5 Writing Lessons by Young Adult Authors
Loved by many and hated by some, the one thing impossible to say is that YA is not successful. Gathering readers around the world, YA literature has become a huge part of the book environment, leading some Young Adult authors to fame.
The term Young Adult can cause some confusion. This is a category, not a genre, created to describe novels for the public between 12-18 years. It can have many genres allocated, from thriller to fantasy. Because of its focus on teenagers, often the thematics are around transitions or changes in life.
YA books consolidate readers that are getting out of childhood and discovering more of themselves. It can be a reason why these stories resonate deeply with them.
The main thing to be a successful Young Adult author is to understand your public, and this an important skill to achieve. With many writers finding their ways to the bestseller lists or movie adaptations, it is good to know how they connect with readers and their best writing lessons.
Alice Oseman
“Do not stress about writing a perfect book the first time around. Nobody can do that. Not even J.K. Rowling can do that. So let your words pour out uncontrollably for now. Write with feeling, not with precision - you’ll have time to go back and tidy up your grammar later."
Author of Solitaire, Radio Silence, and the comic Heartstopper, Alice Oseman, is one of the most famous YA writers. She emphasized the need not to seek perfection, as it was what she did.
Alice wrote her first novel at 17, during a school holiday. She did it for fun. Because she loved to write and because she had something to tell. What you have to tell is what matters the most. The adjustments will come later.
Angie Thomas
“You have to discipline yourself and determine that ‘Yeah, there are only 24 hours in a day, but at least if I write something, I will get to the end eventually.'
If someone can teach about persistence, this person is Angie Thomas. The admired author from The Hate U Give worked a long way to be where she is now.
According to her, she received 200 rejection letters for her first novel. This draft never saw the light of the day. However, she believed in her writing and kept going. And we can see that this is a value she puts in her stories too.
John Green
“So I started trying to write about the world around me and pretty quickly realized that I couldn’t write about the world around me without also writing about myself.”
Even if you lived under a rock, you would have heard off about John Green. This Young Adult author saw his sales explode with The Fault in Our Stars, which also has a movie adaptation. He has written several successful books for the YA public, like Paper Towns and Looking for Alaska.
Liking his style or not, John has a good point: all writing is personal. It is impossible to write and not put a little about ourselves in every word. There is no problem with being vulnerable and showing your feelings on the page.
The writing process gives no space for hiding. All of your characters will look at you and expose things no one has seen before.
Kacen Callender
“I think this put me on a mission to help heal young queer readers, to let them know that they aren’t alone, and to give them hope.”
Kacen is a black queer writer, author of Felix Ever After. Its writing shows an important movement happening in the Young Adult environment: the realization that diversity matters and that the stories will resonate in the reader's lives.
Kacen knows the importance of the writing work, understands how the public will feel reading the novel. It is vital to not only understand your public but also make them feel seen.
Writing for the young or old, when the reader sees themselves through your story, the connection will be deeper.
Stephenie Meyer
“I write my stories because of my characters; they are the motivation and the reward. The difficulty with strong, defined characters, though, is that you can’t make them do something that is out of character. They have to be who they are and, as a writer, they’re often out of your control.”
This one is polemic and dismisses presentations (Twilight, Edward, vampires shining in the sun). However, Meyer is proof that almost everyone has something to teach.
As important as knowing your public; is knowing your characters. They will be the ones that push the story forward. Listening to them will keep your novel in the right way.
