most astute publishing exec nutso, so don’t live and die by these. Use them as guidelines, albeit dang good ones.

  That “and up” designation in the age-range column can get a little hinky. Booksellers often favor an upper age cap so they can help their customers sort the choices. But publishers aren’t crazy about limiting the readership, fearing that a teen who might otherwise enjoy a certain book will pass on it simply because she’s a few months or even a few years older than the top age listed on the jacket. With many teen novels crossing over to adult audiences, an upper age limit can be very limiting indeed.

  Even with the “and up” designation, teen fiction doesn’t generally target readers older than 17. Although that, too, isn’t hard-and-fast. Publishers and sellers used to assume that 18-and-ups would be moving on to more adult material. No more. Now there’s a market for YA fiction that delves into those late teen years. The extremely successful Gossip Girl series, for example, features 17- and 18-year-olds and appeals to readers from mid-teens to menopause. And 18-year-old Bella became the most envied girl in America for her love affair and subsequent marriage to the hunky (and inconveniently undead) Edward in the Twilight series. So much for rules.

  The point of age ranges is to give readers a clue about the age-appropriateness of the content and the writing. Each new generation of kids redefines teen, and their literature should reflect this. Your goal as a writer is to do your best to write the most age-appropriate novel you can for the bracket you choose. That’s the way to connect successfully with your readers and position your book in the marketplace.

  Understanding teen and tween sophistication

  Some 12-, 13-, and 14-year-olds read middle grade novels with older themes, and others are already happily immersed in YA. That’s why you see some overlap in the teen and tween age ranges. (Did you notice the overlap of the 12- to 14-year-olds in Table 2-1? This isn’t accidental.) With the wildly varied physical and emotional development of 12- through 14-year-olds and the fact that young readers like to “read up” into age ranges above their own, you never really know who’s going to read your novel. But you can make some pretty good guesses about your audience.

  The shift from tween to teen sophistication starts happening around age 12. Here’s how tweens and teens generally differ:

  Tweens (ages 9 to 12): Typically, tweens are focused inward, with conflicts stemming from that. They’re struggling to find out who they are, first and foremost, and their book choices reflect that.

  Teens (age 13 onward): Teens are starting to look outward as they try to find their places in the world and realize that their actions have consequences in the grander scheme of life, affecting others in immense ways. These kids want more meat in their stories.

  As young people’s emotions, intellect, and interests change, a writer’s word choice and sentence structure may become more complex, as may the plot. Chapter 9 focuses on the language techniques that allow you to adjust your storytelling for your chosen age group. Chapter 7 is where you shape your plot for the specific audience you identify here.

  Understanding what’s suited to tween or teen sophistication and what would be better aimed at an older audience is important. YALSA (the Young Adult Library Services Association) offers many booklists among their public resources that can help illuminate the genres, themes, and categories of young adult fiction for you — visit www.ala.org/yalsa. But don’t just read the titles on those lists; read the books themselves. Lots of them. That’s the only way to get a solid feel for your genre, your target audience, and the current book market. How’s that for fun homework?

  Targeting gender

  Publishers are unabashedly vocal about their desire to reel in boy readers, especially boy tweens. Those fellas are a consistently hard-to-reach audience, and it drives book-lovers crazy. Who doesn’t want boys to read for fun? Many boys already do, certainly, but not nearly in the numbers that girls do or with the frequency.

  Studies give all sorts of reasons for boys’ reluctance to read, from the fact that boys are slower to develop and thus their reading skills aren’t as advanced as girls’ to the belief that boys are uncomfortable exploring emotions in books, instead preferring gnarly explosions. In other words, boys are drawn to the action that’s so easily had in video games, TV, and movies. You have to wrest boys away from these things to free up their eyes for a book.

  If you want to target boys, bait your line with a theme or topic tempting enough to set aside their game controllers for. Many writers find success by offering action fare along with irreverence, silly humor, and sports themes while slipping the emotional stuff underneath. My novel Big Mouth, for example, is about a 14-year-old boy training to be a competitive eater — with the goal of eating 54 hot dogs (and buns!) in the time it takes the rest of us to tuck our napkins into our shirts. But under that gastric “sports story” lurks the issue of eating disorders in teen boys. Walter Dean Myers’s Hoops is an example of not shying away from the hard stuff, coming at boys full-force even as he ensconces his drama in the boy-friendly world of basketball.

  Chapter books: Sooo not YA fiction

  Writers new to the children’s book world often get confused about chapter books and novels, wrongly seeing chapter books as young middle grade novels. They’re not. They fall squarely in the children’s book category, alongside picture books.

  Aimed at ages 6–9 or 7–10 (first through fourth grade), chapter books are a transition from beginning readers to MG novels, offering young readers experience with longer narratives and with following plot and character development across multiple chapters. These books have fully developed chapters and are roughly 100 or more pages, although those pages usually include some illustrations and decorative elements — hence their children’s-book categorization. The short chapters work well for short attention spans, and the slightly larger print keeps the books from intimidating budding independent readers. Some chapter books, like the Geronimo Stilton series, graphically enhance the text itself with funky fonts and colors to keep the text blocks welcoming. The story sophistication level is well below that of MG and YA.

  The chapter book market is dominated by series, often with a main-character-and-his-sidekick formula. Familiar characters, familiar author style, and familiar themes make readers loyal to their series and stretch the series’ appeal to reluctant readers — which means they get a lot of boy readers (hurrah!). Popular examples include Bruce Hale’s Chet Gecko series, Barbara Park’s Junie B. Jones series, Jon Scieszka’s Time Warp Trio series, and Donald J. Sobol’s classic Encyclopedia Brown series.

  Just below chapter books are the “intermediate reader” or “transitional reader” chapter books, such as Mary Pope Osborne’s Magic Tree House books. These books have chapters, yes, but they’re even shorter than chapter books, making them great reads for children who are just venturing into independent reading.

  For more about boys and reading, visit the website of Guys Read (www.guysread.com), a nonprofit literacy program for boys and men that was founded by Jon Scieszka, the Library of Congress’s first National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature.

  Of course, boys aren’t the only gender-specific audience you can write for. See the later section “Exploring common genres” for info on chick lit and other gender-related genres.

  Exercise: Name your category

  To ensure that you develop a story that syncs with the needs, intellect, and emotional sophistication of a single a
udience, get a clear bead on your category and age range early on. You don’t want to discover at the end of draft one that the topic or theme of the story you so meticulously crafted for older readers is actually more suited to middle graders. Answer the following questions to help you define your category and age range before you start crafting the narrative:

  Will the characters be worried about how the outcome affects them or how it affects others? Middle graders are focused inward, and older teens start to look outward. The more mature and empathetic your character, the older he’s likely to be — and thus the older your readership is likely to be.

  Will your plot involve age- or grade-related events such as getting a drivers’ license or passing the SAT? Know the developmental milestones that will be at play in your novel and sync them with your audience.

  Will there be violence? Generally, the more violence there is, the higher the target age range.

  Will your theme be an edgy one? Older readers prefer riskier, rawer themes such as addiction or sexual experimentation; younger audiences are still getting their sea legs with the basic issues of puberty. You can find a list of potential themes later in “Looking at universal teen themes.”

  To whom is the theme of most interest and value? Older teens like topics that make them think bigger than they currently do or that make them question themselves more deeply. Young readers tend to keep their focus a little closer to home.

  Knowing Your Genre

  Just because your novel is young adult fiction doesn’t mean every young adult will like it. As with grown-up readers, young people develop preferences for certain types of stories. They may love sweet romantic stories, or they may like funny ones, or they may like ogres and wizards and the heroic lads who thwart them. The types of stories in the young adult fiction category — its genres — are gloriously plentiful.

  Knowing your target genre is just as important as knowing your target age range. Readers, who can be incredibly loyal, often stick to one or two genres. Knowing their interests and expectations can help you better shape your fiction for them. This isn’t to say you need to stick with one genre for your entire publishing career in a kind of reverse loyalty. Many successful authors write across genres. For example, M. T. Anderson has written serious historical YA, dark futuristic YA, action-packed humorous MG, and experimental fiction that crosses over to adult audiences, too, earning major book awards and legions of fans along the way.

  Knowing the genre of your current manuscript (also called your work-in-progress, or WIP) is crucial. Each genre has its own way of doing things, distinct qualities that set up expectations for its readers. Whether your goal is to nurture those expectations or nuke them to oblivion, you should understand the expectations of your chosen realm. Then be able to explain what makes your story fit into your genre as well as what distinguishes it as something fresh and intriguing.

  Author Cynthia Leitich Smith on paranormal fiction: More than monsters

  From first kisses to first tackles, the teen years can feel like one unstoppable mass of magic and mayhem. Bodies shift, voices change, everything from a blemish to a C in English feels like the end of the world. No wonder paranormal books are popular.

  YA paranormal is a bigger genre than most people think. It’s not just lusty vampire drama or regency zombie gorefests, as much fun as those are. You can find the fanged, furred, and fabulous in paranormal mysteries, chick lit, historicals, and every other genre of books for young readers. Check out as many YA paranormal novels as you can. To rise above the competition, you need fresh, tasty blood, and the only way to know what’s already out there is to read deep, wide, and spooky.

  But be warned, intrepid writers: There’s no such thing as cranking out “a vampire novel” or “a demon novel” or “a zombie novel” or “a faerie novel.” Werearmadillos? Ditto. These stories are greater than their creatures. Stacey Jay’s cute, perky zombie heroine in the chick lit-ish My So-Called Death is a far scream from Christopher Golden’s fearsome fiends in his horror novel Soulless. What matters is not the monster but what you do with it.

  Most popular are the YA paranormal romance and YA horror (or gothic fantasy) markets. The appeal of those is that kids can see their own experience in the stories — but with delicious danger and taboo teasing. A paranormal romance novel is, first and foremost, a romance novel, just one that incorporates traditional horror elements. There’s nothing like a kiss in the shadows . . . with a hunky immortal. The central question typically remains: How will the couple end up together? However, magical elements and creatures heighten the literal stakes. It’s not only that Mom and Dad disapprove of the supernatural bad boy; it’s that God and all of humanity view him as a threat. It’s not only pregnancy she risks but her very soul.

  A horror novel may have romantic elements, but at its heart lies the genuinely horrific. These monsters have teeth. They relish feeding. They need victims. Gothic fantasy considers a myriad of timeless themes such as invasion, plague, gender-power dynamics, and the beast within.

  In all paranormal books, the fantasy is only compelling so far as it illuminates the real world. In my novel Tantalize, Quincie becomes involved with an older guy who encourages her to drink with him. What is she drinking? What will that cost her? Whose fault is it? Those questions could be answered in either a realistic or fantastical context. Magic heightens, but the way the metaphor speaks to reality is what makes the story resonate.

  I’m a hybrid — a Gothic writer who weaves in some humor and romance. My stakes are high and my magic, costly. Bad things happen to good characters, and I don’t promise a happy ending. But then, unpredictable endings are half the fun of reading, aren’t they? And creatures of the night are anything but predictable.

  Cynthia Leitich Smith is the best-selling author of the YA gothics Eternal, Tantalize, and Blessed, as well as numerous award-winning books for young children. She is a member of the faculty at the Vermont College MFA program in Writing for Children and Young Adults, and her Cynsations blog is one of the top sites read by the children’s/YA publishing community. Find out more about Cynthia at www.cynthialeitichsmith.com.

  In this section, I introduce you to various genres in YA fiction and talk about crossing genre boundaries in your story.

  Exploring genres of YA fiction

  Here’s a list of genres of YA fiction, along with descriptions and novels that exemplify them. For the sake of keeping the list manageable, I’ve grouped the genres into three sets: general market, defined markets (categories with a narrower focus and more-limited audiences), and niche markets (small, specialized markets).

  The hands-down best way to get to know your genre is to read like crazy. But don’t be a passive reader. Get a notebook going, jotting down the things you like about the genre and the things you don’t. Also note the common page counts, the sophistication level of the writing and the readers, and the issues and interests of that readership. If certain authors jump out at you, compelling you to race to the store for more of their books, ask yourself why. What are they doing that makes their stories stand out? Are they bucking expectations, or are they working the genre’s formulas to their best effect, twisting them in satisfying or unpredictable ways? If you read in this active manner, you’ll see patterns developing within a few books — patterns of the genre as well as of your own preferences. You’ll probably discover as much about your desires as a storyteller as you will about the genres during this stage.

  General market

  Here are some general-market genres in young adult fiction:

  Contemporary (or contemporary realism): Featuring realistic, current settings, contemporary novels address social issues and teen problems such as eating disorders, abuse, and crime. They’re also referred to as problem novels or issue books. Sample titles include Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, Fallout by Ellen Hopkins, Shooter by Walter Dean Myers, and By the Tim
e You Read This, I’ll Be Dead by Julie Anne Peters.

  Chick lit: Chick lit, a popular subcategory of the contemporary genre, features teen girls who struggle (usually with social awkwardness) but eventually triumph. Sample titles include The Princess Diaries series by Meg Cabot, Love Is a Many Trousered Thing by Georgia Nicolson, the Gossip Girls series by Cecily von Ziegesar, and Just Listen by Sarah Dessen.

  Romance: Similar to chick lit, romance addresses family and personal development and relationships, but most importantly, romance explores romantic relationships. Sample titles include What My Mother Doesn’t Know by Sonja Sones and Flipped by Wendelin Van Draanen.

  Humor: Employing situational, fantastical, satirical, or slapstick humor, humor stories commonly feature character growth through tribulations, along with humorous exploitation of teen angst. Although sometimes silly for the sake of pure entertainment, humor books often deal with real issues in a lighter, more humorous manner. Sample titles include Love among the Walnuts by Jean Ferris, Burger Wuss by M. T. Anderson, Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko, and books by David Lubar and Gordon Korman.

  Adventure: Fast-paced and full of action, adventure books are especially popular with boys. Popular subgenres are survival, war stories, and spies and espionage. Sample titles include Hatchet by Gary Paulsen, I’d Tell You I Love You, But Then I’d Have to Kill You by Ally Carter, and Stormbreaker (from the Alex Rider series) by Anthony Horowitz.

  Sports: This genre is sports as pastime and passion, featuring down and dirty game action. These books usually involve finding oneself through a sport, with characters gaining an understanding of the greater world and their individual experiences through the lessons learned participating in the sport. Sample titles include The Boy Who Saved Baseball by John H. Ritter, Hoops by Walter Dean Myers, Pinned by Alfred C. Martino, and Summerland by Michael Chabon.