by Marilyn June Janson, M.S. Ed.

Sharing stories based on your childhood and YA lived experiences

In the back of your closet, attic, or basement, dusty boxes filled with faded snapshots from family and school trips to Disneyland and state parks, ticket stubs from The Nutcracker, baseball, and football games, and photos of your first love, all trigger memories.

While happy experiences are wonderful to share with young audiences, stories without conflict and a clear message may not resonate with contemporary readers.

Blended families, the death of family members and pets, and a new sibling may create conflict.

Certain group dynamics kids and YA’s exhibit toward each other transcend the passage of time.

Common issues within this demographic are:

• Bullying
• Peer pressure
• Loneliness
• Cliques
• Learning
• Self–esteem
• Mental and physical health
• Growth phases

What message do you want to share with kids, YAs, and why?

Youngsters excluded from birthday parties, cliques, sleepovers, and last to be chosen to play soccer, or have physical and emotional difficulties, need support.

Stories offering hope, encouragement, and coping skills are ideal.

Choosing your genre, writing style, and POV—creative nonfiction or memoir?

Writing stories using creative nonfiction techniques instead of the memoir lends itself to ‘based on your experiences.’

Creating composites of your characters takes the pressure off you to include family, friends, and educators’ names, recalling dialogue and body language, and easily identifying your characters.

Elements of creative nonfiction

1. Plot and Storyline ~

Using paper, pen, marker, notes, or a computer spreadsheet, compile your childhood and young adult timeline. Not every year of your life is story material. Choose an experience that had the most emotional consequences and impact on you.

2. Choosing Point of View ~

First-person POV may elicit all the tension, struggle, and resolution you need to fully develop the story. Still, the First Person POV prevents you from writing scenes without the main character’s presence.

Third-person POV enables you to include your main and additional characters in every scene.

Omniscient Point of View ~ Telling the story from the narrator’s point of view may confuse young readers.

3. Settings ~

Draw a map of the city or town where you grew up or where your story takes place. Rename streets, roads, hills, mountains, highways, libraries, and schools. Readers will not point out any errors since the location is fictional. If you have relocated from the East Coast, where your story is located, to the West Coast, refamiliarize yourself with the weather patterns, climate changes on weather and Google apps.

4. Dialogue: Written, Texted, Voice Mail, and Emailed ~

While you cannot resist consulting the Urban Dictionary and back-to-school slang lists, those words and terms may have a short lifespan. You want your story to stay relevant, yet span future generations. “Cool,” a 60’s word, has made a comeback.

Facebook, Twitter, Bluesky, TikTok, and other social media sites, “LOL, BRB, OMG, and BAE,” seem to have outlived the test of time.

5. Sensory and Visual Imagery ~

Integrating the 5 senses is a given. To invigorate your memories, venture outdoors and into interior venues. Parks, beaches, mountain ranges, clothing, paint, home improvement, and garden shops will trigger childhood and YA memories.

6. Word Choices ~

Digging deep into your heart and feeling those hard and painful events, your audience will think, I am not alone.

Consider the following words depicting emotions: fear, anger, anxiety, sadness, loneliness, frustration, and worry.

These are only words. What are the physical effects accompanying these feelings?

• Fear ~ sweaty palms
• Exam and General Anxiety ~ shallow breaths, mind goes blank, sweating
• Anger and Frustration~ tightened fists
• Loneliness ~ hollow, empty, needing to fill the void with food
• Sadness ~ tired, loss of appetite, not interested in previously enjoyed activities

Updating your technology

To engage contemporary audiences, include cell phones (age-appropriate), tablets, social media (age-appropriate), TV streaming services, online games, texting, debit cards, and parental controls.

Premise and plot examples

In my book, The Super Cool Kids Story Collection, I used a variety of plots and premises based upon experiences and observations.

For example, I once was an instructor at United Cerebral Palsy. Being a keen observer of people and animals, I used that ability to better portray differently-abled characters—particularly for a bullied child with cerebral palsy, who learns that being himself is just fine.

In the book, I also covered:

• Cindy, a child in a sports camp who doesn’t excel in sports, finds a place for herself there.
• Carla has a conflict with a friend over a gift for grandma that the friend wants.
• Tommy must deal with a fear of flying and learn how to overcome it.
• Sam is dealing with the death of a friend and teammate.

Little House on the Prairie, by Laura Ingalls Wilder, adapted stories from her childhood.

Incorporating additional resources and historical references

Grandparents and elders are great storytellers. They provide excellent opportunities for youngsters to learn about their cultural, ancestral heritage, and beliefs. Learning about Native Americans, Ellis Island, the Holocaust, World War I and II is vital to our present–day lives.

Millennials – The end of Generation X (ages 1981-1996, 1981-2001)

Digital age family history websites and photos, smartphones, DVDs, social media, texting, emails, desktops, and indie-published geology, family reunion videos.

Major Historical Events

• 911 and the aftermath
• 2000 recession

Generation Xers (ages 45–60, 1965–1980)

Wedding, baby, and graduation photos, and infants’ bronzed footprints, above the fireplace, in the bedroom, kitchen, and workspaces.

Postcards, handwritten letters, theatre, movie, and concert tickets may be tucked inside books, Bibles, and memory boxes tied with pink and blue ribbons.

Major Historical Events

• Civil Rights Movement (1954 – 1968)
• Martin Luther King’s works and passing
• The Vietnam War (November 1955 – April 1975)
• Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon

Baby Boomers (Ages 61–79, 1946–1964)

• American Bandstand
• Record turntables
• Radios
• Boom boxes
• Drive–in movies
• Motown
• The Grand Ole Opry

Major Historical Events

• John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy assassinations
• MLK’s assassination
• The Vietnam War
• The Space Race
• Photographers showing a live feed to global audiences  

Final thoughts

Kids and YAs have always needed our love, support, and understanding. Inspire this demographic with your stories of hope, empathy, and coping skills.

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About Marilyn

Multi–award–winning writer Marilyn June Janson, M.S. Ed, began her career at 9 years old. Through her lived childhood and YA experiences, she shares stories of success despite adversity, peer pressure, bullying, loneliness, and test anxiety. Ms. Janson offers readers coping skills for better mental health. Ms. Janson has earned four peer support specialist certificates and serves as a trauma-informed facilitator. She is currently working on a fifth certification.

Contact her at http://www.janwrite.com/  and  

Marilyn June Janson's Books

Marilyn’s WIP is The Brooke Book. The title character is a new student at Meridian High School, Phoenix, Arizona. A traumatic event leaves this 16–year–old with memory loss. Doubted by her classmates, she is cyberstalked and bullied. Who is telling her the truth about what happened? Can she trust anyone?

Top Image from Pixabay