Writers in the Storm

by Ellen Buikema

One of the most valuable qualities of writing YA Literature is how it addresses the needs of its readers. Young adulthood is a tumultuous time of evolving, searching for self and identity, growing and changing, transforming from the world of childhood to that of adulthood. This rite of passage is a distinct part of life, marked by specific needs—emotional, intellectual, and societal.

Many adult readers enjoy YA novels in part because it allows them to travel back in time to revisit events of their youth, cheering for the protagonists and agonizing with them. There can be a sense of catharsis, following the protagonists on their journeys.

Modern civilization has left a gap. In many societies elders no longer lead their youth through a rite of passage or coming-of-age. YA stories can assist in fill that gap, helping young adults to experience these transitions through the written word.

Samples of YA novels in various genres

• Western: Shane, by Jack Schaefer
• Fantasy: The Queen of Nothing, by Holly Black
• Horror: Anna Dressed in Blood, by Kendare Blake
• Paranormal: Vampire Diaries, by Richelle Mead
• Crime: The Naturals, by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
• Steampunk: Leviathan, by Scott Lesterfeld
• Historical Fiction: Code Name: VERITY, by Elizabeth Wein
• Romance: Along for the Ride, by Sarah Dessen
• Memoir: Ordinary Hazards, by Nikki Grimes

There are many YA novels that cross over several genres. For example, The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins, covers fiction, romance, dystopian science fiction, fantasy, action, and adventure.

Rules of the YA Road

The kids are in the front seat.

Adults in Young Adult stories should take a backseat to the teens, as well as to the action. Adults may appear when needed, and then go away. The protagonists must make their own decisions, go forward with the plan, and figure out their dilemmas themselves. Otherwise the book will be unsatisfying. The struggle needs to be real.

Protagonists Need to be Relatable

Recognizing yourself in the pages of a YA novel sends the message that you are not alone.

Problems posed in Young Adult fiction don’t have to be limited to teen problems, although there are plenty of those. The teen protagonist may try to save the family by coming up with wild schemes to pay the mortgage, like composing a tune that allows for teleportation, or building a self-refilling refrigerator. Anything goes.

Many protagonists have issues in common.

• Struggling with the motivation to move forward
• A need to be accepted by peers, and parental acceptance at a deep level
• Determining who to trust
• Battling depression and anxiety
• Self-respect and standing up for what you believe in
• Intimate relationships
• Facing torment from peers
• Drug use and abuse

Every one of these problems creates stress for the characters and helps with relatability for the reader.

The themes in Young Adult novels are adult in nature, but not graphic.

Point of View

The story’s point of view determines how the tale will be received by the reader.

Most Young Adult novels are told from either first-person or third-person perspective. First-person adds intimacy. It brings the reader into the personal experience of the narrator. Third-person, particularly omniscient, allows the reader to catch any clues the characters miss.

There is no right or wrong.

Choose which perspective works best for you and the story. you might begin the first draft in third-person close past-tense, decide that doesn't work for you, and then go back to the beginning and write in first-person present-tense. If after a few chapters you feel you are unhappy with your choice, choose again. Experimentation is good.

Gritty vs Profane

When can I swear, dagnabit?

Generally speaking, swearing can be used to shock, for comic effect, to show mood, and can be a form of linguistic violence. Swearing in YA is frowned upon, so it should be kept to a minimum. Grit may be shown in character action and mood.

Language Use

Language will vary, especially if you are writing a series and the characters are aging, therefore, undergoing complex emotions. In J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, Harry, the main protagonist, ages from an eleven-year-old boy to a seventeen-year-old young adult, with all the confusion hormones bring. His language changes as he ages to keep his character authentic.

Vocabulary will change due both to situations and maturity. A character may be a mimic and after a few days begin to speak as the locals do, or might use different speech around friends than with grandmother.

Personal Growth

YA fiction may be considered the literary category where characters achieve the most growth. Teens are in a constant state of change and so should the protagonist in a YA story. The protagonist needs to have new experiences and face roadblocks until the end goal, changing as a person along the way.

Lob on the conflicts to create tension—problems adapting to change, self-identity, relationships. More tension gives greater possibilities for personal growth. You are carving a unique soul. As far as I know, your characters can’t murder you in your sleep, so no worries.

About the Plot Points in Your YA Novel

Consider the following points for each scene:

1. What are my characters learning?
2. Is the conversation important for character growth?
3. What is driving the emotions?
4. Does the scene move the plot forward?

Most authors ask these questions of every scene in any novel. Remember, by answering these questions, you will keep the readers’ interest.

Finding Your Inner Teen

A tip for finding your teen voice: Revisit popular music from your teen years.

In a quiet space, close your eyes and listen to the music. Let your mind wander to a high school dance, music store, a friend’s house, driving in a car with friends, driving alone, hanging out at the pool during the summer, or being alone in your room.

Musical memory is deeply rooted in the mind. When you hear the music and visualize where you’ve heard it in your past, memories from that time will return, allowing you to reconnect with teen memories.

Do you have a favorite YA genre? What technique(s) do you use to reconnect with your younger self? Do you prefer a particular point of view for YA? Please share with us down in the comments section!

About Ellen

Author, speaker, and former teacher, Ellen L. Buikema has written non-fiction for parents and a series of chapter books for children with stories encouraging the development of empathy—sprinkling humor wherever possible. Her Works In Progress are, The Hobo Code, YA historical fiction and Crystal Memories, YA fantasy.

Find her at http://ellenbuikema.com or on Amazon.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

by Julie Glover

When my husband read the first draft of the first novel I ever wrote, he asked about my protagonist, “Is this you?”

That’s hardly the only time that question has come up. How much of our real lives and personalities go into the characters and world we writers create? Our readers, including friends and family, may suspect we’re largely putting autobiographical stuff on the page.

After all, aren’t we supposed to write what we know?

No, It’s Not Me

I can assure you that Annie Lewis—whose story has yet to be published, but someday will be—is not me. Nor are any of the other characters I’ve constructed in more than 20 novel and short story manuscripts.

And I’m not alone. Other authors say similar things:

Making fake biography, false history, concocting a half-imaginary existence out of the actual drama of my life is my life. There has to be some pleasure in this job, and that’s it. To go around in disguise. To act a character. To pass oneself off as what one is not. To pretend. The sly and cunning masquerade.

Philip Roth, Paris Review - The Art of Fiction No. 84 (theparisreview.org)

I write fiction because it is a beautiful place to hide.

Jami Attenberg, Stop Reading My Fiction as the Story of My Life - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

Fudge is based on my son, Larry, when he was a toddler. A very interesting child.... But that wasn't a serious look at him.... Peter and Tootsie are from my imagination. At least, I think they are.

Judy Blume, Judy Blume Interview Transcript | Scholastic

Make-believe and imagination are what fuels most of our characters, plots, and stories. That’s why it’s called fiction.

But Real Life Inspires

What we read, hear, experience, and do often provides the inspiration from which stories grow.

For instance, the idea for my young adult novel, Sharing Hunter, came from me thinking about the success of TV shows like Big Love and Sister Wives and my interactions with teenage girls (mostly through church youth groups). All that came together when I posed this question: What if two girls shared a guy in high school? And then I had to figure out how on earth to make that a believable scenario!

Not only that, one main character of that novel, Chloe Fox, began as a composite of three people I know in real life. Whenever I got stuck with What would Chloe do? I simply imagined what her real-life exemplars might do and went from there.

Cecily von Ziegesar, author of The Gossip Girl series, said it this way:

I use my experiences as a kind of foundation, and then I elaborate extensively on them. I'm always saying that my books are not autobiographical because they're not. I can't choose any one scene and say, "Oh, this is exactly what happened to me!" I just use little snippets of things as a starting point!

Interview With Gossip Girl Author Cecily von Ziegesar - Cum Laude By Cecily von Ziegesar (seventeen.com)

Letting real life inspire and inform us helps us write believable, compelling stories.

Real Life Gives Perspective

Take any well-known story—from the fairy tale Cinderella to the legend of Bloody Mary—ask ten different writers to write their version, and you'll get ten different stories. Because our personal biographies influence how we see the world, what aspects of any story attract us most, what real-life ideas inspire us, and how we craft the words.

In that sense, fiction is autobiographical, in that we can’t help but bring who we are to what and how we write. Even what we imagine is different depending on our backgrounds, personalities, and more.

I like the way author Alice Munro said it:

The stories are not autobiographical, but they’re personal in that way. I seem to know only the things that I’ve learned. Probably some things through observation, but what I feel I know surely is personal.

Go Ask Alice | The New Yorker

Surely, our best stories are personal. They represent who we are, what we value, and what we wish to share with others.

Mine Real Life for Story Gold

If an author wishes to write their own lives, autobiography and memoir sell well! Go for it.

For those of us writing fiction, we should know when and how to let real life creep into our stories. Here are four ways to mine your life for story gold.

• Let real-life people inspire characters.

Just as Judy Blume and I did in our books—oh my goodness, did I just equate me and Ms. Blume in some way!—someone you know in real life can be the launching point for your characters. But as you continue to write and knead the story, the character will likely come into their own.

For many writers, our creation ends up feeling almost as real as the live person who inspired them, with their own unique ways.

• Tap into your emotion.

Authors often hearken back to how they felt during a personal experience to write effectively. Maybe they didn’t lose a loved one in the exact way their character did, but they know what loss feels like and how grief takes its toll. Maybe they didn’t have the scathing breakup they describe in their novel, but they recall rejection and loneliness. Maybe they haven’t found The One yet, but they know what it is to desire and love.

Whatever the story situation, we write more compelling scenes when we let our true selves and emotion seep onto the page.

• Know your passion.

What moves you? What themes do you long to get across? Your personal passions can help you determine genre and characters and story ideas.

Plenty of authors become known for the type of novel they write, which comes from their personal passion or philosophy of life.

A novel is never anything but a philosophy put into images…. This secret fusion between experiences and ideas, between life and reflection on the meaning of life, is what makes the great novelist.

Albert Camus, Review of Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea, in Alger Républicain (20 Oct 1938) | WIST

Even if you write in varied genres, you likely have themes that crop up again and again. For instance, every single work of fiction I’ve written has three takeaways:

1. You are stronger than you think.
2. Do the right thing, even when it’s hard.
3. Embrace humor to get through life.

I’m moved by those messages, so they show up again and again in my books.

• Throw in interesting or quirky stuff from life.

Some writers set stories in a town where they lived or visited. Some include minor characters they knew, with different names. Some give their main character a habit they have themselves (looking at you, Christina Delay, with your coffee-swigging characters). Some include phrases they’ve heard from friends, family, or—as mystery author Leann Sweeney reported—from the teacher’s lounge. Some fold in a brief retelling of something that happened in their own life.

In my most recent release, a short story from our Muse Island series titled Gryla’s Gift, someone at the holiday carnival opens a kissing booth. In our day and age, I’d be surprised if that’s even a thing. But when I was in high school, a close friend worked that booth at our choir-sponsored carnival (and raised decent money). It was a detail, but a fun one to include that worked with my story.

Add some quirky details to your story, like literary Easter eggs. That’s a fun way to add a bit of autobiography while maintaining your story as fiction.

How do feel your writing is autobiographical or personal? How have you mined your real life for story ideas?

About Julie

Julie Glover is an award-winning author of mysteries and young adult fiction. She also writes supernatural suspense under the pen name Jules Lynn. Her most recent book is Curse of the Night, book four in the Muse Island series, and her most recent story is a holiday short, Gryla's Gift.

When not writing, she collects boots, practices rampant sarcasm, and advocates for good grammar and the addition of the interrobang as a much-needed punctuation mark.

By Janice Hardy
@Janice_Hardy

A new year often starts by declaring your goals and dreams, but a frightful number of writers don’t achieve those goals—or those dreams.

And I was one of them for a very long time.

I’d start every January with high hopes and ambitious plans about what I was going to accomplish that year. Sure, I didn’t get everything done the previous year, but I’d learned from those mistakes, and this year would be different.

Sound familiar?

When 2020 started, I was struggling to fit everything I wanted to do into my already-busy schedule. And then the pandemic hit. Like everyone else, my plans—and those goals and dreams—flew right out the window. The world came to a stop and so did I. Which gave me the opportunity to catch my breath, look around, and realize what had been holding me back.

Deadlines.

I know, that sounds crazy. Deadlines help us, right? They give us a target to shoot for. They let us figure out what we have to do in order to complete our novels before that date.

And that’s the problem.

When you write to a deadline, the only thing that matters is meeting that deadline.

Not the quality of the writing, not the strength of the novel, not your satisfaction with what you’ve produced—just the deadline.

Maybe it's time to stop writing to deadlines.

To be specific, stop writing to self-imposed deadlines. Some deadlines we have to meet (publishers are picky that way), but I’m not talking about those. I’m referring to the ones we make where we promise:

• I’ll finish the first draft by June 1
• I’ll publish this novel by end of summer
• I’ll get all three books of the trilogy out by the end of the year
• Or whatever your “I need to do this task or I’ll feel like a failure” goal is

Some writers can and do meet those self-imposed deadlines. If you’re one of them, let me ask you—is it everything you knew it could be, or did you rush a few things because you were running out of time? Did you not do something to make the manuscript better that you would have done if you had two more weeks to work on it? Is it “done” only because you had to meet your deadline?

And the real question—were you happy with the finished manuscript?

If the answer is “yes,” then keep doing what you’re doing. This article isn’t for you (grin).

If you answered “no” or you don’t meet your deadlines and feel awful about it, then stay with me.

I’ve imposed deadlines on myself for decades. I’ve arbitrarily decided when a manuscript needed to be done, then worked backward from that date and set my weekly and daily word counts. This seemed like such a logical thing to do.

It didn’t matter if I was capable of consistently hitting those word counts, because that’s what had to happen if I was going to finish the book by that date. If I had to push myself, or write on the weekends, or not spend time with my friends and family so I could finish the book, so be it. I had a deadline to keep. But when pushing yourself becomes the norm, you’re setting yourself up to fail.

The problem with self-imposed deadlines.

The problem with self-imposed deadlines is that they rarely allow for the time needed to do the task well.

It’s the date we want the draft done by, but it’s not reflective of how much time it will actually take us to write that draft. We set our schedules on when we want a book completed, or how many books we want to write this year, or any number of goals, but we don’t consider what we actually need to compete the tasks we set for ourselves.

And most of us stink at estimating how much time a task takes us to complete. That’s not a slight, there have been studies. It’s called planning fallacy, and something like 83% of people don’t estimate how long a task takes correctly.

For example, no matter what past experience has shown you, you let what you hope will happen override what you know to be true. Even if your last three books took ten months each to write, you think “I streamlined my process, so it’ll only take me six months from now on,” because you really want to write two books a year. 

And it still takes ten months.

Or worse—you hit that six-month deadline, but the manuscript was rushed, so now it needs six more months just to get it into the shape it would have been in had you worked on it for ten months instead of six.

A New Perspective

Don’t decide when you want the project finished. Determine how long it will take to complete to your satisfaction.

“Satisfaction” is key here. What’s the point of meeting a deadline with a draft so rough you have to redo the whole thing? (Unless your goal was to write a rough draft, then that’s fine. You are satisfied.)

I know it’s hard. You want to get those ideas out of your head, onto the page, and into the hands of readers. You want your career to start now and not next year. You want to get those next three books out as soon as you can and start building your readership, because everyone says three to five books is where things take off.

I’m right there with you. But this false sense of running out of time to be successful can keep you from that success.

When I stopped writing to deadline, my productivity went up.

I gave myself the time I needed to write the book I wanted to write. And without that pressure hanging over me, I was able to focus and enjoy the process more, which led to better drafts.

A New Option

Here’s a process that works:

1. List all the tasks needed to complete your novel (or whatever your writing project is).

Whether it’s writing a first draft, revising the tenth draft, getting a manuscript ready for publication, or maybe re-vamping your website, the project will have tasks. Some of them will be easy, some of them will be complicated.

No matter how small, write them down. Ten “little things” that each “only take five minutes” is an hour. And odds are they take longer than you think. Which brings me to…

2. Estimate how much time each task will take.

Not the time you think it will take, or hope it will take, or will probably take if you push yourself because you want to get it done by the date I told you to ignore. How much time will it really take?

For example, if you know you’ve never written X amount of words in a writing session, don’t choose X words per session to write because that lets you get it done by that self-imposed deadline. Look at how much writing you get done on average. Track it for a week or two. Estimate based on your worst days, not your best days. That way, you’ll give yourself wiggle room and buffers when unexpected things pop up and you miss a writing session or two.

3. Determine how much time you’ll realistically need to finished your project.

Add it up and compare it to how much time you have each week to write. If you have ten hours a week to write, and your estimates say it’ll take you ninety-seven hours to complete that project, plan for ten to twelve weeks.

Yes, give yourself a week or two extra. 83% underestimate, remember?

4. Prioritize your tasks.

Figure out what needs to happen first and what comes later. For books, this isn’t as critical since you have your process and you know how you like to work. But you might need to research before you can write, or interview people, or outline or world build.

For other writing projects, the most efficient order to work in might not be what you think. For example, I’m launching my JT Hardy website this year, and I thought creating the website would come first. But when I listed out the tasks, I realized it came last. There’s a lot that needs to be done before I build it.

5. Work through your list (write the book, do the project).

This helps you focus, and gives you a sense of accomplishment that will keep you motivated. You’ll see progress without the impending doom of a looming deadline.

6. Stop at regular intervals and evaluate your progress.

Not every book or project goes the same way, and you have no idea what unknown issues might pop up. Check in from time to time and see how the book or project is going.

Do you need to add some time to the schedule? Adjust your schedule as needed, and don’t feel guilty about it. This is why you’re not writing to deadline. You’re giving yourself the time you need.

If you’re ahead of schedule, great! Don’t change it, just keep working. That extra time now might be needed later if something goes off the rails. I did a revision this past fall that was two weeks ahead of schedule until I hit act three—then I used up those extra two weeks.

Final Thoughts

A shift in perspective can make a huge difference in your productivity. You’ll focus on the time you need to be successful, not an arbitrary deadline only you know (and care) about.

Once I stopped using deadlines and shifted to understanding what I needed to do to complete a project, I started finishing more projects. And I was a lot happier with my results.

Now it's your turn. Do you write to deadline? Do you find it helpful or stressful? We'd love to hear about it down in the comments.

* * * * * *

About Janice 

Janice Hardy is the award-winning author and founder of the popular writing site Fiction University, where she helps writers improve their craft and navigate the crazy world of publishing. Not only does she write about writing, she teaches workshops across the country, and her blog has been recognized as a Top Writing Blog by Writer’s Digest. She also spins tales of adventure for both teens and adults, and firmly believes that doing terrible things to her characters makes them more interesting (in a good way). She loves talking with writers and readers, and encourages questions of all types—even the weird ones.

Find out more about writing at www.Fiction-University.com, or visit her author’s site at www.JaniceHardy.com. Subscribe to her newsletter to stay updated on future books, workshops, and events, and receive her book, 25 Ways to Strengthen Your Writing Right Now, free.

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