Young Adult Fiction along with Writing Prompts
I’ve been challenged with writing a young adult book, editing it, finding a publisher, and waiting for it to be published. Who has given me that task, you ask? Well, it’s me. It’s not someone who wants me to ghostwrite their book. It’s not someone I had a glass of wine with who told me a story from their childhood and said, “You’re a writer; you should write that story” (that has happened to me many times). Nope, it was me, myself, and I. It’s that creative area inside artists, writers, and big-picture thinkers. Their brain conceives a story and won’t let them rest until it’s written down. And I took the challenge and wrote it down. I then put it away for; I don’t know, ten years or so. I brought it out, edited it more, and voila! It’s very close to being published and out in the wide world of readers.
My story is about a young girl named Meg who has moved to the big city of Portland, Oregon, from a small town south of Portland. She’s trying to find her niche, her place within this new, scary world. Have you ever moved when you were in high school? How did it feel? Were you scared? Shy? Wishing that you could go home? Meg feels all those feelings, and it’s within A Place for Meg, where she works hard to come out of her shell, meet new people, and create a space for herself in the big scary world of Portland. Navigating her new life while being made fun of for where she used to live makes Meg evaluate who she is and what kind of person she wants to be. The reader gets to experience Meg through first-person present tense, making everything she encounters feel more urgent and immediate—exactly how teenagers experience life.
What’s been fun about writing this book is the creation of my characters’ personalities. Humor plays a significant role in each person and within Meg’s way of viewing the world. Through searching for the funny things in life, Meg can assess the threats around her and decide what to do with them. She’s also a bit narcissistic but in the best way possible. (If you’ve ever known a teenager, you’ll see that she’s no different than any other teenager who worries about how they present themselves and how others see them.) Her sisters, parents, and brother were also fun to bring into the story, especially her sister Maria. That pain in the butt sister everyone has. But I enjoyed creating the relationship between Meg and her love interest the most. Their verbal sparring kept me on my toes. I can’t wait to write the next book in my three-book series of Meg and her first year (plus the summer) at West Portland High School.
At this point, I’d like to challenge you all to write your own Young Adult Fiction. Here are some writing prompts:
1. Start the book out with the main character in her home. She’s reading, doing homework, playing a board game, anything you want. The phone rings, and it’s a boy from her old middle school. He would like to meet her at the mall. He says it’s urgent. What happens next?
2. Start the book out with action. Your main character is skateboarding, skating, skiing, sliding, driving the car without a license, snowboarding, inner-tubing, kayaking, rafting, or skydiving. How did she get there? Is she happy? Scared? Excited? Thrilled? Doing something against her parents’ wishes? What happens next?
3. The main character finds evidence that fairies are real. What does she find? What happens next?
When planning out your Young Adult book, taking these prompts or others as jumping-off points, remember to include the following:
1. Make sure that your main character changes at some point. They are going through changes, of course, because they are teenagers. But in the case of a book, whatever the lesson is, help them move toward that change in them. In my book, Meg enters the story without friends. By the end of the book, she needs to feel accepted and like she has a place there. If I did my job as a writer, she would find friends, a special niche for herself, and grow a little in the process.
2. Of course, if you’re writing a young adult book (YA), your main character needs to be a teenager. That seems like a given, but many people will believe they have a YA novel if the perspective is through an adult narrator thinking of their teenage years. So, that’s not YA. Also, the writer needs to capture the essence of being a teenager. I hope I do that with my book. I tried to put myself into my teenage mind. However, the tricky part is ensuring you aren’t talking down to your readers. You are a part of their world; enter it. And don’t sell them short.
3. A lot of adults will read YA books. So your YA needs to be accessible to adults, too. The character’s inner journey must be something we all relate to. As in my book, Meg’s inner journey was struggling with trying to be accepted in her new world. Everyone has moved sometime in their life. Everyone can relate to trying to make new friends. The struggles must feel natural and universal, just as all human feelings are.
4. Develop the main character so that your readers care about her. Give her quirks and a goal that they can get behind. Screenwriting guru Robert McKee says, “Characters are the choices they make when they’re under pressure to do so.” When my character Meg has a choice to help her antagonist or ignore her, she decides to help her. Reluctantly, dramatically, and in slow motion, but she still chooses to help her. That says a lot about her character. It’s the type of person we can all relate to. It creates a space where the reader can care about Meg and pull for her during her struggles. Hopefully, that will also help people decide to buy the following two books in the series.
Another thing that matters, but not specifically with Young Adult Fiction, is to create impactful writing. And when you feel like you’re struggling or needing some help, the best thing to do is hire an editor. My clients have discovered that having an editor is vital to creating quality content. Having another pair of eyes, someone who has studied what makes a good story for many years, and has another perspective you may not have thought of, makes for the most substantial work.
