Writers in the Storm

By Kris Maze

Young Adult novels have come a long way from the classics we read in school.  Novels like S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders and J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye were first accepted into the newly coined category, Young Adult (YA) in the 1960’s. While YA literature focuses on adolescence and coming of age stories, it can span any genre and follows the rules within those types of writing.

YA also appeals to multi-generations of readers, evolving from the single-problem stories of an after school special to the mega-blockbusters we see today. One thing is for sure: readers of all ages are gobbling up these stories.

Writers today have questions about how this multifaceted category works, and whether their novel is actually YA. Below are tips to help you answer these questions. (Plenty of examples and ways to enhance your current story are included.)

How To Know if You Are Writing YA

Do you have a story featuring a young protagonist? One topic writers ask about is how to create a YA book editors will swoon for. Although this book category is defined by the age of the protagonist (between 12 and 18 years old), writing a YA novel is way more involved than a number. Working through the following questions may reduce the confusion and help you identify whether your novel is considered Young Adult.

What is your character’s age?

The age indicates which shelf your book sells from in bookstores or Amazon accounts, but not always. Most publishers say YA stories have protagonists between the ages of 14 to 18, or the time they would be in high school.  Sometimes the lower end dips to a younger age, but then it overlaps with Middle Grade.  A book with an older Main Character (MC) experiencing first milestones such as an apartment, job, or serious romance tends to be in the New Adult (NA) category. The difference then becomes the content and tone of the story as to the intended audience.

Age drives how your character acts, and what they are able to do. The MC’s age has to intertwine with the purpose of the character’s age to make the difference.  This can determine whether you have written a YA story or one in another category.

Some examples:

In All the Bright Places (Jennifer Niven, 2015), MC Violet Markey rides a bike for transportation.  Why?  Because we know that 16 is the youngest age someone can legally drive and bikes are a way to travel without your mom driving you around in the broken-down minivan.  While bikes are a logical part of a YA protagonist’s world, we also find out that Violet is actually avoiding other types of travel due to a tragic loss. 

Here is where the real YA juices start flowing. 

Violet isn’t just rebelling from her family and seeking independence, she's flat out refusing to use her driver’s license! Teens avoid the inevitable acceptance that life as an adult is inherently different. It is natural for a teen like Violet to want to push "pause" and stop growing when life becomes overwhelming.

Using plausible but interesting plot points that relate to a teen’s life helps readers recapture that wonder.  Making the reader warn the characters from behind the pages about the foreseeable pitfalls of their choices and breaking our hearts anyway, makes the YA story irresistible.

What is the time frame of your story?

Most YA storylines last a year or less. There are exceptions, but there are pragmatic reasons for keeping your story's timeline short. These kids haven’t been alive that long.  A year is forever, especially in high school.  A story arc for a freshman would appear very different from one with an upperclassman.

If your story is longer than that, the good news is that you may have more than one story to tell!

What is the Main Conflict in your story?

There are certain constraints for your character built into their YA story arc.  Characters act differently if they're thirteen years old versus eighteen. The age of the protagonist should match the main problem they face.

Is your story about a character's first independent trip, or starting a babysitting business?  These situations have more impact when your character is closer to the Middle Grade stage (12-14 or younger).

Whereas decisions about an occupation, working in a restaurant, or getting cut from a high school sports team is much more suited to the 14 years or older age range.

No topic is off-limits if handled with care.

It isn't hard to find examples of controversial but popular books and series that cover dark subject matter. The Hunger Games, 13 Reasons Why, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and The Fault in Our Stars cover sanctioned murder, suicide, mental illness, and teens with cancer. This hardly seems like material to hand to young readers.

I've read many questions from writers who wonder if their gritty story line is too dark. Teen novels thrive in the dark corners of the undeveloped mind.
Their early cynicism is part of what keeps teens alive through this impulsive part of life. Dark stories can provide safe, vicarious places for readers to make their own choices about what is right and wrong. 

Readers learn empathy and experience other cultures through these stories.
A writer's job is to capture that worry and wonder and give readers experiences to feel of all the feels.

What is your story’s Conflict?

Identify your conflict - YA by definition is all about awkward, cringe-worthy, desperate, confused, and at times incredibly innocent, adolescence. These elements when rooted in the coming of age, problems of a teen kind of way, pave the way for a YA novel readers will crave.

If the main problem (i.e. mom’s dating my math teacher) is inherent to the teen years, your story is YA.  If the story could fit in a different time, maybe it’s not. 

One writer asked whether we would categorize their story about a teen who snuck into the army as YA.  This writer considered the conflict and point of view of the MC with the following questions. 

• Do we feel as if we are alongside the teen in their situation?

• Are the concerns of the protagonist consistent with what teenagers feel? 

• Do they pick up the weapon but worry if they said the right thing to the girl? 

• Is doing something for the first time in all its glory oozing from the story?  Flying a plane, traveling beyond the borders of a little town, meeting a new kid with worldly tales?

• Do they trip over their own feet and feel out of place, even though their dialogue shows a different tale? 

Teens are faking it until they make it. (Kind of like a lot of successful people!) This dynamic of uncertainty must be present to make authentic YA that resonates from the pages.

Does your story need to be in the category of YA?

Write your best story. Should be experienced through the eyes of a teen? Find the bones of the story.  The story will let you know. Listen carefully as it may be whispering something else to you.

If it isn’t inside the parameters of YA, or you don't hear any whispering, don’t be discouraged.  The story may belong on another shelf, if the story isn’t suited to YA, make it shine as a MG or Adult novel. 

YA is a narrow focus with many genres and is just one type of story to tell.  Stay true to your tale and make it shine.  Use the questions above to focus your story and enhance if it is YA, if not you will know better what to disregard. 

IMPORTANT TIP: Know that part of adolescence is having a superpower to spot pandering and two-dimensional characteristics light-years away. Effective YA writing involves working out tough topics and plotting them in satisfying ways. No shortcuts in fleshing out the stereotypical characters either.

If you have seen this character before, or feel you have figured out the ending in the first pages, why would you as a reader continue? 

This article by a YA editor offers great suggestions to read to continue your exploration of the craft. Writer’s Digest has an interesting article written by a teen writer asking adult writers to just… stop. We have covered guidelines here to get to the heart of what makes an effective YA story, but really listening to your protagonist helps.

What story featuring a young protagonist has stayed with you?  Are there favorite stories from your youth (or a youthful story) that you've re-read recently?  What other YA writing tips do you have to share? I look forward to your comments!

About Kris

Kris Maze writes for various publications including Practical Advice for Teachers of Heritage Learners of Spanish and award-winning blog Writers in the Storm where she is also a host. You can find her brief horror stories and keep up with her author events at her website.

A recovering grammarian and hopeless wanderer, Kris enjoys reading, playing violin and piano, hiking the forest with her dog Charlie, and pondering the wisdom of Bob Ross.

Kris Maze's debut novel IMPACT arrives tomorrow! See here for the last day of Pre-Sale prices!

The year is 2098, and Nala Nightingale is a young journalist at the media conglomerate Intercambio 7. She wants to investigate her parents untimely deaths. Instead, she’s stuck reporting on the latest makeup trends with her rival Mimi. That all changes when a catastrophic asteroid hurtles towards earth. Inspired by a wordless book and the red gems on her bracelet, Nala turns down the broadcast of a lifetime to unravel her past before the impact. However, things don’t go as planned. The world above ground is in ruins. Trapped underground with a mysterious scientist named Edison and his chess master AI, can Nala Nightingale find the will to live and to love in a dystopian future?

Published through Aurelia Leo in various formats.

by Tasha Seegmiller

Once upon a time, I thought that publishing was a thing where you learn your craft really well, do the work, and then navigate the query trenches.

Once upon a time, I thought that once someone got an agent, the two of them would work together to make the manuscript better and then have conversations about how to submit manuscripts.

Once upon a time, I thought if an editor liked a book, it was like an agent liking a book, wherein they worked out the details of the contract and then proceeded to make the book better until it was publication-ready.

I have since learned that all this is as likely as Cinderella’s fairy godmother, as likely as Prince Phillip winning a battle with an enchanted sword flung toward a raging dragon, as likely as an ogre ending up with a princess who is also an ogre.

This post is not meant to be a downer. I promise.

It is meant to help people align their expectations of writing a little better. Because though I have a very vivid imagination (writer on purpose people), I don’t think I’m the only person who thinks publishing works that way. I don’t think I’m the only one who has been shocked that people change agents, that publishing houses can sell two books fairly well and then have a gazillion reasons for not resigning.

It wasn’t until I started knocking on the door of the publishing arena that I noticed many – MANY – of my favorite authors had several books by one publishing house, and then others with another.

There are a lot of people who think getting an MFA is the way to cure that. That having someone dedicate their time to helping you become a better writer is the way to skip ahead in the line a bit.

While I am currently in an MFA program, while I have loved being in my MFA program, I will say that I have had more than one advisor let us know that 3% of people in such programs go on to be published. In fact, amid the advisors in my particular program, only the ones old enough to have retired are those not also working another job, generally at a different university.

What’s an aspiring author to do?

The easiest answer is quit. (Wait, wait, hear me out.)

If every time you sit down to write, you dread trying to get words on a page, if the thought of creating stories and revising and editing and promoting and talking about your work gives you a longing to chew on broken glass instead, maybe you should quit. You don’t have to tell anyone. Just quit.

I have quit a few times. I was done with the mucky, murky, miserable middles. I was done thinking about character arcs and their interactions and everything. I was done.

So far, the longest I’ve been able to quit has been about three weeks. And then, when I’m folding the never-ending pile of clothes or making dinner or washing my hair or even just hanging out in the hours between wake and sleep, a way to advance the story I’m working on moves across my mind like a breeze.

I will be sitting somewhere and see someone who makes me wonder, who makes me interested, who makes me want to consider their story. It’s generally nothing brighter than a candle-sized flame at the end of a massive, dark cave, but it’s enough that I want to get closer to it, to see what’s going on there, to play a little in that light.

And then I’m making up names and backstories and other characters, breaking through the struggles characters and I were having about where a story needs to go next, and before I realize it, I’ve thrown 500 or 1000 words on a page for a story, and I want to write again. 

If quitting doesn't work, what does?

Since quitting hasn’t really seemed to work for me, and since the odds are really not in a writer’s favor, what’s an aspiring author to do? I recommend the following.

1. Education

Yes, I know I already told you the reality of MFA programs. And while I do not regret for one single second the work and money and time I have put into my program, I’m not necessarily talking about that kind of education.

I’m talking about taking the time to really look at what has happened to an author’s publishing careers. You can do this via a website like Goodreads, and just scan through. How often have they published books? Who published them?

Pay attention to the acknowledgments pages of books you read, especially by the same author. Most won’t make an announcement that they have left a relationship with an agent publicly, so you want to see who they are thanking for helping bring their work forward.

Read books that really talk about the writing industry. I recommend Before and After the Book Deal by Courtney Maum and The Business of Being a Writer by Jane Friedman. Follow these people on social media, take time to understand the content in their newsletters, really look at what is going on in the world around publishing.

Read lots and lots and lots. Read the kinds of books you want to publish. Read the kinds of books that break what you thought you might consider your genre. Pay attention to what is being published NOW (Harry Potter and Eat, Pray, Love are great books. They are not current. You need to be aware of the current).

2. Talk

Make friends with authors and then engage in conversations.

• How many of them got an agent with their first book?
• How many of them signed with a publisher with their first book?
• If they went the self-publishing route, what did they pay to editors and cover designers?

All authors need to learn what is involved in marketing in a saturated market? What does a publisher/publicity person do and what is the author expected to do?

Recently, there have been conversations on Twitter about how many jobs agents have to work in order to make things work. Did you know that?

There was also a serious conversation about what authors made up front with their books. Go see #publishingpaidme to get insights. It’s not awesome, so keep some comfort food nearby, but know that most authors are working other jobs for a good amount of time into their publishing careers. They often talk about this candidly.

3. Write for You.

Okay, a caveat. If you decide to do a story about aliens and vampires secretly conspiring and it’s all in a dystopian setting, you likely aren’t going to get very far. There are some rules within genres and a smart writer will be aware of those (see Education above).

But you need to write stories that speak to your heart. You need to craft characters that reflect what you want to say about life and the world and society and whatever else is driving you. You are going to put a lot of time into writing that story.

A LOT.

Make sure you start out writing something you love because you will hit a point where it is not as fun as you thought it would be. Don’t go chasing markets, trends, bestseller lists, or try to create a story your mom/ dad/ boss/ cousin/ dog/ neighbor/ cat/ spouse has always wanted you to write because it’s not going to work.

In the quiet of the night, in the solitude when it is you and your story, what rings true?

Keep writing that.

What are lessons about publication you have recently learned? Any resources you think help give a better idea of what aspiring authors can expect?

About Tasha

Tasha Seegmiller believes in the magic of love and hope, which she weaves into every story she creates. She is an MFA candidate in the Writing Program at Pacific University and teaches composition courses at Southern Utah University. Tasha married a guy she’s known since she was seven, is the mom of three teens, and co-owner of a soda shack and cotton candy company. She is represented by Annelise Robey of Jane Rotrosen Agency.

Top Graphic by K Maze

by Lori Freeland

What does it mean to tell your story forward? Whatever point you choose to drop the reader into your story, start there and move each scene forward in chronological order. The idea sounds simple, but it’s easy to think we’re doing it when we’re really not.

That’s because we don’t “count” all the places we pause the story to fit in what we think the reader needs to know about prior events.

Those pauses are cheating, and each time we use them, we drag our readers out of the present and dump them into the past. That’s sabotage we’re doing to ourselves. We’re derailing our own train.

But what about those books and movies that______? (Insert your own argument.)

There are exceptions to almost any “writing rule.” But exceptions are rare. That’s why they grab our attention. It’s like overusing exclamation points. If everything stands out, nothing stands out.

Take Pulp Fiction. Not quite told in chronological order, it challenges us to figure out “what happens when” as the story unfolds. It’s a unique device. Some of us might like it. Some of us might not. But we can probably agree that we wouldn’t want all our movies to be told that way.

When I say tell your story forward, I’m not talking about are movies like Memento where the story starts at the end and is deliberately told backward. Or Benjamin Button where the main character ages in reverse. Or Back to the Future, where Marty McFly travels to the past to save his future. I’m also not talking about dual timelines where you’re telling two stories, one in the present and one in the past.

What I am talking about are places in your WIP that...

Don’t Stop the Action

Taking a timeout from intense action or a pivotal moment is like pushing the emergency stop on a rollercoaster the second before it makes a ninety-degree drop. When we’ve spent so much effort getting our reader to the top of the “ride,” why would we want to lose all of our momentum by pulling them back at the last second? That’s very disappointing.  

Example:

The door burst open, and the long barrel of a sawed-off shotgun entered the cabin first.

Jimmy lunged behind the couch as the first shot shattered the mirror behind him. It was times like these that reminded him of the survival training summer camp he attended last summer before the start of junior year. Learn to live in the wild. Learn to shoot a rifle. Learn to camouflage. What a waste of time. He’d lost an entire summer. And summers were his only free time. The only thing he didn’t regret was meeting Jenny. And their first kiss by the lake. They’d stayed up till dawn, talking for hours, and then as the sun peeked over the mountains, he’d casually leaned in and . . . Yeah, well now he knew that had probably been a mistake. A big mistake.  

It's okay to laugh. Jimmy’s example is definitely over the top. But I’ve read similar passages.

No one thinks they’re actually spinning off on that much of a tangent. Only, some of you are, and probably without even realizing it.

“But I need to let the reader know about this thing that happened because they won’t understand what’s going on and they won’t get my character and why he’s doing or saying this now.”

I hear this argument a lot. No, you don’t need to let the reader know. Not in that moment. But we’ll get back to that.

Paragraphs like Jimmy’s example above grab a sprinting reader by the ankles, plant him in freshly poured cement, and force him to trudge back to what he really cares about—the action. No one likes to trudge. The only other option? Skim until they get to the “good” parts or give up on the book entirely.

Try Something Like This Instead:

The door burst open, and the long barrel of a sawed-off shotgun entered the cabin first.

Jimmy lunged behind the couch as the first shot shattered the mirror behind him. Survival camp. What a freaking waste of time. Options. Options. Options. He was out of options.

The next shot sent bullets tearing through the back of the couch, covering Jenny’s head in bits of floral fabric.

He never should’ve kissed her. Never should’ve brought her here. Throwing himself on top of her, he prayed his body would be enough of a barrier to save her.

In this version, Jimmy brings his past with him into the present without stopping the action.

Don’t Deflate Your Tension

Tension, that feeling of needing to know how it all works out, is what pulls readers along. 

Writers and screenwriters who tell true stories have a special challenge. Readers already know the end. Giving away the end of your story at the beginning can steal your reader’s connection to your characters. If they know straight up that he lives or dies or that she does or doesn’t get what she wants, what’s the point in taking the journey?

That doesn’t mean you can’t open with a snapshot of the climax or a turning point. But stick with the beginning of that pivotal moment and leave the reader hanging. As they walk through the story with your characters, they’ll wonder when they’ll get to that point and how it will be resolved.

Example: The first line of Twilight by Stephenie Meyer (no haters, please ?)

“I’d never given much thought to how I would die—though I’d had reason enough in the last few months—but even if I’d had, I would not have imagined it like this.”

Example: In the movie Saving Private Ryan, the opening scene shows an old man at the Normandy American Cemetery. We don’t know his name until the end. As we watch the movie and get attached to each character, tension builds as we wonder which one will be the sole survivor.

Don’t Hold the Reader Hostage in the Past

Back to the earlier argument that your reader needs to know this or that about your character.

That’s called backstory, and it deserves the attention it received in these earlier posts from Lisa Cron and Margie Lawson. But here’s what two other mega-selling authors have to say:

Stephen King in On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft.

“The most important things to remember about backstory are that (a) everyone has a history and (b) most of it isn't very interesting. Stick to the parts that are, and don't get carried away with the rest. Life stories are best received in bars, and only then an hour or so before closing time, and if you are buying.”

Garth Stein, New York Times bestselling author of The Art of Racing in the Rain.

“Rushing the backstory is a terrible waste. Many writers try to get too much out too soon. If the earthquake is going to happen today, don’t start your story two days ago, even though something important happened to your protagonist two days ago. Start it with the earthquake. Then, the previous two days become the backstory that will inform our hero’s actions in the ‘now’—the fight he had with his wife, the fact that he has no gas in his car (or cash), or that his kids are stuck at summer camp and he has to get to them. Tension between what the reader knows and what the reader doesn’t know will then serve to propel your reader through your story.”

Dumping the past on your reader during an in-the-moment event is the painless way out when it comes to writing. Painless for you. It can be very painful for the reader.

Picture this. As the story beckons them forward, you have a tight grip on their neck holding them back. You’ve set up an entire story world for them to travel—but then you won’t let them go in.

Slicing up chunks of backstory and sprinkling them throughout the story in the right place, at the right time, and in the right order takes skill. Sharing information about your character in a way that weaves that information into the action is hard. No one is disputing that.

So how do you actually carry it out on the page? Practice. Rewrites. Deliberate planning. And even more deliberate edits.  

The first step is to admit you have a backstory problem.

If you’re not sure, check with your beta readers or critique partners. Fresh eyes are crucial. Make sure you trust the people you give your manuscript to. Know that they have your best interests at heart. And that they know what they’re talking about. For more on that, see The Up and Downsides of Critique Groups.

Once you have your people, ask them to highlight the parts they skim. Read those parts and assess what you’re doing in those sections as a writer and why.

Now you have a few options. Copy and paste the backstory into a different document and figure out where and when you can use it in smaller chunks. It helps to cross it out as you put it back in. Or you can fix your backstory dumps on the spot. Shorten/tighten/rework them to weave into what’s going on without stalling the story. It helps to think about what’s actually important for the reader to know, not what you think they need to know. If you can’t figure that out, ask your beta readers and critique partners.

Every writer deals with issues of telling their stories forward. Some are naturally good at it. Others learn to be good at it.

I’d love to hear your experiences and read some examples of what you’ve done to make sure your story doesn’t stop the action, deflate the tension, or hold the reader hostage in the past. Please share in the comments!

About Lori

An encourager at heart, author, editor, and writing coach Lori Freeland believes everyone has a story to tell. She’s presented multiple workshops at writer’s conferences across the country and writes everything from non-fiction to short stories to novels—YA to adult. When she’s not curled up with her husband drinking too much coffee and worrying about her kids, she loves to mess with the lives of the imaginary people living in her head.

You can find her young adult and contemporary romance at lorifreeland.com and her inspirational blog and writing tips at lafreeland.com. Her latest release, The Accidental Boyfriend, is currently free on the Radish app.