Writers in the Storm

By Kris Maze

Writing teen dialogue and internal thought in Young Adult (YA) fiction can be a challenge. I mean, really, who wants to be in a teen-aged brain? Amirite? *grin* 

Impulsive and awkward, teens speak their own language, balancing between quick, sarcastic responses and deeply reflective inner worlds. Getting into that mindset can infuse an authentic feel in your writing. Done well, it can make your characters leap off the page and resonate with your audience.

This is part three of my series on YA writing elements to help writers create fiction that is more relatable to teens today.  Part one of this series looks at examples of teen characterization and can be found here. Part two explored world building elements and can be found here. Read more in this series to optimize your YA writing.

Below, we’ll look at how different YA authors master dialogue and teen voice, using quotes from popular novels like One of Us is Next, All The Bright Places, and Shadow and Bone. Then, I’ll provide 5 actionable takeaways you can use to make your dialogue sharper and your characters’ inner thoughts more genuine.

Examples of Teen Dialogue and Voice in YA

1. One of Us is Next by Karen M. McManus

What to look for: Quick, punchy dialogue with emotional undercurrents.

Phoebe: “Seriously, Maeve? You think this is some kind of joke?”  

Maeve: “No, I think it’s a game. And we just got pulled into the next round.”  

Knox: “So what? We’re supposed to just play along?”  

Maeve: “Do we have a choice?”

This exchange captures the high-stakes tension teens feel while maintaining a natural, conversational flow. Maeve's response is sharp, while Knox’s reaction shows reluctance—a perfect blend of uncertainty and urgency.

2. All The Bright Places by Jennifer Niven

What to look for: Reflective, introspective dialogue that digs into emotions.

Violet: “Why do you want me to see all this?”  

Finch: “Because I want you to see what’s out there. What you’re missing while you’re busy being scared of it.”  

Violet: “I’m not scared. I just… don’t feel anything anymore.”  

Finch: “Maybe that’s the problem.”

This exchange shows how teens often communicate deeper thoughts through indirect dialogue, giving space for emotional depth without being overly dramatic. Finch’s line is a gentle challenge, reflecting his complex internal world.

3. I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson

What to look for: Intensely emotional and creative dialogue reflective of the characters’ artistic minds.

Noah: “I’m disappearing, Jude. I feel it. Like I’m fading out of the picture.”  

Jude: “No, you’re not. You just have to paint yourself back in. Use something bold, like fire-red.”  

Noah: “What if I don’t want to? What if I don’t want to be seen anymore?”

Here, the dialogue is almost metaphorical, reflecting the characters' creative nature while expressing very real teen emotions of self-doubt and the desire to hide.

4. Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

What to look for: Awkward and unsure dialogue reflecting the struggles of a teen in an unfamiliar world.

Alina: “I don’t belong here. I’m not… one of you.”  

Mal: “That doesn’t mean you’re nothing. You’re still you, Alina.”  

Alina: “But what if I don’t know who that is anymore?”

In this scene, Alina’s vulnerability and confusion come through in her words. Her dialogue is hesitant and unsure, a true sign of teen uncertainty, especially when they feel out of place.

5. The Mary Shelley Club by Goldy Moldavsky

What to look for: Sarcastic and humorous dialogue that hides vulnerability.

Rachel: “You know what’s great about being the new girl? No one knows you well enough to realize how weird you are.”  

Freddie: “I dunno, I’m pretty sure they’re catching on.”  

Rachel: “Yeah, well, joke’s on them. I’m an acquired taste.”

Rachel’s sarcasm is a defensive mechanism, showing how teens often use humor to protect themselves in social situations. It’s quick, funny, and layered with meaning.

5 Takeaways for Nailing Teen Dialogue and Internal Thought in YA Fiction

1. Keep It Short and Real  

Teens don’t monologue—they react, text, snap, and keep it brief, just like in One of Us is Next. 

Actionable Tip: Cut out the fluff. Short sentences with strong emotional undercurrents work best for teen characters. Find my posts on fixing fluff words in your writing in parts one and two.

2. Let Their Inner World Shine  

Teens live inside their heads, like Finch in All The Bright Places. Their internal monologues are often deep and reflective.  

Actionable Tip: Give your characters introspective moments where they can reflect on their fears, hopes, and conflicts, making them more relatable. These moments can be placed in between tense or highly emotional moments in your story to even out pacing.

3. Lean Into the Drama  

YA thrives on emotional intensity. Take cues from I’ll Give You the Sun, where characters express feelings in bold, colorful ways.  

Actionable Tip: Don’t be afraid to ramp up the emotional intensity in your dialogue. Teens often feel things strongly, and it should show in their words. 

4. Be Vulnerable and Awkward  

Like Alina in Shadow and Bone, teens are often unsure of themselves and stumble through conversations.  

Actionable Tip: Write dialogue that’s imperfect. Let your characters say the wrong thing, hesitate, or second-guess themselves. It adds authenticity.

5. Show Defiance Through Sarcasm  

Sarcasm is a teen’s second language, like Rachel in The Mary Shelley Club. It’s often how they deal with stress or mask vulnerability.  

Actionable Tip: Use sarcasm and humor to layer your dialogue with meaning, especially in moments of tension or conflict.

Final Thoughts

Writing teen dialogue isn’t just about sounding like a teenager—it’s about capturing the intensity, vulnerability, and complexity of teen emotions. Whether through punchy lines, sarcastic humor, or reflective thoughts, each of these books shows how to use dialogue to build stronger, more authentic teen characters.

By taking inspiration from the examples above and following the takeaways, your YA characters will feel real, relatable, and unforgettable to readers. So, lean into the awkwardness, the drama, and the inner monologues that make teens so compelling to write—and to read about.

About Kris

Kris Maze is an author, writing coach, and teacher. She has worked in education for many years and writes for various publications, including Practical Advice for Teachers of Heritage Learners of Spanish and the award-winning blog Writers in the Storm where she is also a host. You can find her horror stories and young adult writing on her website. Keep up with future projects and events by subscribing to her newsletter.

Find her newest collection of spooky stories HERE .

A recovering grammarian and hopeless wanderer, Kris enjoys reading, playing violin and piano, and spending time outdoors. And sometimes she bakes an apple crisp.

by Jenn Windrow

Today we are going to talk about one of my favorite topics, reader magnets!

So, what is a reader magnet?

A reader magnet is a marketing tool that authors give away for free. They can come in many forms, but their purpose is to introduce readers to your characters, story world, and writing.

Intriguing reader magnets:

• Short stories or poems or even a chapter pulled from the final MS.
• Maybe some of the back story you didn’t include in your finished story.
• Prologues or epilogues that you decided against adding.
• Really anything that you don’t mind giving away for free to entice a reader to pick up Book One and start reading.

I have a collection of short stories, one poem, and a novella from my story world that I offer to readers who join my newsletter list. It’s an easy thank you, only about 95 pages worth of content that I am happy to give away for free to give readers a taste of my writing before they buy. But it also adds to the depth of my world.

Not only are reader magnets great marketing material, but they are inexpensive too. Make sure you place a CTA (call to action) at the end of any subsequent book or reader magnet, pointing your reader to the first book in the series, and you have officially marketed like a pro.

Tools That Help with Reader Magnets

There are promotion sites like BookFunnel and StoryOrigin where you can upload your reader magnet. Once you do, you can search out their lists of promotions and add your content to the list.

I have done several promotions with BookFunnel in the past and had great success with all of them. You can use promotion sites like these to collect email address and beef up your newsletter list. Both sites offer free and paid options depending on the kind of promotion you are looking for.

Note: This doesn’t have to be a pricy endeavor. I hop in and out of the paid option for BookFunnel all the time. I use it when I need to and save the money when I don’t. I retain all of my information when I change my pricing plan and can go back and look at my past promotions when I need to without worrying about my history being deleted.

Here are the paid options from both BookFunnel and StoryOrigin.

But if you don’t want to use the options above, you can always place a link on your website or social media site that directs readers to sign up for your newsletter list and email them their free gift.

Other ways to use Reader Magnets

In-person book signings are another great use of reader magnets. If you are speaking with a reader who isn’t quite sure they want to spend money on an author they have never heard of, giving them a downloadable QR code card can help with the sale even after they have walked away.

I have also seen authors print out their reader magnets into a small book and hand out a free physical copy. Then the reader walks away with a free gift and something new to read. This would of course have an overhead cost, so this is something you must decide if it’s worth it.

Giving away content doesn’t only have to be for enticing new readers, it can be a way to reward and thank your faithful readers for continuing to support you as an author. Reader’s love getting a behind-the-scene peek into the characters they have fallen in love with. Plus, if you are a slow writer like me, then the bonus content keeps them interested until the next book comes out.

Let’s talk about the Ominubus

In the past few years, the omnibus has become very popular with readers. An omnibus is a large volume book that contains all the content related to a book series. I created one this past spring for my urban fantasy series. It contains almost 900 pages of content that includes, 3 short stories, 1 poem, 1 novella, and all 4 novels. I bought a separate cover, spray painted the edges a fancy color ( a very stressful process), and created a fancy bookmark that they could only get with that book.

I called them a collector’s edition when readers inquired about the very large book at my table. I sold out on the second day of the event. And it wasn’t just new readers who were buying the special edition, it was some of my most faithful readers who wanted the whole Alexis Black world bundled in one fancy book.

Here is my omnibus in case you are curious what they look like.

So, the next time you cut a whole chapter or remove backstory or get rid of a section of dialogue between characters, don’t trash it. Save it and use it as a fun way to draw new readers into your world and reward those who have been with you since the start.

Now that you have an idea of what reader magnets are, can you think of any content you have deleted that you want to bundle together and give away for free? Do you use reader magnets already? Share the great ones down in the comments!

About Jenn

Sass. Snark. Supernatural Sizzle. 

Award winning author of Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance. Vampires, Greek gods, and a bit of Demon Destroyer fun for everyone.

Jenn Windrow loves characters who have a pinch of spunk, a dash of attitude, and a large dollop of sex appeal. Top it all off with a huge heaping helping of snark, and you’ve got the ingredients for the kind of fast-paced stories she loves to read and write. Home is a suburb of it’s-so-hot-my-shoes-have-melted-to-the-pavement Phoenix. Where she lives with her husband, two teenagers, and a slew of animals that seem to keep following her home, at least that’s what she claims.

Website: https://jennwindrow.com/

Top photo purchased from Depositphoto. All others are from Jennifer Windrow.

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 [JH1]Unless you plan to link to your earlier posts as a group, you don’t need this.

by Ellen Buikema

Here I sit, in front of my laptop. The cursor blinks merrily at the top left of the page, maddeningly free of words. The muse isn’t talking. Maybe there is no muse. Maybe I am a fraud. Has this ever happened to you?

Many writers, even professionals, suffer from writing anxiety.

Whether you see this as resistance or low sense of self, writing anxiety can prevent you from finishing that wonderful story that only you can tell best. Or for that matter, from even starting the story.

I don’t know how to start. 

The suggestion, “Just start writing” can be helpful. This way you can get something down to punch up later.

Have a care with surfing the net, falling down rabbit holes while researching, and making online purchases.

Try developing a routine.

• make your favorite brew
• disconnect from the internet, unless you are researching
• set a timer

Having a routine can help set the mood to relax and write. It’s a good idea to move away from your work periodically and stretch. Your skeletal structure will thank you.

Make your writing time brief, to start, and lengthen the time when you are ready. I like to write in “chunks” of time, never more than two hours at a time. But that’s me. Some people can write for much longer stretches of time. There is no wrong here. Don’t pressure yourself.

Start small.

Think of an idea for a story and write it in under a thousand words.

Way back when I was teaching, I had my Language Arts students write stories using the three-paragraph method, beginning, middle, and end, with two or three sentences in each paragraph.

Give this method a try. Don’t worry about grammar or spelling initially. The goal is to tell a story, start to finish, within a set word limit.

This story starter can be expanded and developed into a longer tale, with corrected grammar and spelling in later drafts. The three-paragraph method was a great confidence builder for my students.

I’m obsessing over details.

There’s a lot that goes into developing a story and writing a book. Pondering all that information can send writers over the edge, diving into the anxiety pool. You might come to a sharp stop. Stuck. Obsessing over details that don't matter early on in the process may tempt you to give up.

Advice to keep going may be tiresome, but you can't edit an empty page.

Practice story structure.

• Exposition. Introduces a protagonist's life, world, and wants, and has an inciting incident—the problem.
• Rising action. The protagonist is tested along the way as the problem worsens.
• Climax. The hero makes their choice and the climax is the action that follows that decision.
• Falling action. The hero must deal with the consequences of achieving their goal.
• Resolution. Plot, character arcs, and themes weave a conclusion.

Try plotting out these five moments, focusing on the problem.

Here’s a great story structure worksheet to help with the story structure process.

My writing is terrible.

The first draft, by definition, is terrible—for most writers. When you look around at all the books in a bookstore or library, know that none of them read as they do now in the first draft.

Great writers write well because they practice their craft. How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice. It’s the same for all artforms and careers.

Find a writer’s critique group or support group.

I am a fan of critique groups and writer support groups and belong to both. Critique groups can be found though Meetup.com, within social media, and in your local community. Writer support groups can be composed of writers you know locally, or folks you met at a conference. The support group may function in part as critique as well as moral support for writing and day-to-day living. Great friendships may develop in both types of writer groups.

I can’t figure out how to end the story.

Some people believe that the ending of a story is the most important part. Goof up the ending, and your reader will feel cheated. The ending must be satisfying.

Look ahead.

Consider beginning the writing process with a good feel for the ending. As you write your story, the ending will evolve, but you’ll have a clear goal to reach those final scenes. Even if you write by the seat of your pants, it can’t hurt to know the start and end points of your story.

Return to the story’s start.

Use an element early in the story and return to it in the end. That element may be a family heirloom, or a special stone, something unique. Consider the screenplay, Citizen Kane. The film begins with the whisper of a dying man, “Rosebud.” We don’t know who or what Rosebud is until the movie’s end—very emotional. Tying your story’s ending to its beginning is one way to give your reader a satisfying ending.

Final Thoughts

A lot of writing anxiety stems from perfectionism—we truly want to create a perfect book.

There is no magic in perfection. Magic lives in your creative mind, and flows best when you least expect it.

Have you ever experienced writing anxiety? What did you do to overcome it?

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About Ellen

Author, speaker, and former teacher, Ellen L. Buikema has written non-fiction for parents, and The Adventures of Charlie Chameleon chapter book series with stories encouraging the development of empathy—sprinkling humor wherever possible. Her Works in Progress are The Hobo Code, YA historical fiction and The Crystal Key, MG Magical Realism/ Sci-Fi, a glaze of time travel.

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

Top Image by Vilius Kukanauskas from Pixabay