Matthew Kadish's Blog: Matthew Kadish's Evil Hive Mind Blog, page 9

How To Write A (Good) YA Romance – Part 4, Love Triangles & Wish Fulfillment

Greetings True Believers (and you heathen non-believers)! Welcome to the fourth and final installment of my series on writing (good) YA Romances. We’ve covered a lot of ground so far. Part 1 discussed creating good main characters and love interests. Part 2 talked about making believable romances and creating sexual tension between characters. Part 3 talked about writing emotionally descriptive prose and how to properly incorporate angst into your story.

In part 4, we will discuss two of the biggest guilty pleasures associated with YA Romance – Love Triangles and Wish Fulfillment. These tropes are both so popular, you’d be hard pressed to find any YA story without them in it!

As always, there is a right way, and a wrong way to do these two things. So let’s discuss them, shall we?

Part 7: Crafting A Believable Love Triangle

What would YA be without a love triangle, am I right?

Seriously, it seems like every book you pick up in the YA space has some type of love triangle going on. And if it’s not a love triangle, it’s a love pentagon, or hexagon, or octagon. Regardless of however many people are involved, there’s a whole lotta love goin’ on.

The Twilight series really brought the whole “love triangle” thing to the forefront of YA literature, with its detailed three-way drama between Edward, Jacob, and Bella. This was such a popular aspect of these books, that many YA writers feel like it is a must to have one in their stories. I think this is because love triangles are not only a type of wish-fulfillment for the reader (what woman doesn’t dream about multiple sexy men fighting over them?), but that it also creates a natural drama that manifests a great deal of angst and conflict within the story.

Some YA readers might argue that they’re “sick” of love triangles, but I’d argue that what they’re really sick of are BAD love triangles. If a love triangle is done right, it can be a fun and entertaining thing to read about.

Unfortunately, so many YA authors do it wrong. They seem to think all you need to have a legitimate love triangle are two hot guys the main character is unable to choose between, because they’re both so hot. And yet, though the main character can’t make up her mind, it’s abundantly clear to the audience who she’s going to pick.

Always remember that when you’re writing a romance, your reader must fall in love with your love interest as your main character does. This is the key to having your audience connect with your characters. So if you’re going to incorporate a love triangle in your YA novel, you must do the following:

Have two “love interest” characters your audience can fall in love with.
Make them attractive beyond simply their looks.
Create a stark contrast between them.
Make the choice legitimately difficult.

Let’s tackle each one of these guidelines in turn…

1. Have two “love interest” characters your audience can fall in love with. Beyond the simple fact that you need three people to form a love triangle, you must also grant ample time to allow your audience to fall in love with both characters equally. If you look at the Twilight series, the first book focuses on Bella falling in love with Edward, but the second book focuses on her relationship with Jacob. Each love interest character gets nearly an entire book devoted just to them, so that the audience has time to fall in love with each one.

I believe a big mistake author’s make in their love triangles is that they focus too much time and energy developing just one side of the triangle, so that when the second love interest is introduced, he just seems superfluous or tacked on just for the sake of having a “love triangle” in the story.

If you want to have a legitimate love triangle your audience can sink its teeth into, give each character ample time to develop a relationship with your main character. Let your reader fall in love with them just as your heroine does.

2. Make your two love interests attractive beyond simply their looks. A big pitfall inexperienced YA authors fall into is creating male love interests who have nothing going for them beyond them being “hot.” The main character doesn’t know who to choose, because they both are so gorgeous! But beauty is only skin deep, and readers get bored if the choice is simply between hot guy A and hot guy B. So as a writer, you must offer more from your characters than simply their looks. There must be a reason why they are attractive to your main character beyond physical appearance.

Making your love interests smart, funny, kind, selfless, brave, heroic, protective, seductive, dangerous, reckless, or any number of other things can make them appealing beyond just their looks. Remember that there is an emotional component to romance, not just a physical one. You want to make your two love interests as attractive on the inside as they are on the outside. Otherwise you’ll just have shallow characters no one really cares about, and your love triangle will fall apart because the reader will not be invested in the outcome.

3. Create a stark contrast between your two love interests. When it comes to presenting the two love interests in your triangle, you don’t want the choice to be essentially the same for the main character. If your heroine must choose between Bad Boy 1 or Bad Boy 2, it’s not much of a choice, is it? You want to have your love interests be clearly different from one another, so that your main character will be forced to make a clear and decisive choice that will have real impact on her life.

So if one of your characters is a “sexy bad boy,” have the other one be the “play by the rules boy next door.” If one is “brooding and serious,” have the other be “carefree and funny.” If one is poor, make the other rich, and so on, and so on. The more of a contrast you can make between the two characters, the bigger the decision your heroine will face because she must decide which side of the fence she’s going to fall on.

This type of thing is very obvious in the Twilight series. Edward is a vampire, and Jacob is a werewolf. One is immortal, the other is mortal. One is cold, the other is warm. One is pale, reddish-brown haired, and sparkly, the other is bronzed, raven haired, and doesn’t like wearing shirts. Edward is rich, Jacob is poor. Edward is old, Jacob is young. Need I go on?

You’ll want this contrast because you’ll want your reader taking sides as to who they want to see your main character end up with. Not everyone is attracted to the same thing, so you want to have your bases covered for the sake of getting your reader invested in the love triangle you are creating. Appeal to the readers who love the dangerous bad boy type, but also appeal to the readers who like the charming boy your can take home to momma. Don’t just limit yourself to one archetype.

Love interests who are too similar will never carry the impact that two who are opposite are. Keep that in mind as you are writing.

4. Make the choice as to who the main character will end up with legitimately difficult. When it’s clear who your main character is going to choose, the love triangle becomes boring. I’d say this was a big fault in the Twilight series because it was always clear Bella was going to end up with Edward. Part of the fun of a love triangle is trying to guess who your main character is going to end up with. If the outcome is already obvious, it loses a lot of its steam.

Your main character should be facing a legitimately difficult choice when choosing who she wants to be with. There should be pros and cons for each choice, just as there are in real life. Will she want to live a turbulent life with the bad boy? Or play it safe with the good boy? The good boy makes her feel loved and cared for, but the bad boy awakens something deep inside her and brings excitement to her life.

If your heroine has legitimate reasons to choose either of the love interests, it will keep your audience in suspense as to who she’s going to choose. This is the thing that will fuel endless pages of fan posts on message boards, debating who should be with who. Seriously, fans will obsess over this stuff. And guess what? That’s what you want!

The worst sin you could commit is to make one choice superior to the other. You’ll often see the love interest who fits into the “best friend” archetype get the shaft in YA novels, making it obvious who the heroine wants to be with. But in the stories where the heroine is legitimately attracted to two different men and feels torn between who she wants to be with, those are the stories which people delight in reading, because there is tension and drama behind the story of who the main character will end up with.

Who your main character ends up with doesn’t have to be a surprise, but any choice she makes should be a satisfying one. Show the reader that it is not a decision she made lightly. Let us feel her struggle and experience the tension of the choice she must make. That will make your love triangle truly powerful.

Part 8: Wish Fulfillment

Always keep in mind that at the end of the day, people read for entertainment and enjoyment. You want to give your readers what they crave! And often, that comes in the form of “wish fulfillment.”

Every girl dreams of finding true love, of having hot guys fight over her, of having exciting adventures that make them feel alive. They want a prince charming to ride in and sweep them off their feet. They want to feel special.

When it comes to romance, you must try and allow for this wish fulfillment to happen. Let the “Plain Jane” main character get the hot guy. Let the ugly duckling become the princess. Let the virgin become a woman. Give the audience the mystery, intrigue, drama, and romance they crave.

After all, romance is meant to be a fantasy – at least in the genre we’re writing in. However, you must walk the line between fantasy and believability. Having that hot boy fall in love with the “Plain Jane” at first sight isn’t satisfying. Seeing that “Plain Jane” work hard to get the hot guy to fall in love with her is. Your characters must always work to fulfill the audience’s fantasy, otherwise it’s unsatisfying to the reader.

Never let things come easy for your characters. Constantly think of obstacles you can put in their way, but at the end of the day, allow the wish to be granted.

Now, this doesn’t mean you must always have a happy ending to your stories. But it does mean you have to deliver on certain things the audience wants before you deny them their happy ending.

Here are some of the more common wish-fulfillment fantasies that play out in YA novels…

The Ugly Duckling: This is essentially where a so-called “unattractive” character transforms into an object of desire. I think most people can relate to dreaming about this. We all have aspects of ourselves that we are insecure about. Everyone feels ugly and unloved at some point in their lives. The dream of being treated like the most beautiful person the object of one’s desire has ever met is a fantasy for the ages, and everybody experiences it at one point or another.

This is especially common in YA because the Ugly Duckling fits in so well with the “coming of age” theme. Remember, being “ugly” isn’t always about how you look. It’s also about being immature or inexperienced. It’s about transformation, from something inferior, to something superior. Everyone wants to be better than they are, which is why so many people relate to this fantasy.

This type of wish fulfillment gives both your main character and the audience a journey to go on. Your main character can start off as a nerdy bookworm with bad hair and glasses who all the boys ignore and all the girls tease. But if we get to see her become a beautiful, confident, strong woman throughout the course of the story, she becomes someone the audience can root for and want to see live happily ever after. And that journey can be littered with obstacles and pitfalls, which makes it fun to read.

And the Ugly Duckling doesn’t always have to be the main character. It can also be a supporting character the main character helps reach their potential. Simply keep in mind that the “Ugly Duckling” is a wish fulfillment fantasy that can easily be incorporated into your story in a number of different ways.

The Secret Princess: It’s no coincidence that most YA novels with a fantasy bent to them have their main characters end up being a Princess of some sort. Since the time most women are little girls, their heads are filled with fairy tales of beautiful Princesses – Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, etc. Is it any wonder why so many women secretly desire to be one?

The archetype of a Princess is a powerful one. Think of all the things that come from such a position – status, wealth, an amazing wardrobe, fame, admiration, respect… all things people struggle to acquire throughout their lives are simply given to a Princess. But more than that, Princesses get the admiration of the bravest, strongest, and most handsome heroes of the land! Snow White had her Prince Charming. Guinevere had Sir Lancelot. Buttercup had Westley. What woman wouldn’t want that kind of admiration from men, even if all the other trappings of being a Princess didn’t appeal to them?

Beyond the wish fulfillment angle, there is also drama and conflict inherent in the Secret Princess archetype. A heroine who suddenly discovers she holds a position of power is often thrust into conflict with those who either resent or are opposed to that power. She suddenly has responsibility to her subjects, which means she is forced into a leadership role and must make difficult decisions. And though we like to believe that Princesses end up with the good guy, their positions often lend themselves to having to marry because of duty or responsibility, rather than for love, which can cause a great deal of tension. The story of King Arthur, Guinevere, and Lancelot is a perfect example of this. Thus, this wish fulfillment is not only romantic, but filled with narrative possibilities.

Taming The Bad Boy: If there’s one thing I’ve discovered in my many (many) years of dating, it’s that all women seem to have a fantasy about “changing” a man. They see the potential in the man they are with and believe they can bring out the good qualities they see while eliminating the bad. Unfortunately for them, this is rarely ever the case. The man most women meet is going to stay as he is by and large, no matter what they do. However, that doesn’t stop them from fantasizing about their love molding the man they are with into what they consider to be their ideal.

This fantasy becomes even more intoxicating if the man is a “bad boy.” Someone who is dark, dangerous, or even evil! There is no better example of this than the tale of Beauty and the Beast. In that story, you have a literal monster who is dark, dangerous, and considered evil. The heroine is forced to be his captive. And yet, through the power of her love, he is transformed from a monster into a brave, noble, and loving Prince! Beauty tamed the Beast and made him her ideal lover.

Lots of modern YA novels use this wish fulfillment concept as well. In Twilight, Edward is a dangerous vampire, consumed with the urge to kill Bella. And yet, Bella (somehow) tames him and his love for her outweighs his urge to give into his vampire nature.

In The Mortal Instruments, Jace is a snide, damaged, cocky jerk with a tragic past that keeps him from getting close to people. (His father killed his pet falcon, for God’s sake! That kind of pain never dies!) And yet, Clary is able to break through the barriers he’s built up around himself and touch his heart, making him more brave, noble, and self-sacrificing than he thought he could ever be.

There is something intoxicating to readers about the idea of taming the bad boy. I harbor the belief every woman has dreamed about being able to do such a thing at one point in their life or another. Just remember that if you’re going to use this fantasy in your story, make it believable. Have the “bad boy” fight against change, but in the end, make him powerless to his feelings of love for your heroine.

The Alpha Male: There’s something to be said about men who are kind, gentle, gallant, and understanding. I remember back in the 80’s when it was actually a thing where women “wanted a man who wasn’t afraid to cry!” But no matter how many men a woman dates who are in touch with their feminine side, deep down, nothing gets a woman’s motor running like an ALPHA MALE.

I believe this is a big reason why the Fifty Shades Of Grey series is so ridiculously popular. Lots of people like to point out that they think it’s the BDSM aspect of the book that appeals to readers because of its novelty, however, I’d argue that the character of Christian Grey embodies the Alpha Male archetype so perfectly, that women readers can’t help but be drawn to fantasizing about him.

Putting all aspects of LGBT issues and feminist chest thumping aside, let’s talk plainly about this type of fantasy for a moment. The fact is, men are attracted to women who do girly things. Men LOVE IT when girls act like girls! And the opposite is also true. Women love it when men act MANLY. It’s erotic, it turns them on, it makes them obsess and fantasize. And nothing is more manly than an Alpha Male.

An Alpha Male is basically a man who embodies a certain type of dominance, control, and leadership over those around him. Many women find this type of thing appealing because they like the security of having a strong personality give them guidance and leadership. It’s the “provider” mentality. Alpha Males are not easily scared. They’re not easily intimidated. They aren’t afraid to fight for what they want. They are decisive. They take action. They are someone others can depend upon when times are at their worst.

A big mistake YA writers make is blurring the line between being an Alpha Male and being a Sociopath. You’ll see lots of “alpha male” love interests in YA novels that assert their dominance in ways that could be construed as unhealthy. Forcing their girlfriends to eat when they’re not hungry. Controlling who she’s allowed to see or be friends with. Not allowing her to be too long apart from him. Exhibiting jealousy and anger when the heroine does not comply with his wishes. In the Twilight series, you even have Edward go so far as to sabotage Bella’s car to keep her from going to a party where Jacob is going to be. In real life, that would warrant a call to the cops, if not a small court claim.

It’s important to keep in mind that obsessive behavior is not an Alpha Male trait. Alpha Males are what they are because they don’t need other people. They are the Alpha, other people need them. And more than that, they are often drawn to people who are just as strong, if not stronger, than they are. This is why when your heroine is able to stand up to an Alpha Male or display some type of unusual strength or courage, the Alpha Male is intrigued or attracted to them, because he not only recognizes the character’s strength, he also respects it. That can be a gateway to attraction.

Dating Out Of Your League: The notion of dating or having someone “superior” to you fall in love with you is also a big wish fulfillment fantasy many people harbor. What girl hasn’t wanted to show off a hot guy on her arm at prom, or a wedding, or something of the sort, just to show other people that such a man finds her worthy of his attention? What woman doesn’t strive to date a man who’s rich or successful or powerful or insanely good looking? Though it’s not often talked about, social status is a large factor in our lives, and we all want that which we feel is better than what we deserve.

Because we are all harboring insecurities, we often look to others to give us reassurance and validation about our self-worth. When someone we find attractive, and who we believe to be “better” than us (be it in the looks department, money department, social standing, etc.) pays us favorable attention, we begin to believe that we might actually be worth something. So many people in the world dream of the validation that comes from a gorgeous member of the opposite sex falling in love with them.

The gawky wallflower who suddenly has the captain of the football team asking her to prom is a perfect example of this. That character may think she’s ugly, a nerd, that she’s too smart to want to bother with make-up or dresses or whatever. But once that popular boy expresses his interest, she becomes just as giddy as any other girl she previously looked down upon, and is willing to do whatever it takes to make that “out of her league” boy hers. We’ve all admired a certain someone from afar, wishing we could be with them, if they’d only notice us. But there were always obstacles in our way. Our own fear. Our own insecurity. Social status and social mores. Peer pressure. Any number of things.

The “Dating out of your league” fantasy finds a way around those obstacles. Typically, this trope only works if the “out of the league” character is the one who makes an effort to make it happen. In Twilight, Edward is the mysterious boy who’s turned down every girl in school. He’s like a supermodel that every girl drools over, but none can have until Bella shows up. And though Bella also expresses interest, she does nothing to pursue him. It’s Edward who makes the decision that he wants to be with Bella.

Because most YA love interests are Gary Stus, you see this trope in lots of YA stories. Just keep in mind that if you are going to have your main character “date out of her league,” have her be active in dealing with the obstacles to doing so, so that she earns the right to date the man others deem “unworthy” for her.

The Chosen One: Though this isn’t a YA-only staple, it’s such a huge wish fulfillment fantasy that you find it in a ton of fiction, and it never really gets old. Everyone feels too “normal” or insignificant in their daily lives. We all dream of being special. We want to be famous musicians, actors, world leaders, etc. But we feel powerless to break away from our hum-drum mundane circumstances.

The trope of “The Chosen One” is that the invisible hand of destiny has manifested, pointed directly at you, and said “You! You’re important!” And deep down, we all wish for this. We want to be the hero that goes on the epic quest to save the world. We want to be the warrior who defeats the bad guy. We want the happy ending we feel we’re entitled to. And the concept of “The Chosen One” plays to that fantasy.

Harry Potter is a prime example of this trope. Since he was a baby, he was the one prophesized to defeat the Dark Lord Voldemort. Luke Skywalker was the one prophesized to bring balance to the Force and liberate the galaxy. Tris is “Divergent” and therefore the only one able to fight the corruption in her society. Katniss is they symbol of the rebellion and the only one who can rally the Districts to fight against the tyranny of the Capitol.

So as is plain to see, using the wish fulfillment of a “Chosen One” can be really exciting and fun. However, do not confuse being a “Chosen One” with being a “Perfect One.” Just because your main character is destined for greatness does not mean it should come easy for her. Have her work at it. Give her obstacles and setbacks in her journey. Pit her against worthy adversaries. Show your audience WHY she was the one fate chose to save us all when times were at their darkest. She must work hard for what she achieves. It should never simply be handed to her! This goes for both saving the world AND falling in love.

Betrayal & Revenge: A sad part of life is that at some point or another, someone we care about will betray us in some way. Your boyfriend cheats on you. Your best friend steals away your husband. That nice Nigerian who emailed you runs off with all your money. The type of pain and anguish that comes from a betrayal is something few people ever truly recover from. It affects all aspects of our life. Women who’ve been cheated on have a hard time trusting men, because they are afraid of being hurt once more. Someone who’s gotten divorced is reluctant to marry again. Someone who’s had their heart broken doesn’t ever want to fall in love for as long as they draw breath.

It’s hard to say that betrayal falls under anyone’s “wish fulfillment fantasy,” because after all, who fantasizes about being betrayed? But what we DO fantasize about is getting revenge for the betrayal! Who doesn’t dream about making that cheating boyfriend suffer? Who doesn’t want to make that former best friend feel the pain you’re feeling? Who doesn’t want to laugh maniacally as they destroy everything the people who betrayed them hold most dear, and rub their noses in it?

Revenge is a HUGE wish fulfillment fantasy for most people, and they take a perverse pleasure in reading about tales of revenge. And the worse the wrong done to the character, the sweeter it is when they enact their vengeance. Who can forget Indigo Montoya chasing around the six-fingered man, repeating “I am Indigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die!” Talk about a satisfying revenge!

Betrayal is the thing that makes bad guys bad, and getting revenge is what makes good guys heroes. They say “revenge” is a hollow victory, but that’s not always the case. If a bad guy betrays you and kills a loved one, revenge can make a person get closure and honor the dead’s memory. Voldemort killed Harry Potter’s parents, so when he is defeated, that revenge is sweet, because he deserved it. When Snow White dethrones the Evil Queen and takes back her kingdom, that revenge is justified and inspiring.

Revenge fantasy is a big-big-BIG wish fulfillment trope. Heck, there are a TON of movies and stories out there all about women who get revenge on a cheating boyfriend or husband. Some are funny, some are morbid, but all of them speak to a deep-down desire we all harbor. Just be sure that if you use this trope in your story, you make the revenge aspect as justified as possible. Someone who seeks revenge for petty things, and goes overboard with it, is not a character readers will identify with. Killing your best friend because you’re jealous over her relationship with the guy you like is not revenge, its homicidal psychosis.

And also remember, revenge doesn’t always have to be what the character (or audience) thinks it is. One of my favorite sayings is “The best revenge is a life well lived.” Your main character can get a moral revenge when she chooses not to kill the bad guy, or when she finds true love after her cheating boyfriend abused her. Revenge isn’t always about hurting people, it’s about finding a victory that pulls you out of the depths of despair the initial betrayal put the character in. If a main character can overcome a betrayal and life a happy life, that is all the revenge she’ll usually need.

Sexual Awakening: Let’s face it, when you’re growing up, nothing is more confusing that sexuality. In fact, it can be so confusing, that most people don’t even figure it out even well into adulthood! And as hormones start raging, teens in particular have a tough time dealing with it. Though people have sex at different times of their life, we all still harbor fantasies about a “sexual awakening” that brings new and exciting pleasures we’d never before experienced into our awareness.

Part of the Young Adult genre is the fact that sex is never something that’s actually done, and if it is done, it’s glossed over. YA isn’t like typical romances or erotica. It should never be graphic, considering the age group its targeting. However, that doesn’t mean it can’t address the subject. In fact, a huge part of YA romance is the THREAT of sex, or the PROMISE of sex, as opposed to ACTUAL sex.

Lots of YA authors get around this by promoting values such as “no sex before marriage.” In Twilight, Bella was ready to go from the end of book 1, but Edward didn’t want to “cross that line” until they were married. So being boyfriend/girlfriend, kissing, snuggling, and being all lovey-dovey is okay. But actual intercourse? You wanna build up to that as looooooong as possible. In Harry Potter, we cut from Harry and Ginny being teens, to them being married with three kids in the final book. (Spoiler, but whatever.) So it took Harry 7 full books to get some nookie, and when he finally did, it was entirely glossed over, implying that it happened at least 3 times over a matter of years!

But a big reason fans of the YA genre enjoy reading YA books is because the sexual awakening aspect of “no sex” can be just as thrilling as “a whole lotta sex!” Many Twilight fans delight in reading about the sexual tension between Bella and Edward as their romance blossoms, and yet have nightmares about what happened once they did finally hook up.

The whole concept behind a sexual awakening is to take a character who is inexperienced or confused about sex, and slowly show them the wonders and pleasures of it. This is something readers enjoy, because we can all relate to that confusion, and we want to take delight in it just as the main character does. So if your main character is a virgin who starts dating the hot boy, the audience can get a vicarious thrill over how he makes her feel. In this respect, it’s the journey, not the destination, which is important when it comes to YA Romance.

Allow your heroine to mature and become comfortable with her sexuality before she gives in to doing the dirty with the love interest. The “slow burn” aspect of this wish fulfillment fantasy is what many YA fans find irresistible.

True Love: Finally, we have the fantasy of True Love. I think no matter who you are, man or woman, we all dream of finding such a thing in our lifetimes. Though it can be argued that “true love” does not really exist, it is a concept that inspires us and gives us hope. So many people simply settle for what they can get when it comes to relationships. The guy is “good enough” to marry. The girl “isn’t as annoying” as most others. But we all yearn for finding that one person we just click with, and that we were meant to be with. We all want to find our soul mate!

Pretty much every YA heroine finds their soul mate in a YA romance. Some to the point where it’s almost hard to read about (you know those couples that you want to tell to get a room when you see them in public? Yeah, they ain’t got nothing on these YA couples)! But this trope has its roots in the fairy tales that have been told since the dawn of time. Every Princess has their Prince. There’s someone for everyone out there. Fate has a plan for us. And when you finally find that one, special someone, it’s as though magic comes into the world, and we get to believe in happy endings again.

Remember that people read books to be entertained, and it is entertaining to get lost in the romance of true love. However, people don’t like their “true love” to be so outside of reality that it becomes something they just can’t buy into. Lots of YA authors make the mistake of thinking true love happens instantly, and the characters it happens to can’t exist without each other. I’d point to the book Halo as an example of this. After about three words to each other, the angel Bethany and the jock Xavier are magically in love with one another, and Bethany essentially tosses aside her mission from God in favor of making kissy-time with the hot teen boy.

Though there is something to be said for two characters being affectionate and enamored with one another, love is always more satisfying when it is earned. The Princess Bride is a perfect example of true love done right. Buttercup starts the story by tormenting the poor farmboy Westley because she can. She didn’t love him right away. She took pleasure in making his life miserable. But his unwavering devotion eventually made her take notice of him. Then, in an effort to be worthy of her, Westley leaves to make his fortune so he can marry the woman he loves. However, Buttercup believes he’s killed by pirates, and is heartbroken. Her love for him was so strong, it would never die, even though she is being forced to marry another man. And when Westley returns as the Dred Pirate Roberts, he must fight to win her back. Though she still loves him, there are obstacles to their love persevering, and they both must find a way to make it past those obstacles so they can once again be together.

Love is always a complicated thing, even if it’s true love. Do not overlook the challenges love brings into an equation in favor of convenience. Romance isn’t always about falling in love, it’s about love conquering everything that tries to keep it from happening. That the concept of “love conquers all” is a wish fulfillment fantasy every reader happily wallows in.

Conclusion

Whew! What a lengthy series of articles! But I’m glad it’s now over. I feel as though I was finally able to communicate my thoughts on YA Romance in a way that could be helpful to others, and be true to my personal views on the subject. I want to thank you for taking the time to read them. I hope you enjoyed processing my insights as much as I did writing them out.

As always, my ego demands recognition, so if you’d be ever so kind as to leave any thoughts, comments, opinions, or critiques in the comments section, it is greatly appreciated. I love hearing what other people think on the topic of writing, and I enjoy learning as much as anyone! After all, the day we stop learning and improving is the day we die, correct?

AND I AIN’T DEAD YET! MANY HAVE TRIED! ALL HAVE FAILED!!!!!

*ahem*

Anywho, if you also know of any writers who might benefit from this series of articles, please be sure to share it with them. Any social media love you could give my rantings would be most appreciated.

Until next time, my friends! Happy writing! Now get to work publishing all those (good) teen romances. I desperately need some to read.

How To Write A (Good) YA Romance – Part 3, Emotion & Angst

Welcome to part 3 in my overly-complex and drawn out look at writing (good) romances for the Young Adult/New Adult genre.  In our previous two installments, we discussed the first four guidelines for crafting a good YA romance.  If you haven’t read parts one or two, be sure to do so first just so you can appreciate how brilliant I am.

We’ve already covered creating good main characters, love interests, sexual tension, and believable romances.  Today, we are going to take things even further, and delve down deep into what makes a scrum-diddily-umptious heapin’ helping of YA goodness that audiences can go full fangirl over.  (Always go full fangirl, people.)

So let’s get to it…

Part 5:  Describe The Emotions Of Your Characters

I think a big mistake YA authors make is they don’t delve deep enough into the emotions their characters are experiencing.  Remember that reading is a visceral medium.  People’s brains can make them experience certain emotion, if they are lead through it.  All the best romances are the ones that describe the character’s emotions in such detail, that the reader experiences those emotions themselves.

If you describe what your characters are feeling, your reader will get a better sense of the romance that is being developed.  It can also shed valuable insight into why they feel the way they do.  For example, let’s say you have a character thinking about a “sexy bad boy.”  A typical YA author might write something like:

Jax leered at me from across the room.  His glowering gaze pierced through me like a knife.  His attention made me uncomfortable, but despite myself, I couldn’t help but like it.

However, when you add emotion to that description, you get something far deeper:

Jax leered at me from across the room.  He glared at me like a predator does when stalking prey, his aura that of a hunter – strong, confident, and powerful.  I felt my tummy flutter, and my skin crawled uncomfortably beneath his steady gaze.  I could feel my heart beat in my chest and my blood quicken.  Was it fear I was experiencing?  Or was it excitement?  Something about his look made me feel as though he wanted to tear me apart.  I should have been scared, but deep down, I could feel the spark of an electric jolt that filled my body with warm desire.  He may have wanted me, but to my surprise, I realized I longed for him to take me. If he was indeed the hunter, I was willing to be his prey.

In the second example, we delve into descriptive language meant to evoke feelings in the reader that also communicate what the characters are experiencing.  When we get descriptive with emotional language, we help lead our reader through it, so that they experience what the character is experiencing.

Always try and write emotions as descriptive as you possibly can.  Not only will it make your romances more interesting to read, it will also connect with your reader better, so that they can understand what your characters are experiencing and experience it along with them.

Using emotion can also help explain why a character is attracted to someone they shouldn’t be attracted to.  Emotions are a deep and complicated thing.  Emotions can make us irrational.  If we’re attracted to someone who could be dangerous, then emotions can help justify that attraction, even if it’s illogical.

Many readers might not understand why your heroine is attracted to a vampire who wants to eat her, or a werewolf that could tear her to shreds, or a fallen angel who wants to sacrifice her so he can become human.  However, if they understand the emotion that is driving her, they’ll be able to justify the character’s actions through the emotional logic of it.

So when you can, layer in descriptive emotion that your characters are experiencing.  Trust me when I say that it will make your romance so much more powerful and believable than it otherwise would be.

Part 6:  Create Believable Angst For Your Characters To Deal With

Ah, what would YA be without angst?  Angst is the thing all fans of this genre probably crave more than anything.  It is like a drug to them.  They can never get enough!

However, much like sex, there is good angst, and bad angst.  Good angst can elevate a story to legendary levels.  Bad angst can sink it faster than the Titanic.  If you’re writing a YA romance, you better know the difference between the two, and use lots of good angst, while minimizing the bad.

First off, I think it’s important to establish what “angst” really means.  Essentially, “angst” is a form of fear or anxiety.  Think of it as being short for “anxious.”  When it comes to “teen angst” or “romantic angst,” we’re talking about fears and anxieties that stem from being a teen or engaging in romance.

Good angst are fears and anxieties that grow naturally from a relationship, and create obstacles that the characters must overcome in order to be together.  (Essentially, they’re conquering their fears.)

Bad angst are contrived fears or anxieties that do nothing more than serve the plot, in the sense that they artificially keep people from being together, and are easily conquered by anyone with half a brain cell.

It is important to recognize this distinction, because it can mean the difference between writing a great YA novel, and a YA novel that will earn you the spite of every reviewer on Goodreads.  If there is one thing YA fans are completely unforgiving about, it is the quality of the angst they get in their books.  If you wish for your narrative to rise to the top of the YA ladder, you must deliver as much good quality angst as you possibly can.

So what are examples of good angst?  Well, pretty much any insecurity your reader can relate to is considered good.  But angst that creates obstacles for characters to overcome is even better!  Let’s go over some, shall we?

Looks/Appearance:  This is probably the most common one we can all relate to.  Everyone feels insecure about how they look at one time or another – especially in high school when we are still developing.  Lots of girls feel ugly or unattractive, even if they are beautiful.  So writing about how your character feels insecure about her looks is something almost every woman can relate to.  Things like acne, bad hair, unsavory facial features, body shape, etc. are all things people fret over.

How does this create obstacles for our characters?  Well, shyness is something that stems from this type of angst.  That can be a big obstacle for a character to overcome!  Insecurity over how genuine the love interest’s feelings are could be another.  After all, why is he into your heroine, if there are better looking girls he could choose from?  Does this mean he’s using her in some way?  Does he have an ulterior motive?  These are all things your heroine might fret about and cause turbulence in the relationship over.

Social Status:  No matter where you go in life, there will always be different social status levels that people belong to.  Rich and poor.  Cool kids and nerds.  Jocks and geeks.  Good looking people and ugly people.  Popular people and unpopular people.  The list goes on and on.

Social statuses create both barriers and expectations for people.  For instance, cheerleaders are expected to date athletes.  If a cheerleader wants to date a “nerd,” she’ll be ridiculed by others in her social class and pressured to “fall in line.”  You see this all the time in stories.  The poor kid from the wrong side of the tracks falls in love with the wealthy debutant.  The nerd pines over the most popular girl in school even though she’s out of his league.

Look at the movie Titanic, as a great example of this.  The love interest is a poor artist from the low-class decks, and the main character is a woman in the rich upper-crust of the boat’s passengers.  She’s pressured by her social status to marry a man she doesn’t love, while being attracted to a man who’s forbidden to her by those in her social circle.

Social status is a fantastic source of angst, because not only does it create believable barriers that must be overcome by the characters, but they are things that most people can relate to.  After all, who hasn’t experienced “expectations” based on their social standing before?  Every YA reader can relate to being attracted to someone who is “out of their league” or unattainable.

Authority:  Let’s be honest, we’ve all had problems with authority at one time or another.  Deep down, nobody likes being told what to do, and frankly, we resent it.  But we can all relate to situations where we have no control over how we’re supposed to live or act.

For instance, parents have authority over their children.  What if your main character’s parents don’t approve of her relationship with your love interest?  Teachers are another source of authority, as are bosses at work.  They make us do things we may not want to do.  Governments are also a big source of authority over our lives.  There are plenty of examples of YA novels where a government tries to have complete rule over its citizens, even down to their love life.  Just look at The Hunger Games or Divergent to see how that works.

Authority is a huge part of YA angst because everyone can relate to it.  There are institutions everywhere that we live under that dictate how we’re supposed to behave.  What if these authorities go counter to what your main character wants?  What if they actively try to keep the main character from falling in love with the object of her desire?  That is true angst right there.

Duty/Responsibility:  Sometimes, angst can stem from the limitations we place on ourselves out of a sense of duty or responsibility.  A main character may be willing to marry someone she doesn’t love because doing so will help her family in some way, and she feels a sense of responsibility for providing for that family.  Most of Jane Austen’s books tackle this type of trope, where women must marry not for love, but for the status and fortune it will bring to their family.

Likewise, this angst can keep people apart.  What if your main character is in love with her best friend’s husband, but denies her passion for him out of a sense of loyalty to her friend, even though the husband feels as passionately for her as she does for him?

Unlike outside authority, which forces its will on others, duty and responsibility comes from one’s own moral compass.  People are willing to suffer and sacrifice if they believe doing so is the right thing to do.  This is a legitimate source of angst which can be utilized to great results.

Previous Commitments:  Going hand-in-hand with duty and responsibility, often a previous commitment can create problems for a main character.  An example of this is when a character is in a current relationship, such as with a boyfriend, fiancée, or husband, and then meets a man she actually ends up falling in love with.

Or, she meets a man who is currently dating, engaged, or married to someone else.  Because of this previous commitment, there is a serious barrier to your main character and her love interest being together, and is thus the source of great angst.

Selflessness:  The willingness to be selfless and sacrifice one’s own happiness for the sake of another is a method of angst everyone can relate to.  What if your main character suddenly discovers that her best friend is in love with the same man as her?  Would she give up and let her friend have the man of her dreams because she cares more about her friend’s happiness than she does about her own?

Or will she be willing to commit to a loveless marriage because doing so would help people she cares about?  How many times have we seen a woman agree to marry the bad guy in order to “spare the life” of the man she truly loves?

Acting Out Of Character:  Last, but not least, let’s talk about the angst that comes from acting in a way the character would not normally do in order to please, appease, or attract their love interest.  I think everyone can relate to doing things they wouldn’t normally do for the sake of someone they were attracted to.

Having your character go to a rave in order to hang out with a boy she likes, even though she hates raves, is an example of this.  Having your character dress more provocatively than she normally would and feeling uncomfortable in her “slutty clothes” would be another example.  Lying about enjoying mountain biking because the boy she likes is passionate about it, thus leading him to invite her to join him even though she doesn’t know how to mountain bike, is yet another example.

These are all types of angst your reader will be able to relate to, and they will help you create obstacles for your characters to conquer in their quest to be together.  Don’t be afraid to use as many of them as you can reasonably cram into your story.  After all, your audience LOVES angst, as long as it is done well.  So use it as often as possible.

To Be Continued…

By now, we’ve covered all the major building blocks of a good romance – characters, believability, sexual tension, emotions, and angst.  These are all essential in crafting a romance that will get YA audiences sucked in like a hoover vacuum attached to a jet engine.  But we’re not done yet!

In the next installment of this series, we’ll talk about two concepts that are mainstays in most YA Romance literature – Love Triangles, and Wish Fulfillment.  We’ll go in-depth into how each one works, examples of how it’s done badly, and how you can do them the right way to elevate your work above the drivel most authors pump out.

As always, if you enjoyed this article, please feel free to comment on it, share it with others, of just tell me how brilliant I am.  All feedback is always welcome and appreciated.

Using Sci-Fi To Teach STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, & Math)

Hey party people,

Guess what?  I was interviewed by Education World recently on the subject of using science fiction literature to get kids interested in the four most important educational fields out there – Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (aka STEM).  Education World is one of the biggest websites for education professionals out there, helping them to figure out the best way to teach kids.  I did a half-hour interview with Jason Cunningham, who’s the site’s social media editor and contributor, and we talked about all sorts of cool things related to science fiction and how it can appeal to and inspire the world’s youth.

You can read the entire article here.

Now, I’m no expert on education, kids, STEM, or pretty much anything, really.  All I have to go off of is what I experienced when I was a kid growing up.  And personally, I HATED all that STEM stuff in school!  Seriously, it totally turned me off to the idea of wanting to become an engineer or anything even remotely related to those fields.  And yet, at the same time, I’d spend hours obsessing over Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate, and a bevy of other science fiction gems, all of which directly relate to STEM fields of study.

My big argument is that education happens when children actually WANT to learn, as opposed to when they are FORCED to learn.  I told Jason about an experience I had in high school where I was taking a trigonometry class where my teacher didn’t believe in calculators, so we had to learn to do trig long-hand.  I memorized enough of that junk to (barely) pass the class, and then abruptly forgot about it as soon as was convenient.  To this day I get ‘Nam flashbacks when I even hear the word “cosign.”  *shudder*

By the same token, I also took a history class where the teacher would get up and not bother to teach us from the book.  Instead, he’d tell amazing stories that detailed the real human drama of major historical events, spinning historically accurate yarns that were as good as anything you could watch on TV.  And he’d always time his lessons to end on a cliffhanger.  He had this little move where he’d check his watch, and say “Oh, we’re out of time.  We’ll continue this next class.”  And the entire class would GROAN because we were all so enthralled we wanted to know what happened next!  I personally would go home and try to look up the events he told us stories about so I could discover what happened.  This is probably why I can better talk about Napoleon’s failed conquest of Russia than I can do long division in my freakin’ head.

My point is, I think education begins with engagement.  If a kid wants to learn something, they’ll learn it!  As long as they’re engaged in the subject matter.  When you’re teaching from a boring old book, it becomes difficult to get kids engaged.  But if you take a novel, movie, or TV show kids love, and use that to teach them about certain concepts, then you actually can get them interested in learning.  My favorite argument against this is that kids don’t have long attention spans, that in our society today everything is short and flashy and blah-blah-blah.

Bollox.

That same teenager you say doesn’t have the attention span to learn will spend 200 hours playing Grand Theft Auto figuring out how to get every dang achievement in the game.  He’ll practice playing his guitar until he’s good enough to play in a band.  He’ll spend days trying to figure out how to ask out that girl he likes.  People only have short attention spans when they aren’t interested in something.  If you appeal to children’s interests, they won’t get bored.

I personally believe science fiction is a great way to get kids interested in fascinating fields of study.  So much of our technology is derived from concepts based on science fiction stories, it’s ridiculous.  Jules Vern was the inspiration for the Submarine.  Isaac Asimov was the inspiration for robotics.  Star Trek was the inspiration for the iPhone and Siri.  Who knows what humanity could accomplish if science fiction continues to inspire the world’s youth to want to figure out how to make the “fiction” a reality?

How To Write A (Good) YA Romance – Part 2, Falling In Love

Okay, so in Part 1 of this series about YA Romance, we talked about the two most important ingredients in any YA novel, which are the main character and the love interest.  These are the foundation upon which the swoon-worthy romance you’ll be crafting are based on.  If you have a great, non-Mary Sue, main character and a ridiculously, ridiculously attractive love interest, you should be ready to proceed.

In this essay, I’ll be discussing what an author can do to begin building a romantic relationship between their main character and their love interest.  This article will be focusing on having the characters fall in love with each other, and having the audience fall in love with the characters as they are falling for each other.

As always, I’d like to preface this by saying I do not consider myself an expert on writing YA Romance, just a reader with very strong opinions on how things should be done.  This article is meant to help inspire other authors to take a closer look at their writing, in the hopes of helping them to craft strong novels which enhance the YA genre.  So if you don’t agree with my opinions, feel free to ignore them.  I’m not the final say on how you should write your book.

Now that that’s out of the way – LISTEN TO ME I KNOW OF WHICH I SPEAK!!!!! *ahem*  Moving on…

Part 3:  Create Sexual Tension

All the best romances are built on tension between the man and the woman.  This is why you see so many characters start off hating each other when they first meet, and slowly realize they’re perfect for each other.

If you look at Twilight again, there is sexual tension from the moment Bella lays eyes on Edward.  She sees him at lunch and is attracted to him.  Then, she finds out she has to sit next to him in Biology, and is nervous.  She’s then horrified that he seems totally appalled by her, so much so he has to leave the class.  She then frets over how much he dislikes her, until he eventually comes around and makes an attempt to be nice, at which point the tables are turned, and it seems as though Edward likes her, and Bella is the one who isn’t interested.

This is an age-old trope you’ll find in romances again and again.  Just look at the TV series Moonlighting, which is the purest example of sexual tension I can think of, and you’ll see what I mean.  Sexual tension just creates natural conflict and angst which audiences can get sucked into.  Audiences love to see sexual tension, which is why it is used so often in romantic dramas, and even comedies.

Now, when I talk about “sexual tension,” I’m not actually talking about the type of tension of “will they have sex?”  Sexual tension is when two characters are attracted to one another, but they do not know if the other person feels that same level of attraction, and that causes conflict.

Think of it this way – you’re a gawky, awkward, teenage girl.  You’re forced to sit next to the hot jock in your chem class.  You’re immediately attracted to him.  While you work together as lab partners, you start to get the sense that he might be into you.  He makes jokes, flirts, and you two have a good time together.  But then, you notice he acts the exact same way with other girls.  Does he really like you?  Or is that just part of his outgoing personality?  Oh no!  Does this mean he really isn’t into you at all, so you better protect yourself from heartbreak?  But what if he is into you, and giving up now means you miss your chance???  Time to lock yourself in a dark room, listen to an Adele album, and contemplate the pointlessness of life.

That is an example of sexual tension – the ambiguity that comes from not knowing if the person you’re attracted to is attracted to you.  When you discover the answer to that ambiguity, sexual tension is broken.  If enough of that tension is built up, when it finally pays off, it can not only be a big moment for the characters, but the audience as well.  It’s like a climax after foreplay.  Sexual tension is all about emotional foreplay.

If you look at Twilight once again, almost half of that book is devoted to the sexual tension between Bella and Edward.  At first, Bella thinks Edward is repulsed by her, but then it seems like Edward likes her, and Bella is unsure of his intentions.  She becomes fascinated with his attempts to stay away from her, and yet his constant overtures of interest baffle her.  She doesn’t know how Edward feels about her, until the moment in the woods where he finally reveals the reason why he’s been trying to keep his distance.  From that point on, the sexual tension is broken, and the romance begins.

This is where the “mystery” of the love interest comes into play.  The sexy, yet “mysterious” man is only mysterious insofar as the female protagonist does not know how he really feels about her.  Readers love this mystery, because the more tension is built up, the more satisfying the experience is when it’s finally released.  Lots of YA books start off with the heroine and the love interest hating each other for this very reason.  How many times have you seen the female protagonist lay eyes on the love interest, think “OMG he’s so hawt!!!”, then the love interest acts like a complete jerk, and now the heroine has to reconcile her physical attraction with her emotional repulsion, which only becomes harder as the love interest slowly reveals his more charming personality traits?  This is a simple trope that is able to build the sexual tension to the point where the audience is begging for some type of release.

The mark of a truly great “romance” writer is how well they can construct sexual tension between characters.  In your story, you should always devote some time to the building of sexual tension.  If you leave it out, or don’t put enough into the story, the moment your characters finally admit their feelings won’t have as great of an impact as it potentially could.

Imagine a pressure cooker.  The sexual tension of your story should build up like the steam in a pressure cooker.  The gage on the cooker should go all the way into the red, making the audience feel like it’s about to explode, before you finally hit the release and allow the steam to escape.  This is what audiences respond to.

And you can continue to layer in sexual tension throughout your story.  Once the romance starts, you can introduce obstacles that make the heroine question the love interest’s feelings for her, which will create new sexual tension.  You can literally re-introduce this as many times as you like, and audiences will eat it up, because this is the type of thing they read these books for.

What you want to be careful of is taking this to the extreme, to the point where you make it seem like the love interest and the main character actually hate one another.

I’ll often see YA books where the “sexy bad boy” love interest just acts like a complete jerk, and the heroine is all “OMG – he’s so hot!  But he doesn’t like me!  Waaaahh!”  And the reader begins thinking “Girl, are you really that hard up that you’d pine over this guy who’s a complete a-hole?  Self-respect, go get some.”

Creating sexual tension does not translate into making your primary love interest a jerk.  Can he be a jerk?  Sure.  But that should be a part of his personality, not a cheap excuse for creating sexual tension.  Remember that there has to be a reason WHY your heroine is attracted to your love interest in the first place, and it must be something beyond just his looks.  I don’t care how good looking someone is, if they are mean, condescending, and disrespectful, they’ll become ugly real fast.  Everyone knows this.  So if you insist that your main character continue to be attracted to a jerk, no matter how bad he treats her, she’s going to come off as unrelatable to the reader.

And worse than that, you’re going to turn off a certain segment of your readers to your love interest.

Make both your characters real.  You can layer in mystery and uncertainty to create sexual tension without turning your characters into cheap stereotypes.  Sexual tension is not hard to create.  Just establish why your main character is attracted to your love interest, and then have her and the audience try to figure out if he feels the same way.

Part 4:  Make The Romance Believable

To quote The Princess Bride:  “Wuv.  Trwooo wuv…”

This is what YA is all about, isn’t it?  Finding that one true love?  Living that fairy tale fantasy romance every little girl dreams about?

Well, keep in mind there is a fine line between a romance for the ages, and a “you gotta be kidding me – *gag*.”  The romance portion of YA novels is usually where things start to fall apart and you begin seeing Mary Sues emerge.  So it is important to know how to do them well.

Typically, you’ll want your romance to occur AFTER you’ve established enough sexual tension and then released that tension.  Once that happens, you’ll want to develop the relationship of your characters in a way that is true to your story, but also true to the experiences of your readers.

What you DON’T want to do is throw reality out the window in favor of fantasy.  Everyone has experience with human interaction.  Most of your readers will have gone out on dates, been in relationships, and maybe even gotten married.  They’ll know the reality of what it means to be with someone.  If you go too far out of their experience with your romance, you’ll begin to alienate them.

So what kind of things make a romance not believable?  Things like:

Love at first sight.  It rarely happens in real life, and worst of all, it skips all the great angsty parts of falling in love that readers crave.  Go for the slow burn instead of jumping right into the deep end of the love pool.  Your readers will thank you.

Attraction comes too easy.  If your heroine is a “Plain Jane,” and she has men fighting over her constantly and wanting to be with her and falling head-over-heels in love with her, that often goes counter to people’s experiences.  Have your “Plain Jane” work for the attention she receives from guys.  Make her an active participant in achieving her goals.

Unwavering devotion.  When characters fall in love with your heroine and instantly become devoted to her and only her, people begin to wonder what it is about the heroine that warrants that kind of devotion, because it’s something that most people never experience.  Make your characters earn that type of devotion, instead of just having it handed to them.

Crossing social mores.  There are some things which the majority of readers can’t approve of when reading romances.  These vary depending on the reader.  They can be anything from incest, to rape, to harassment, to abuse.  When a character loves another character despite the crossing of these social mores, you run the risk of losing the vast majority of your audience.  For instance, the relationship between Clary and Jace in the Mortal Instruments series turned many readers off because these two still struggled with their romantic feelings for one another despite discovering they were “brother and sister.”  Though it turned out they were not ultimately related, there were two books where they thought they were, and yet had almost uncontrollable attraction for each other.  This made it hard for some readers to stick with the story.  You never want to venture too far when crossing lines of convention in your books.  Otherwise, people question the validity of the romance.

Shallow Love.  This is where two characters “love” each other for no apparent reason than they’re both attractive and the plot requires it.  Shallow love does not ring true to the reader, and they’ll quickly become bored with reading about it.  They want to see the depth of emotion your two characters experience for one another, and watch as they struggle to make sense of what they are feeling.

I see authors make these mistakes time and time again.  I believe this stems from them not fully thinking through how relationships are actually formed.  An author must always consider real-life experiences, audience expectations, and benefit to an over-all narrative when crafting the relationships between their characters.  Though it could be argued that everything I just listed occurs in real life, that doesn’t mean it’s satisfying (or fun) to read about.

If you really want to craft a romance your readers will obsess over, you need to make the romance believable.  What I mean by this is you must layer in things your reader will be familiar with, so that they can identify with the romance.

Here are some things you can include in your romance to make it more real:

Jealousy.  Let’s face it, we all experience jealousy at one time or another.  Adding some jealousy in among your characters not only creates an obstacle they must overcome, but it’s something readers can relate to.  Have you ever felt jealous?  Have you ever dealt with someone who’s jealous?  How did that affect your relationship?

If you look at the Twilight series, there is a great deal of jealousy between Jacob and Edward over Bella.  This created obstacles that Edward and Bella’s relationship had to overcome, and fans ate it up.

Keeping up appearances.  When we like someone, we want to try and impress them and put our best foot forward.  Sometimes this can be endearing, other times it can be funny, and still other times it can be disastrous.  What happens when your heroine wakes up one morning after FINALLY kissing the man of her dreams to discover she’s had a breakout of acne on her chin?  How does she react?  Does she try to avoid her love interest because she’s embarrassed for him to see her?  And does her avoiding him make him think he did something wrong and she’s not interested in him anymore?

I once had a friend who met a girl and had a wonderful date.  Things seemed to be going well, they were making out, and the girl suddenly freaked out and said she had to leave.  He was confused and upset, and thought he’d done something to scare her off.  As it turns out, she admitted to him the next day that she hadn’t had time to shave her legs before their date, and she was afraid if he felt how stubbly her legs were, he’d be grossed out and never want to see her again.

Though that’s a real life example, it’s also a perfect one about the things people do to keep up appearances in relationships.  This is yet another thing we can all relate to.

Trying too hard.  Sometimes, despite our best efforts, we end up trying too hard to make things “perfect.”  They guy gets a dozen roses, rents a limo, and takes the girl out on a lavish date – only to find that the girl would have preferred to go to McDonalds and chat all night long.  There’s something endearing about seeing a character try really hard to impress their partner, and seeing that partner let them know that they don’t have to go to those lengths to make them happy.

If you look at Twilight again, Edward tries really hard to suppress the vampire aspects of his life for Bella’s sake.  But Bella lets him know she accepts him for who he is, and he doesn’t have to hide the part of his life he’s ashamed of.  This is a great way of communicating love and acceptance, when a character prefers their partner “as is.”  It is something we can not only relate to, but dream about finding.

Discovery.  Once the romance starts to blossom, this is when two people really start to get to know each other.  And it is the perfect time to start revealing details of the past of your characters.  That dark secret your sexy bad boy is harboring?  Yep, now it’s time to reveal it.  That tragic past?  Let’s have him tell her all about it!  We can all relate to “getting to know” the person you’re falling in love with.  It can’t just be “all attraction, all the time!”  There has to be substance to it, and that substance comes from DISCOVERY.

Remember that strong relationships are built upon two things:

Trust
Commonalities

When you discover things about the person you’re with, you start to trust them.  The same is true about readers.  The more they discover about the characters you’ve created, the more they’ll grow to like and trust those characters.

Similarly, when two people discover things they have in common, bonds are formed and strengthened.  Two people who are physically attracted to each other but have nothing in common will not last long.  You need to create these connections to establish a believable relationship.  Do your two love birds have the same sense of humor?  Do they both enjoy baseball?  Are they both passionate about literature?  What are the things they (and your audience) can discover that lets them know they’re right for each other?

The Golden Rule Of Romance:  Always remember this rule when it comes to “Love, true love.”  And that is – true love doesn’t just happen.  It must be made to happen.

You can still have fairy-tale elements to your romance.  But the key is to have your characters make that love work, as opposed to just having it magically happen the moment they meet.  Characters in your story should be active, otherwise they will be boring to read about.  If you want them to find true love, then make them work for it.

True love is “true” because it perseveres no matter what comes between the two people who are in that love.  Never allow your characters to have it easy.  Constantly throw obstacles in their path and give the reader an opportunity to see how their love conquers those challenges.  A romance that just happens is boring.  A romance two people have to fight to make work is enthralling.

To Be Continued…

See how smart I am?  See?  SEE????  I’m so smart, that I have a bajillion (it’s a number) times more things to say on this subject.  However, I’m going to hold off until the next post to do so because these are freakin’ long.  In the next article, we’ll go over four more guidelines for writing YA romance, such as emotional description and the creation and use of angst (if you’re writing YA, ya gotta know how to do the angst!).

I hope you enjoyed this article.  As always, if you have thoughts, feedback, or ideas, please feel free to post in the comments section.  I love hearing from you!  All two of you who read my blog!  (Hi, mom!)

How To Write A (Good) YA Romance – Part 1, Characters

So in relation to my post about writing Young Adult novels, my friend Dayna over on Goodreads brought up a book called Inescapable, which she used as an example of everything that went against my suggestions and ended up being a bad book.

Is the book really bad?  I don’t know, I haven’t read it.  But Dayna was one of the beta readers on my Cathouse series, and though she’s a tough critic (God, is she tough!), I always found her feedback to be intelligent and very accurate.  So if she says this book has issues, then I’m inclined to agree with her – though I am speaking from ignorance here.  If I ever actually have time to read again, then maybe I’ll get around to reading it and actually bother to have an informed opinion for once.  You all know how much I LOVE to read bad YA.  (There’s something wrong with me.  Seriously.)

But I did go on Goodreads and check out the reviews for Inescapable.  As always, I usually start with the one star reviews and then work my way up to try and gauge what the book is really like.  One of the criticisms I saw very often, even in the more favorable reviews, was concerning the relationships of the characters.  To many people, these relationships just didn’t seem to work.

I actually see this criticism in lots of YA novels, particularly the Twilight rip-offs.  Readers just get upset and frustrated over a lack of authenticity in the romance of these books.  So this got me to thinking – what DOES make a good YA romance?  What is the big difference between a book that will generate legions of rabid and loyal fans, and a book that will generate hatred, spite, and boredom?  I then decided I’d do what I always do when a question like this pops into my head…

I decided to write a super-long essay on it to show how much of a smarty-pants I am.

Now, as a writer, I guess you could say my skills at writing romance and character relationships is debatable.  However, as a reader and certified evil genius (thank you very much), I believe I am able to expertly analyze works of fiction and deconstruct what makes them work and what makes them fail.

In this little ditty (yes, I called my essay a ditty, deal with it), I’m going to attempt to break down how to write good, solid, believable, budding romances for the YA genre.  These won’t be suggestions on writing bodice-rippers or erotica type things.  This will be more focused on the Twilight school of angsty romance that dominates YA literature, in the hopes that YA writers out there will find it educational and help them to create strong romances in their novels rather than eye-roll worthy prose that will get them cyber-bullied on Goodreads.

Let’s get to it, shall we?

Part 1:  Crafting A Female Protagonist

The vast majority of YA Romance centers around a female protagonist.  I’m guessing this is because these books are mostly written by women and aimed at women as their target audience.  Having a female main character is meant to be a way to have the audience identify with the main character, and vicariously experience the romance through her, thus generating enough “feels” to get the reader to fangirl her little heart out.

Though this may seem like the simplest, most brain-dead concept in the world for a writer to wrap one’s head around, apparently it’s more complicated than it appears.  I say this because it seems like so many YA authors just get it wrong.

They fall into the trap of writing a “Mary Sue,” which is basically the creation of an infallible character who inexplicably has the world revolve around them, no matter how shallow, vapid, stupid, self-centered, or ridiculous they are.  Mary Sues tend to be a thinly veiled avatar of the writer herself, which she then uses to live out pretty much her ideal fantasy, oblivious to all thoughts of tension, drama, or believability.  At the end of the day, Mary Sues can do no wrong, and everything comes easy to them.

How do you know if a character is a Mary Sue?  Well, here are some of the characteristics to look out for:

Even though she thinks she isn’t pretty, she has almost every man she meets falling in love with her.
Her friends will do anything for her, no matter how crazy, dangerous, or stupid it might be, without having any motivation beyond simply helping her.
She will do things that would get normal people in serious trouble without any consequences.
Her plans always work out, no matter how silly, stupid, or contrived they may be.
If she gets in trouble, everyone around her will rush to her aid, despite the consequences to their own well-being.
The bad guys seem intently focused on hurting her because she’s so special, as opposed to actually having a good reason for tormenting her.
No matter what skill or job she performs, she’s inexplicably good at it with little or no training/practice.
She pulls off special abilities that go against previously established rules from the narrative that were not properly set up beforehand.
She doesn’t seem to realize she’s a Mary Sue, and often complains about her non-Mary Sue-ness, even while she is Mary Sueing.

Mary Sues are extremely frustrating to read about, and they often turn an audience off completely.  But they are so easy to write, authors will often fall into creating one as the main character of their story.  You can usually spot an amateur writer based on the sheer level of Mary Sue-ness her main character possesses, because it is challenging to craft a believable heroine that your readers can not only identify with, but also root for.

So let’s talk about creating a female protagonist that won’t make your reader want to join “Team Strangle This B*tch.”

Firstly, you have to look at your female protagonist as the foundation for the romance you eventually hope to build.  Many writers think it’s the “love interest” that is the foundation, since those are the characters that get so much attention from readers, but this isn’t the case.  If your female protagonist is weak, or a Mary Sue, your entire narrative will fail, even if you have a great leading man.

Next, you’ll want to have your female protagonist be a good “cypher” for your reader.  Essentially, you want her to appeal to every insecurity your average reader could ever identify with, so that they mentally step into the shoes of your heroine and feel as though it is them playing the part.

I think this is why Twilight became so popular, because the character of Bella Swan was written in a way that allowed the reader to identify with her and step into her shoes.  If you analyze the first novel, you can see lots of themes that your typical teenager can relate to: a broken home.  A distant father.  Starting over in a new school.  Trying to fit in with a new crowd.  Feeling insecure about your looks.  Finding a boy who doesn’t like you but who you think is attractive.  Feeling lost in a life you hate.  Feeling misunderstood.

These are all things so many “bookworm” female readers have experienced, and these are all things which the character of Bella Swan embodies.  Though it can be argued that Bella Swan is your quintessential YA Mary Sue, the set-up of her character was so well done, by the time the Mary Sue-ness starts, the reader almost wants her to become perfect, because the character’s wish-fulfillment is now the reader’s as well.

The point I am trying to make here is that your female heroine should be relatable from the beginning.  This means you should give her insecurities that your audience can relate to, but also are things the character must actually struggle with, as opposed to “cosmetic” insecurities.  You often see writers make their female heroine’s “clumsy,” so much so that they’re tripping over their own feet half the time, regardless of the fact that if anyone was actually that clumsy, they’d most likely have accidentally killed themselves long before they got to their teen years.

If your character is insecure about her looks, have her struggle with her self-image.  If she is from a broken home, show us how that impacts her life.  If she’s struggling at school, give us a real sense of the hell her everyday life is.  If you choose to make her “plain,” don’t have every boy in her orbit falling madly in love with her.  Make her work to get men interested in her.

Remember that your main protagonist must always be judged by her ability to overcome obstacles.  Seeing how your heroine finds the strength to become beautiful, smart, caring, kind, and compassionate is what will make the reader fall in love with her.  They’ll root for her to succeed if they see she is constantly fighting to overcome whatever insecurities she might be dealing with, because the reader wants to overcome those insecurities as well.

Figure out what your readers will identify with, and base your main character on those traits.  Make her a cypher, but make her strong as well.  Strong does not mean she goes around acting like a man – cursing, fighting, being spiteful or mean, etc.  Strong means having the courage, tenacity, and perseverance to overcome the obstacles you choose to place in front of her, whether those obstacles are getting the man of her dreams, or saving the world from an apocalypse.

Part 2:  Crafting A Love Interest

If there’s one thing YA authors of all stripes seem to be good at, it’s making a good love interest.  Even bad YA books seem to be able to make the object of their main character’s affection something their readers will drool over.  In lots of cases, a good love interest is what will salvage a bad book for most readers.  This is often why so many writers spend so much time on them.

When it comes to your love interest, it’s perfectly okay to make him a Gary Stu (the male equivalent of a Mary Sue).  You want the type of guy your audience will go ga-ga for.  A man all women want and all men want to be. You want him to be good-looking, funny, smart, charming, rich, mysterious, and all the things that make girls go cross-eyed while having their tongues roll out of their mouths and hit the floor.

Here are some traits you’ll want to incorporate into your love interest:

He must be ridiculously good looking.
He must be ridiculously, ridiculously good looking.
Seriously, he must be so good looking, it’s hard to look at him.
Did I mention he must be good looking?
He must be a mystery to the main character.
He must have a dark secret or tragic past (or both!)
He must be aggressively sexual.
He must be willing to pursue the object of his desire.
He must be protective of your main character and willing to fight for her.

If you look at every YA romance ever written, you’ll find at least one of these traits in the main love interest (usually the one about him being ridiculously good looking).  When crafting your love interest, always be asking yourself this question:

What kind of a fantasy man does my audience want?

This is how you should build your character.  To use a crude example, if a man were writing about his ideal woman, he may make her have extremely large breasts, a supermodel’s body, and a willingness to have porn-quality sex at the drop of a hat.  So what is the female equivalent of that?

Aside from the looks, it will be all the things that MAKE women want to have sex with him.  Things like his attitude, his humor, his mystery, his energy.  Women tend to place importance on the emotional aspects of a romance, so think about characteristics that trigger emotions within women, and give those to your primary love interest.  Every woman fantasizes about the “rebellious bad boy” archetype.  The kind of man who’ll run in, sweep them off their feet, and whisk them away – rules be damned.  That is probably why you see this type of “bad boy” character so often in YA fiction.

Women like a little bit of danger and intrigue when it comes to their fantasy men.  However, a big mistake most YA authors make is taking this to an extreme.  I think this essentially comes down to the author really not understanding how men truly operate, and letting fantasy run away from reality.  Too often, the love interest in these books will do things that would get a normal guy thrown in jail.  We’re talking about stalking, attempted rape, threats of violence or even death.  Heck, Edward has to struggle to keep from constantly killing Bella in Twilight because she’s essentially a delicious snack to him.  Not only that, the guy breaks into her bedroom at night to watch her sleep.

I’m not saying this type of behavior is not something your audience might want from their “bad boy” love interest.  But I am saying that in order to make your love interest believable, you have to play by certain rules.  Essentially, you need to ask yourself:

If my male lead wasn’t ridiculously, ridiculously, ridiculously good-looking, would any sane woman put up with this behavior?

If the answer is “No,” then you should probably change the man’s behavior.  Sure, if someone is attractive, they are given a lot of leeway by those who are attracted to them to behave badly.  But in the real world, that type of behavior will only go so far.  I mean, I don’t care how hot a woman is, if she keeps threatening to cut my wiener off, I’ll probably want to keep my distance.  After all, there are plenty of attractive women out there who DON’T want to cut off my wiener.  (At least, I really hope there are!)

Keep in mind that the fantasy is about the love interest becoming enamored with the main character, and seeing him fall in love with her, despite her flaws.  Doing things like catching a gaze at her through her window, brushing her hand with his fingers just to feel the sensation of her skin, getting into mischief to try and take his mind off her… those are all things that can accomplish what the audience craves.

You do not need to descend into obsessive stalker territory to show that your love interest is falling for your heroine.  Trying to sketch a picture of her face as he thinks about how beautiful she is can be just as powerful a scene to write as breaking into her room and watching her while she sleeps.  Both these examples communicate the same desire from the character, the only difference is one is normal and believable and the other is creepy and illegal.

Try and create a love interest that embodies your reader’s fantasies, but be sure to keep him “grounded” in reality.  This will make him more than just a shallow boy-toy for your narrative to exploit.  You should always strive to give your love interest depth and believability.  This will make your audience love your ridiculously, ridiculously good-looking bad boy even more.

To Be Continued…

In the next part of this series, I’ll be discussing writing aspects of the actual romance, and take a close look at how your main character and love interest should interact.  As always, my ego feeds off your participation, so if you would like to leave your thoughts, insights, feedback, or rants in the comments section, I would greatly appreciate it.

I hope you enjoyed this rather lengthy beginning to this series on writing YA Romances.  Stay tuned for part two in a few days!

Earthman Jack 2 Update: Now With More Jack-ness!!!

Alrighty then.

Things are chugging along smoothly with the next book in the Earthman Jack series.  Part 1 of the book is now completed.  It clocks in at around 210 manuscript pages and 22 chapters, which is about right, since each part of an Earthman Jack novel is pretty much a book in itself.  So the good news is that 1/3 of book 2 is pretty much done!  Things will probably be adjusted when I start the re-writing process, but the hardest part is getting it on the page.

The bad news is that part 2 needs a bit of re-working.  I’m having to go back to my outline and figure some things out, because some things changed as I wrote part 1.  I actually have a few chapters from part 2 locked down already.  About 40 manuscript pages worth and 5 chapters.  But sometimes as I write, new developments pop into my head about how the story should play out, which definitely happened to me in part 1, and they have some important impacts on how part 2 needs to be written.  So now I’m having to go back and change some plot developments, which I guess isn’t really a problem, it just means I have to sit down and think about some things I’d thought I’d already figured out.  Right now, there’s a big honkin’ void in the latter half of part 2 that I have to fill.  It’s annoying, but necessary.

What this means is that I have to stall the writing process while I make these adjustments to my outline.  I’d hoped to have a rough draft finished by the end of April, but I’m kinda doubting I’ll be able to meet that deadline I’d set for myself.  It’s quite possible the rough draft won’t be done until the end of May.  And then, I’ll need a few months of re-writing, editing, and refinement before it’s ready for publication.  As much as I would have liked to get this book out by July, I’m thinking it might take longer now.  How much longer?  I have no idea.  But I can guarantee the book will be out sometime this year.  That much you can take to the bank.

Other than that, I’m just keeping my nose to the grindstone.  I’m pretty much “writing” for 8-10 hours a day.  (By “writing” I also include “thinking about writing.”)  I’ve been doing it so much, it’s hard to not get burnt out.  My poor DVR has like 1,000 hours of unwatched shows on it because I’m spending all my days hammering away at the keyboard.

But I keep on keepin’ on.  I cannot wait for this book to be done.  When it is, I swear, I’m gonna dance a jig. 

(Yet) Another Earthman Jack 2 Update…

Oy vey.

I have been writing a lot.  Like, A LOT, a lot.  8-12 hours a day, pretty much non-stop, for the past week or so.  I wake up in the morning, sit at my computer, and pretty much write until its time to go to sleep.

Now when I say I “write,” I don’t mean I’m banging away at the keyboard nonstop.  That is part of it, but I also consider thinking about the story and rewriting part of the “writing” process.  I may write for two hours straight, then spend an hour re-reading and rewriting what I just wrote.  Then maybe I’ll spend an hour thinking about what to write before actually writing anything.

I honestly feel like my muse has gone full-out 50 Shades Of Grey on me.  She stands behind me with a whip and whacks at me, driving me to keep writing.

I’ve got 20 completed chapters done to The Secret Army so far.  Almost the entire first 1/3 of the book is in the can.  Currently, the draft stands at 185 manuscript pages.  When the first “episode” is completed, it may very well be 200 pages in length or more.  Maybe closer to 210.  I guess that’s about right, since each “episode” of an Earthman Jack book is pretty much designed to be it’s own book in a trilogy.  But if this holds true for the others, I’m looking at a 600 page book.  The Ghost Planet was around 500 manuscript pages in comparison.

Because the book is so long, I feel as though I’m not getting much done, despite my output.  It can be frustrating, finishing three whole chapters in a day and then seeing that I’ve barely made a dent in the larger narrative.  I can now understand why George R.R. Martin takes 5+ years to finish a book.  If I had a day job right now, or more than one project in the works, I wouldn’t be able to get this book done in a timely fashion at all.  I feel as though I’m getting burnt out, because I’m firing on all cylinders constantly.  Friends and family are telling me to take a break and slow down, but it’s hard to do because I’m currently “in the zone.”  Once my brain gets going, its hard to shut it off.  It would be like wrapping your mouth around a flowing spigot to try and stop the water from escaping.  Eventually, the water is going to bust out.

When I wrote the Cathouse Series, each book didn’t take very long to write.  I wrote 4 books in the span of as many months.  The same thing happened to me with those books that is happening now, where I essentially wrote them really quick because the story just flowed out of me, and I couldn’t think of anything else until I got it on (computer) paper.  The big difference is that those books were shorter so I didn’t feel like I got bogged down with them.  The Secret Army is so incredibly big, that it feels like I’m lugging around 1,000 pound weights on my back.  The writing of book 1 was spread out over 4 years, so I never got that feeling when I was working on it.  This one… yeah, it’s like trudging through tar sometimes.  The finish line just seems so far off, it’s frustrating.

The major issue here is that Book 2 is shaping up to be very different from Book 1.  In contrast, Book 1 was very easy to write because there were essentially three locations in the book – Earth, the Deathlord Mothership, and The Ghost Planet.  Though alien cultures and technology were mentioned, they needed very little set-up to continue the narrative.

This is not the case with The Secret Army.

I’ve found that the vast majority of episode 1 is going towards setting up the universe I’ve created, and the action doesn’t start ramping up until episodes 2 and 3.  I’m essentially having to inform the audience of how my universe operates, introduce a host of new characters, species, cultures, technology, and set up various backstories and mythologies, all in a relatively short period of time.  I’d gotten some criticism over The Ghost Planet that the book starts off kind-of slow because I felt the need to set up Jack’s normal life on Earth before it all comes crashing down.  Here, I have to set up the “normal life” of the people of the Regalus Empire, but it is so much more complicated because I have to establish everything, whereas with Earth, you can simply assume people have an idea of what it’s like to live there.  It makes me concerned that people might find the first part of the book boring, and give up before they get to the actiony stuff.

Part of this fear also stems from the fact that I go through stages where I look at what I’ve written and am convinced it’s a travesty to literature.  I’ll read through what I’ve put on my computer and fall into depression over how bad I think it is.  I’m usually being too hard on myself, but when it happens, I’m convinced about it.  Though I’ve written almost 200 pages right now, I’m worried people might find all 200 pages a slog to get through, as opposed to being fascinated with the world I’m attempting to build.  In a way, The Secret Army is far more cerebral than The Ghost Planet was.  There is far more mystery and intrigue in this book, and it takes a bit more time to get into the action.  The whole crux of it’s story is that Jack is facing a new type of enemy.  In The Ghost Planet, he was fighting the Deathlords in a pretty direct way.  However, in book 2, he discovers that not all enemies are as easy to fight.  He has to learn to fight on an entirely different level, which will come into play later on in his saga.  In a way, I think The Secret Army is more similar to a book like Game of Thrones than it is to Harry Potter.  Though its still written for a young adult crowd, there’s a complexity to it that begins to give people a sense of how epic the story is going to be.  I feel that book 3 will be easier because so much is established in book 2.  But that still means I gotta make book 2 both informative and interesting at the same time, and I won’t really know if I’ve accomplished that until I start tapping my beta readers to give me feedback on it.  And frankly, I’m incredibly scared that they might come back to me and tell me my fears are true, and the book is a dud.

So yeah, I feel pretty bummed and overworked.  I love Jack and the gang, but I almost feel like a parent trying to babysit a ton of rowdy kids at the moment, and all I want to do is sit in front of my TV and knock off some of the programs that are taking up 90% of my hard drive.  I’ve decided to take the day off writing tomorrow and simply veg out, give myself a brief break, and hope it recharges my batteries.

There you go, another update on my progress!  I hope both of you who read this blog (hi mom!) get something from the rants of an amateur writer.  Hopefully, with any luck, I’ll have this book done soon and I can take a nice, long break.

But in the meantime, I just keep chugging along.

Movie Review – Divergent, a.k.a. The Future Makes No Sense!!!

So as you all know, I likes me some YA genre-themed entertainment.  I prefer the books, but I’ve been so busy writing lately, that I don’t have time to read!  But I do have time to see a movie.  So I went to go see the latest YA book-turned-movie, Divergent.

Now, I’d never read or heard about the Divergent series before the movie came out, unlike I had with The Mortal Instruments.  I’m pleased to report that Divergent is a much better movie than City of Bones was!  However, it was only marginally better, in the respect that it wasn’t as blatantly stupid as City of Bones turned out to be.

I saw the movie Divergent without ever reading the book, so I was like a pure white snowflake going into the theater – unsullied by previous expectations.  I felt that, over-all, the movie was extremely well made, except for some plot points which I understand stem from a weakness in the source material.  So that being said, the filmmakers apparently did a really good job with this book adaptation to the big screen.

Is it as good as The Hunger Games?  Not even close.  First of all, the conflict in The Hunger Games is much more organic and believable than what we get in Divergent (more on this in a bit).  The romance in The Hunger Games is a bit better (though not by much, but it never had me rolling my eyes whereas the stuff in Divergent did).  And most of all, as a 35-year-old grown-ass man, I’d much rather stare at Jennifer Lawrence for two hours than Shailene Woodley, who I personally don’t think is very attractive, nor as good of an actress.

Shailene plays the “fish out of water” pretty well, but I just found her to be seriously lacking in the latter half of the movie when she finally becomes a “strong female.”  Essentially, she’s trained to be a warrior, and she starts doing all this fighting, but she just doesn’t come off as genuine – at least to me she didn’t.

The rest of the cast of Divergent is extremely good.  They have a ton of recognizable character actors in this movie who all play their roles really, really well.  I found that the acting, other than Woodley’s performance, was by-and-large quite good.  Ashley Judd, Jai Courtney, Ray Stevenson, Maggie Q, Tony Goldwyn, and Mekhi Phifer all deliver great performances, even though their parts are extremely small.  Kate Winslet does well as the main villain.  I think the real breakout in this movie is Theo James, who plays Woodley’s love interest Four.  (Yes, he’s named Four.  Go with it.)

I recognized Theo James from the short-lived cop drama Golden Boy, which I watched until I realized how ridiculously awful it was.  I didn’t much care for him in that show, most likely because the show itself was poorly done.  However, he pretty much steals every scene he’s in here.  From the moment his character is introduced, I wished the movie was about him instead of ‘Tris’ (Shailene Woodley’s character).

This isn’t a special effects heavy film, but the effects they do have are done pretty well.  The look of a Post-Apocalyptic Chicago surrounded by a massive wall is quite impressive, as are the sets.  The sets aren’t hyper-futuristic or hyper-dystopian, but they look unique enough to let you know this is a different “world.”

I found the direction of the film was very standard and workmanlike.  It was really nothing special.  The film is directed by Neil Burger, who’s only other movie I’ve seen was Limitless, which I really enjoyed (at least until the end).  He has a small filmography, but his films all seem to be pretty strong, if lackluster, efforts.  I get the feeling that Mr. Burger is a director with a good sense of story, which is probably why Divergent is as strong of a film as it turned out to be.  Limitless showed he could do tension and drama pretty well, and I think Divergent shows off his visual skills, since the movie looks beautiful.  However, much like his other films, Divergent suffers from a few plot holes and logic flaws, but nothing bad enough to make you walk out of the theater hating life, like City of Bones did.

My main gripe with Divergent is two-fold.  First of all, the plot logic in the movie is extremely questionable, and lends itself to creating some glaring plot holes within the narrative.  As I understand it, this is a problem with the source material, so author Veronica Roth is to blame for that, not the filmmakers.  Second, the movie gets very boring in its second half, despite the fact that there’s lots of action happening.  Because of the plot logic flaws, I found myself wondering why characters were acting the way they were toward the end of the movie, instead of actually caring about what happened.

So let’s talk about the bad plot logic that took me out of the movie.  Warning – there will be spoilers!  If you are wanting to see this movie or read the book and not have certain things ruined, you have been warned!

The premise of the book is that there was a great war that destroyed America.  That’s pretty much all we’re told.  Somehow, Chicago survived, built a ginormous fence around its perimeter to protect itself from the rest of the world, and rebuilt society.  Their society was “designed” to ensure that the destructive aspects of human nature would be suppressed, thus preventing another great war from ever occurring again.

Thus, the population of Chicago is divided into five Factions, all of which are based on a different virtue, and none of which I can name without looking them up in a freakin’ dictionary.  They are:

Abnegation (The Selfless)
Erudite (The Intelligent)
Dauntless (The Brave)
Amity (The Peaceful)
Candor (The Honest)

Each faction has a role to play in PAC (Post-Apocalyptic Chicago).  Those in Abnegation are the public servants.  They build stuff, help those in need, and run the government (because after an apocalypse, politicians and bureaucrats are suddenly selfless?  Just go with it).  These people are so selfless, that they dress in simple clothes, don’t use a lot of electricity, eat only plant-based diets, and barely ever look in a mirror because it’s considered too vain to do so.  Basically, they’re good vegetarian Amish people without the beards.

The Erudite are the smart people.  They study the sciences, develop the technology, and read the books.  Pretty much all we get from Erudite in the movie is a bunch of people in lab coats looking through microscopes, so that tells you all you need to know about them.

Dauntless are the warrior faction.  They’re the guys who do all the fighting, policing, and guard work.  They also seem to like to run, climb stuff, jump from speeding trains, and get tattoos and piercings.  They’re basically punk rock with guns and without the music.

Amity are basically hippies, and they do all the farming when they’re not singing kumbaya and getting high.  They’re all about peace and love, man.  We only ever see these guys out in the fields harvesting food, so that’s all we know about them.  Hard work good, and hard work fine, but first take care of head, brah.

Finally, we have Candor, which values honesty above all else.  These people tend to be lawyers in PAC.  In what universe lawyers are considered to be honest, I have no freakin’ clue.  But it’s obvious from every Candor character we meet that they’re SO honest as to be complete ass holes.  Essentially, it seems “honesty” is confused with “openly expressing opinions” here instead of actually speaking the truth.  So it comes as no surprise that the Candors are the bad guys, and for a faction which values honesty above all else, they certainly lie, plot, and scheme a heck of a lot.

In this society, children are born into the faction of their parents, but then must take a test when they reach a certain age that helps determine what faction they belong to.  The test doesn’t force the child to choose the faction it says they’re best qualified for, they’re free to choose whatever faction they wish to belong to (so why even bother with a test if they can choose what they want anyway?  I guess because then they wouldn’t be able to find Divergents?  Sigh.  Whatever, brain.  Shut your mouth).  Most choose the faction they were born into, but some decide they’d fit in better somewhere else.  Once your faction is chosen, however, there is no changing it.  And you must leave your family behind and never have any contact with them again, because different factions don’t really socialize together.  (How this works in a small, enclosed city where everyone must work together to survive is beyond me.)

The driving action of the story comes into play when our heroine, Tris, takes the test and finds out she is “Divergent.”  This means she fits into more than one faction.  Apparently, this is dangerous because people who don’t fit into a faction are a threat to the PAC society, and could unravel their idyllic existence.  Conformity is key to keeping PAC in harmony, and anyone who is different could bring the whole system crashing down.

There are some MAJOR problems with this logic, however.

First of all, let’s set aside the notion that it’s human nature to have varied interest.  After all, they say in the movie that human nature is dangerous and their society was built specifically to suppress it.  So I can buy that people don’t want to be Intelligent, Selfless, AND Honest.  It’s possible to be all three, but place a greater emphasis on just one of those things in order to conform.  Okay, cool.

But the design of this society MAKES people want to fit into a specific faction.  Tris spends the whole freakin’ movie trying to prove she belongs in Dauntless because that’s the faction she feels she fits in the best.  So if a Divergent actually wants to be an active, loyal, and participating member of a faction in this society, how are they a threat to it?  In fact, you’d think you’d want to have Divergents in leadership positions since they’re more versatile and can embody more virtues.  Someone who’s Intelligent and Brave is better than someone who’s just Brave, right?

Makes.  No.  Sense.

In addition to that, there are “The Factionless.”  These are people who have been kicked out of their factions or deemed “unfit” to be in any faction.  They are the poor and homeless, because members of all five factions shun them.  Those in Abnegation do reach out to them and help feed and clothe them, but if they were really selfless, wouldn’t they welcome these people into their faction so they had a place in society?

Beyond that, if PAC is built around the idea that those who don’t “fit into” a faction are dangerous and could destroy the society, why is factionlessness permitted in the first place?  Why is there such a strict policy that no one can ever switch factions if its determined they don’t fit in well with their chosen one?  Rather than create poor and homeless people who are a drain on the system, why not let them go to where they are best suited?  At the very least, let them join Amity so you have a growing labor force to help produce food, instead of just letting them languish on the streets.  (And why you have homeless people living on the streets when there are hundreds of abandoned buildings in Chicago is beyond me.)

Makes.  No.  Sense.

So that is the major plot logic flaw that had me scratching my head during the movie as to why anyone would seriously think this system was idyllic, let along believable.  A huge moment in the film is when brainwashed members of Dauntless take to the streets and storm the Abnegation village, and instead of being emotionally invested in what was happening, all I could think of was “who’s bright idea was it to have an entire section of the population be the only ones who are allowed to carry weapons?”  I mean, that’s just asking for trouble.

The meta-story in Divergent centers around the Candor faction resenting the Abnegation faction, and wanting to be in charge of the PAC government.  So they devise a plan to team up with the Dauntless faction, install chips in the Dauntless soldiers which turn them into mindless killers who do anything Candor orders them to, and murder every member of Abnegation so Candor can assume control.

Seems like a typical dystopian plot, right?

Well, not so fast.  First of all, how are the Abnegation leaders chosen?  I’d assume it’s by election, since they’re too selfless to make a claim to power, right?  So if they’re elected, does this mean only Abnegation has the right to vote?  Wouldn’t the selfless thing to do would be to encourage open elections among all the factions?  You’d think there’d be a leader from each faction that sits on a high council so everyone in the society is represented, instead of one faction having a monopoly on governance.  I mean, that makes sense, right?  Not in PAC, apparently!

Secondly, Candor are a bunch of freakin’ lawyers.  Couldn’t they have found a legal way to seize power without killing an entire fifth of their society?  And wouldn’t there be at least one guy in a faction that values Honesty who’d run out and tattle about what his faction was planning?  And isn’t the fact that the villain, Jeanine, who is smart enough to stage this coup, ruthless enough to lie about it and have people killed, and brave enough to actually go through with it, prove she too is Divergent?

Third, why would Dauntless go along with Candor in the first place?  What’s their motivation to choose Candor over Abnegation?  It’s pretty obvious Candor is full of jerks!  Abnegation are nice people who build stuff and run things so the Dauntless can shoot themselves with neruo-stim darts and jump off moving trains (which I assume Abnegation ensures run on time?).  In the film, we see that Mekhi Phifer and Jai Courtney’s characters are both solidly with Kate Windslet’s villain in her bid to seize control of PAC.  However, we don’t really know why.  Eric, played by Jai Courtney, is made out to be a complete bad guy because of his glee in making people factionless and torturing the initiates during training.  However, Mekhi Phifer’s character Max is the leader of Dauntless, and he seems like a cool enough guy until he starts being evil for no apparent reason.  He’s not mind controlled, yet he supports Kate Winslet’s Jeanine because… plot?  Yeah, plot.

I guess I could understand Dauntless wanting a change in leadership if Abnegation in some way as ruling PAC counter to how they believed it should be run.  Like, if Dauntless wanted to venture outside of the walls or something and Abnegation was strongly isolationst.  But as it stands, Dauntless is supposed to be the police force, and they’ve been working under Abnegation since PAC was created, so what motivation do they have to change things?

I think the movie tries to pass this off as institutional rivalry.  Factions are so much a part of people’s lives, they see other factions as natural rivals and are thus antagonistic toward each other.  In the movie, we see that Abnegation is resented by Candor because they “give away” food to the factionless, thus robbing others of it.  However, it’s not like there’s a food shortage, and by all accounts, Abnegation don’t eat a whole lot – only enough to subsist off of (guess there are no fat people in Abnegation?).  None of the other factions are starving, so why is this an issue?

And how is this type of rivalry between factions in a “perfect” society meant to suppress antagonism in human nature healthy?  Shouldn’t this be the kind of thing this society was created to prevent?  After all, the PAC system was designed to keep another apocalypse from happening, and yet, it leads right to an almost mass-murder of a fifth of its population.

Makes.  No.  Sense.

There were other plot holes in the movie which kept taking me out of the narrative.  Like, why people weren’t allowed to see their families?  What was so dangerous outside PAC that required a ginormous (it’s a word) fence to be built around it?  Where do these people get their electricity from?  Was Canada destroyed in the war as well?  Because Chicago is right by there.  Maybe the fence is one big anti-Canada wall?  Which faction runs the train?  And why do people think it’s a good idea to jump from one that doesn’t slow down?  Are there other cities out there like PAC with the same stupid faction system?  What happened to the rest of America?

But then again – THIS IS YA MATT!  LOGIC HAS NO PLACE IN THESE WALLS!!!!!

So if you totally forget everything I just talked about, we’re still left with a movie that is fairly boring in its second half.  This has nothing to do with the glaring flaws in the plot logic, and more to do with the fact that as an audience member, I just didn’t care what was happening.  I wasn’t invested much in the romance, which essentially consists of close up shots of Tris’s face whenever Four touches her (heck, she doesn’t even let him get to second base!  How am I supposed to get my angst fix off of that, movie???).  I didn’t feel there was really anything at stake because no characters I cared about were ever really in danger.  Yes, certain characters die, but they’re not ever on screen long enough to make their deaths have any real meaning.

I never felt like there was anything at stake here.  We spent the entire movie with Tris in the Dauntless faction, but it’s the Abnegation faction which is in peril.  However, we have no way of identifying with this faction, because we only get a brief overview of their humble Amishness at the start of the movie.  The two characters we identify most with it (Tris’s mother and father) are already dead by the time Abnegation is in peril, so there’s nothing there that would make us care whether this faction lives or dies, other than “the bad guys would win.”

Thus, we’re treated to boring shootouts and fight scenes.  But the real “wha-HUH?” moment is at the end of the movie.  After the good guys free Dauntless and defeat the bad guys, saving the lives of the people who RUN THE GOVERNMENT, they hop on a train and go away because “they’re now factionless.”

Um…

Waitaminute… you basically single-handedly save your stupid society, free an army who is pissed off at being mind-controlled and made to kill innocent people, rescue the life of the leader of PAC along with 1/5 of the population… and you go into exile?  Wouldn’t this be the time for Divergents to step up and make some reforms?  I mean, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see what happened could have been prevented with a little tweaking of the system!

But no.  I guess they gotta set up a sequel or something.  So Tris and Four ride off into the proverbial sunset to start a new, free, Divergent life together.

Would I recommend Divergent to people?  I guess I would, if you were bored.  It’s not a bad film, but it’s also not very good.  The first half is entertaining when Tris is going through Dauntless training.  It has very much a Full Metal Jacket vibe to it, where the first half of the movie is all about boot camp and the second half is all about war – with the boot camp part being infinitely more fun to watch.  It’s here where we get some genuine tense moments as Tris flexes her “strong female heroine” vibe, taking punches and kicks to the face while still looking pretty.

But in the second half, we get an increase in the romance (which is pretty lame), a few nonsensical hallucinations/dream sequences (Was Tris’s biggest fear birds?  Who’s scared of birds?), and a ramping up of the ridiculous plot, culminating in boring shoot-outs and fights.  Essentially, half the movie is good, and half of it is not so good, but none of it really makes any sense if you stop to think about it.

I felt that if there was an external threat from outside the wall Dauntless had to defend against that was really terrible, and there was a genuine disagreement between the Abnegation and Candor factions on how best to protect the city, then this whole concept might have worked.  But as it stands now, the movie’s plot is pretty contrived to make Tris “special” in the typical YA trope of “society doesn’t understand me!”  And thus, it fails on a basic level.

Overall, it’s a pretty forgettable movie.  Usually, if I see a movie based on a book, I’ll want to read the book after I see the film.  However, I don’t have that urge after seeing Divergent, simply because I feel the movie was probably better done than the book was, and the plot logic flaws of the book would drive me insane if I tried to read it.  I understand there are two more books in the series, and if they’re made into movies, I’ll probably see them.  But I definitely won’t be reading them.

So my final rating for Divergent – 3 stars.  Not bad, not good, just very “meh.”  If you’re a fan of the books, you’ll like it.  If not, you will be occupied for a few hours and then get on with your life.

What Makes A Good YA Novel? (How To Write For Young Adults)

As a writer of Young Adult fiction, I often ask myself – “Self, what the heck am I doing?”

After all, I didn’t go to school for writing YA fiction.  There was no major in YA fiction.  Heck, I can barely speak the English language, let alone write it.  When I was growing up, I had no designs what-so-ever on becoming a novelist.  All I knew was that I enjoyed dreaming up stories and entertaining other people.

Right now, I am a grown-ass 35 year old man.  What do I know about young adults?  Nothing!  (Well, beyond the fact that they’re both young and adults.)  So how could I possibly write a YA novel that is both good and appealing to this demographic?

Frankly, I don’t know the answer to that question, even after publishing my first YA novel.  The reviews on Amazon are telling me I did something right, since people seem to be enjoying it.  But like most authors, I am incredibly insecure about my abilities, so I continue to research my chosen topics of interest in the hopes that I can continue to improve upon my work.

The fact is, I love reading YA fiction.  Yes, as a 35-year-old grown ass man, I still get a kick out of reading about wizards, laser swords, Olympian heroes, nonsensical dystopias, deadly game shows, and hearty amounts of teen angst.  Why is this?  Who knows.  Maybe I have a mutant chromosome which genetically predisposes me toward coming-of-age fare.

However, not all YA literature is created equal.  You have the really good stuff, like Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, and The Hunger Games (well, the first two books, anyway).  Then, you have the really bad stuff, and the really, really bad stuff.

I think because of its popularity, lots of writers are predisposed toward writing YA novels, but I think very few of them actually understand what makes a genuinely good one.  The bulk of what I see come out of the genre are essentially cheap knock-offs of Stephanie Meyer novels, with an occasional attempt to mimic Harry Potter or The Hunger Games.  However, though these authors take the tropes from these books and “make them their own,” very few of them really understand the concepts behind them, and thus fail when it comes to crafting a good novel that is little more than elaborate fan fiction.

In my research, I’ve seen lots of articles which claim to teach “how to write a good YA novel.”  Most of these are focused on the actual craft of writing, such as “set a writing schedule and stick to it!”  Gee, thanks for that YA-specific tid-bit of advice!  Wouldn’t have been able to figure that one out of my own.  *sarcasm!*

Here is what I’ve gathered makes a good YA novel, based off these articles telling me what makes a good YA novel:

You need a well-constructed story filled with diverse characters the reader can relate to.
At least one of your characters must be a teenager.
You must have dialogue teens can relate to.
Due to short attention spans, your novel must be fast-paced, filled with lots of dialogue and action, and not bogged down with descriptive language.
Deal with an issue important to teens in your book, like teen pregnancy or drug use.

So these tips aren’t really all that bad, but they’re also not very helpful to most writers of YA novels.  The first two are pretty common sense, the third is pretty subjective, and I don’t agree with the last two at all.

Of course you need a well-constructed story with good characters.  Every author thinks their story is well constructed with good characters, even when they aren’t.  This isn’t something one can really learn to do unless they commit themselves to seriously doing it.  Plot structure and characterization is quite formulaic, and easy to pick up on.  Anyone who’s read the book Story by Robert McKee can figure out how to plot out their book and craft genuine characters the audience will care about.  And if you want to go even further, you can check out The Hero With A Thousand Faces, by Joseph Campbell, which delves into mythological archetypes of heroes from fiction.  That’s the book that really opened my eyes to how to develop characters within my own stories, since the tropes in that book transcend the ages.

Making at least one of your characters a teen is also a no-brainer.  If your audience is a teen, then you’ll want a character they can relate to.  But more than that, you want a character that can grow and “come of age” as the story progresses.  Character arcs are what tend to drive the narrative forward, so having a teen as your protagonist really helps with that, because teens are still developing, which means they can go through lots of arcs.  I think this is why an adult can read about a teenager and still enjoy the story, because we can all relate to that “growing up” phase of when we were in high school and what we were dealing with at that age.  So in a way, everyone can relate to a teenage character, whereas maybe not everyone could relate to a character that’s already grown.

As far as dialogue goes, I think it is pretty bad advice to tell people to “write what teens can relate to.”  My reasoning behind this is that different generations relate to different things.  Teenagers in the 80’s spoke differently from teenagers in the 90’s, who spoke differently from teenagers today.  So unless you want to date your book, don’t try to write dialogue in a way “teens can relate to.”  Worst comes to worse, you’ll seem like someone completely out of touch trying to relate to the youth of America by regurgitating stuff you heard from MTV.

I think a far better tactic is to keep your writing “accessible” to teens, rather than to try to have them “relate” to it.  What I mean is that you would want to write in a style that is simple and easy to read.  Avoid big words when shorter ones will do.  Don’t use vocabulary that requires someone to look it up in a dictionary to understand it.  Write in a way that’s straight-forward.  I think doing all this makes your work accessible for readers of all ages.  The best example of this I can think of is the Chronicles of Prydain series by Lloyd Alexander.  Those books are so simply written, yet pack in so much emotion in their words.  I can remember reading those books as a kid and loving them.  I re-read them as an adult and loved them just as much.  Good, simple writing speaks to everyone and is timeless.  Decades from now, people will read Harry Potter and have similar experiences to what we had when we first read it.  The same can’t be said for something written in a more contemporary style, like Maximum Ride.

And don’t get me started on the “short attention span” nonsense.  That’s something that has more to do with marketing than it does actual products.  You have a very small window to grab someone’s interest when marketing, but once you have it, you have lots of leeway.  That same teen that’s lamented for having a “short attention span” will spend 200 hours playing Grand Theft Auto on his Xbox.  So don’t tell me kids don’t have the attention spans to read a freakin’ book.  Attention span all boils down to how interested the audience is in your subject.  I can’t read a huge novel like War and Peace by Tolstoy because it bores me to tears.  However, I can read and re-read novels like A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, and A Storm of Swords which are all HUGE novels, because they grab my interest.

I think the real lesson to be learned here is that writers should not subject readers to things which do not feed into the main narrative of their story.  In my review of The Descendants, I mention how much stuff is in that book that had nothing to do with the main plot, and it was not only agonizing to read, it slowed down the pace of the book to the point where I did not want to continue reading it.  Keeping a story tight and flowing is important for any group of readers, not just young adults.  A popular saying amongst writers is that you have to “kill your babies” when crafting a good story.  This means, sometimes you have to cut stuff you as an author like, for the sake of the greater narrative.

I really love the writing style of George R.R. Martin.  He’ll spend paragraphs describing the meals his characters eat, the heraldry of the different Houses, what people’s armor looks like, and things such as that.  I’ve read reviews that criticize this as “boring,” but just as many reviewers love that level of detail because it brings the world he’s created to life.  Writing, just as much as reading, is a subjective exercise.  Not everyone likes or responds to the same thing.  I believe descriptive language can be wonderful, as long as it serves a purpose.  In this example, Martin’s writing helps showcase what the time period his characters are living in is like.  Most YA novels do not delve into this level of detail, but plenty of teens read A Game Of Thrones and love it.

So the lesson to take from this is one of pacing.  You must pace your novel well, so that it flows and doesn’t get bogged down in silly stuff.  You can have an entire chapter about a character going shopping for clothes, but if nothing important happens during that shopping trip, and the clothes aren’t an important plot point later in the story, then you just have useless pages of descriptions of clothing which will leave the reader wondering “why did I waste my time reading about this?”

Finally, we have the “deal with an issue important to teens.”  I’d much rather deal with issues important to my characters.  If a writer wants to get on their soapbox and tackle underage sex, drugs, pregnancy, STDs, alcoholism, depression, bullying, peer pressure, twerking, cyber stalking, rape, The Tomorrow People, or any other horrific issue teens face nowadays, they are free to do so.  However, I don’t believe this is a requirement for a good YA novel.  My reasoning here is that not all teens consider the same things important.  Bullies don’t think they’re bullies.  The popular girls don’t realize how their clique peer pressures people.  Teens who are having sex don’t really care about the consequences, otherwise they wouldn’t be doing it.

People read to have fun.  If there is a deeper message in what they read, great, but most people get turned off by being preached to.  And in my experience, 90% of teens just don’t care.  It’s adults who care about “important issues.”  If anything, these issues should be used as obstacles for the characters of your YA novel to overcome.  If the main character of your novel gets pregnant, then that’s certainly something she has to deal with.  But just tossing in a chapter railing against teen pregnancy is going to derail the narrative, especially if you’re only doing it to “be relevant.”

So, now that I’ve ranted about the common-wisdom on this subject, it begs the question… what really makes a good YA novel?

I’ve thought long and hard about the answer to that question.  I’ve read many YA novels in the past.  I’ve written one.  I’m currently neck-deep into writing another.  I’ve pondered, thought about, contemplated, and meditated over this subject for many a moon, and I believe I have some answers I can share with the world at large and my fellow YA brethren (sisteren?).  So now, I present to you, Matthew Kadish’s Totally Awesome Tips On Writing A (Good) Young Adult Novel…

Matthew Kadish’s Totally Awesome Tips On Writing A (Good) Young Adult Novel

Tip #1:  Keep Things Simple (At Least At First)

What I mean by this is that your YA novel should be very easy to relate to and understand.  Your characters shouldn’t be “too” original.  Your setting shouldn’t be “too” exotic.  At least, not yet.  You want to make your book accessible to your audience, so make the barrier to entry as low as possible.

I think there is a reason why so many readers respond to the Twilight novels, and if you really study them, it’s because Twilight was a very simple book that lots of readers could relate to.  You have the “clumsy, awkward, insecure heroine.”  Every girl feels clumsy, awkward, and insecure in high school, so instantly, female readers can identify with that.  Bella Swan did not have a complicated backstory.  She was a cypher that was meant to get readers to instantly identify and sympathize with her.

More than that, the audience for Twilight can relate to what it’s like to go to a new school and feel left-out.  But in addition, they can identify with having feelings for a good-looking boy who doesn’t know they exist.  The first third of Twilight is pretty much engineered from the ground up to be so simple, that 99.9% of its intended audience can instantly relate to it.

Once you have that hook which brings your reader into your narrative, then you can start layering in more complex stuff.  That ditzy best-friend can suddenly reveal her struggle with drug addiction.  That hot boy can reveal he has a dark side.  That sleepy town where “nothing ever happens” can reveal a supernatural element to it.  The key here is to lead with stuff that people can relate to (some might even call it “stereotypical”), and eventually morph it into something unique and original.

Just look at the Harry Potter books.  The Sorcerer’s Stone is a vastly different book from The Deathly Hallows.  Sorcerer’s Stone is very kid-friendly, simple, and easy to read.  The Deathly Hallows is very grown-up, violent, and freakin’ long!  Heck, it even has cursing in it!  But by that point, it doesn’t matter.  People got hooked with the simplicity of the first book, and by the last book, they were ready for more advanced fare.  However, if Harry Potter had started its series in the style of the Deathly Hallows, I doubt it would have become the phenomenon it did.

Tip #2:  Know Your Audience And Write For Them

You always have to be aware of who you’re writing for and try to tailor your writing for them.  Lots of authors give aspiring authors advice such as “write what you like” or “focus on what speaks to you!”  Yes, and while you’re at it, don’t forget to give the world a Coke and sing “kumbaya,” ya dirty hippy.

If your only goal in writing a novel is to entertain yourself, by all means, follow that advice.  But if you’re writing as a profession, and wish to sell your work, then you need to write for the audience you wish to target.  This really requires knowing what your intended readers are going to respond to.

For instance, do you know that most “young adult” readers aren’t all that young?  Though the genre is aimed at 14-21 year olds, the vast majority of YA readers are actually 30+.  Strange?  Yes, but true.

Also, the vast majority of these readers are women.  I think any YA fan knows this instinctually.  However, they may not know that most of these women are married and have kids.

So it could be argued that the typical “young adult” reader is 30+ married stay-at-home moms.  Quite a different audience than the one most YA authors think they’re writing for, huh?  Why this is, I have no idea.  Maybe the moms see what their kids are reading and pick it up?  Maybe they encourage their kids to read the books they like?  Who knows.  But if you want to reach your intended audience, you should always keep in mind what these 30+ married women with kids are going to respond the best to.  Is it a teen’s relationship with their parents?  Is it escapist fantasy?  Is it forbidden romance?

I think a lot of this depends on the sub-genre you’re writing in as well.  Paranormal Romance YA is quite a different beast from Sci-Fi Dystopia YA.  I typically like to find groups on GoodReads which discuss the sub-genre I’m interested in writing about and see what they’re discussing.  This will give you a good idea of what the passionate readers love and what they don’t, all of which can be valuable when planning your novel.

As the old showbiz saying goes – “Give the audience what they want.”  When you write for your audience, you can never go wrong.

Tip #3:  Always Include A Romance

If there’s one thing men and women share, it’s a love of being in love.  Women are more open about this guilty pleasure, but make no mistake about it – men love a good romance too!  However, they don’t go seeking it out.  Men are more interested in action, and if there happens to be a good romance thrown into the mix, then all the better!

However, the great thing about romance is that it’s a “universal theme.”  Every person on Earth craves romance.  They know what it’s like to be attracted to someone, to fall in love, to have their heart broken, and all that stuff.  Every single person has a fantasy about meeting the exceptional someone who, against all odds, falls in love with them.

If you look at all the greatest stories which people obsess over, there is always a romance at its center.  Titanic is a prime example of this.  That movie is driven by its central love story, set against the backdrop of a horrible disaster.  It’s also one of the highest grossing movies of all time, and is still something people will watch time-and-time again to this day.  Twilight is another example, since its primary focus is the relationship between Bell and Edward.  Even books like Harry Potter have romance in them, as evidenced by the Ron/Hermione relationship.  Even though that was never central to the books, it was still there, and fans shipped over it for years before the series ended.

“Young Adults” (be they teens or older readers who can relate to being a teen) respond well to romance, and thus, it should in some way be incorporated into your YA novel.  Ya novels don’t have to revolve around romance, but there should be an aspect of it somewhere in your narrative.  I look at romance as icing on a cake.  The cake, by itself, is okay, but when you add icing, it becomes awesome.  When you eat a cake without any icing, you definitely miss it and wish it were there.

Tip #4:  Make The Angst Believable

Let’s face it people, you can’t have a book about teens without a healthy dose of angst involved.  The word “Angst” means “fear or anxiety,” so when we talk about “teen angst,” we’re talking about the things teens are nervous or afraid of.  Just watch The Breakfast Club to get a good idea of what teen angst is all about.  There has never been a purer example of teen angst than that movie.

The vast majority of YA novels have angst in them.  The reason for this is not just because the readers can relate to such a thing, but also because it creates some great drama or tension between characters in a story.  The first half of Twilight is all about the angst Bella feels when she thinks Edward is repulsed by her.  In The Hunger Games, Katniss is torn between her true feelings of attraction for Gale, and her need to appear to fall in love with Peeta (what girl hasn’t dated a guy she didn’t much care for, while secretly yearning for another?).  Even Harry Potter agonized over his crush on Cho Chang.

So there is relationship-based angst.  But there’s also institutional angst as well.  Stuff like fitting into a new environment.  Dealing with gangs and cliques and bullies.  Parents who don’t understand you.  Basically, just think about all the crap you were stressing out over as a teen, and that’s the type of angst you’ll want to incorporate into your YA novel, because guess what?  THAT STUFF NEVER CHANGES.  Every teenager will experience it and thus relate to it.

I think the relationship angst is the best, because it fits in most naturally with Tip #3.

HOWEVER…

A cardinal sin of YA authors is what I like to call “forced angst.”  This is when angst is thrown into the narrative just for the sake of it.

If you look at my review of The Descendants again, you’ll see what I’m talking about.  There was a lot of angst in that book which was just not believable.  The main character was in love with her boyfriend, whom she broke up with for some stupid reason.  Her best friend then started dating her ex-boyfriend (with the main character’s blessing).  Then, the main character started agonizing over the fact that she still loved her ex and couldn’t have him back because now he’s dating her BFF.  However, she was the maker of her own angsty situation!  She broke up with the dude (who obviously still loved her), and then was complaining that she couldn’t have him, AFTER giving him to her best friend!

Not.  Very.  Believable.

Situations like that make characters out to look stupid.  Does stuff like this happen in real life?  Probably.  But your narrative isn’t about real life.  Fiction is about doing what’s best for the narrative.  It should be logical and believable, otherwise, you’ll get audience backlash.

So if you’re going to create angst, make sure there is a REASON behind that angst that makes it believable.  The nerd who secretly longs to date the cheerleader is believable, because the boundaries set by the social hierarchy of high school make that difficult to achieve.  The parents who disapprove of their daughter’s boyfriend and actively try to keep her from seeing him is a real obstacle.  And if you’re getting medieval with your story, stuff like arranged marriages vs. true love are perfect tropes for keeping your main love interests separated.

I guess what I’m trying to say here is that every piece of angst you incorporate into your novel has to be justified by something real.  Two people who are attracted to each other can’t be realistically kept apart by something forced or contrived.  “Oooo, I like him!  But we could never be together because I think my nose is too big!”  Ugh.  No.  Create real obstacles for your characters from which the angst they experience is genuine.

Tip #5:  Try To Appeal To Both Genders

I think a cardinal mistake many YA novels make is that they are “gender exclusive.”  That means they have very little cross-gender appeal to them.  Now, I talked before about how you should write for your audience, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do things to broaden your appeal.  The biggest hits and best-sellers out there appeal to the broadest possible audience.

Just a quick glance at the YA shelves at your local Barnes & Noble will show you that pretty much every YA novel is something that is aimed at women.  But you’re missing out on HALF your potential audience if you do that.

Men like to read too, and though they’re not considered as “fervent” YA readers as girls are, they are still readers.  Males tend to dominate the readership of science fiction, fantasy, thrillers, and war genres.  Women tend to dominate romance, general fiction, and young adult.  Mysteries are essentially a tie, which is probably why they tend to dominate most book-sales.

If you look at the most popular YA series, you’ll see that they appeal to both genders equally.  Both Harry Potter and Percy Jackson are not aimed at girls exclusively.  The fact that they are YA to begin with automatically makes them attractive to women, who are the primary fans of the genre.  However, their focus on male main characters and action also make them appealing for men to read as well.

Books like The Hunger Games place a lot of emphasis on violence and action, something that appeals to men.  It does this while still being able to feature romance and female angst, which appeals to women.  I think a reason the movies have been so successful is that both men and women are interested in seeing them, but for different reasons.  There is plenty of angst, a love triangle, and the stuff women fans of YA love, while still having tension, drama, and action, which the men really respond to.  (And of course, there’s plenty of eye-candy for both genres to appreciate!)

One of my gripes about much of the YA fare I read is that there is no real attempt to appeal to male readers at all.  In fact, much of the YA stuff I read is so girl-centric, I have to wonder if the author has ever met a real man in their life.  An example of this is the Trylle series by Amanda Hocking.  When I read Switched, I kept wondering what type of men Ms. Hocking hung out with, because there was no real attempt to flesh out the male characters beyond “best friend,” “sexy bad boy,” or “Mr. Perfect.”

I guess the equivalent of this would be if a woman read a book written by a man where all the female characters had big boobs and constantly wanted to have sex after two seconds of eye contact.  It’s just not believable, and most of all, its kind-of insulting to members of that gender who might be reading it.

I think for YA to be effective, you must have characters who represent both genders in a realistic fashion, and you must have aspects of the narrative that are appealing to both groups.  Even Twilight, with its heavy emphasis on romance, had action aspects to it.  So keep this in mind as you’re planning your story.  The more people who can read and enjoy your book, the more successful it will be.

Tip #6:  Make Everything A Metaphor For High School

I often find it humorous that the best YA novels, no matter what their backdrop, are essentially metaphors for high school.  In most cases, you have the characters actually going to high school.  And if they’re not going to school, they live in a society which acts an awful lot like school.  Most dystopian YA fare is essentially meant as a substitute for high school dynamics, which is why I think it is so popular.

The reason for this is because everyone can relate to the trials and tribulations of high school, be it teens (who are actually living through it) or adults (who at one time went through it).  In fact, one can argue that once you graduate and get out into the real world, you’re just living through different incarnations of high school.  You still have cliques and social hierarchies.  You still have people bossing you around.  You still feel awkward and out of place.  In short – everything is high school.

Harry Potter sort-of started this whole trend of having a school be the backdrop for a fantasy adventure.  You see it used time and time again in books like The Mortal Instruments, Percy Jackson, and novels of that nature.  If it’s not a school, it’s a government filling in for one.  In The Hunger Games, the population is divided into districts (cliques) ruled by an “elite class” in the capitol (the popular kids) who exert complete control over society (teachers) that everyone wants to rebel against.  You see similar set-ups in books like Divergent and other popular YA dystopia novels.  Indeed, pretty much every dystopian government is exactly like a high school.

Even the game show in The Hunger Games is high-schoolish, in the sense that lots of kids view high school as a fight for survival.  You see the “elite” kids group up to kill the “loner” kids in The Hunger Games, just as the “cool kids” pick on the other kids in high school.  Though it may not cross the reader’s mind that kids killing each other is something they can relate to, they can certainly identify with that type of struggle.

The high school setting also lends itself to naturally create angst, which we’ve already discussed.  It’s this natural creation of conflict, coupled with its universal recognition, that makes the “high school” metaphor so popular in YA fiction.  And you can have a lot of fun trying to figure out different ways to incorporate it.  In the climax of my YA book, Earthman Jack vs. The Ghost Planet, my main character comes to the realization that the fearsome alien he’s fighting is essentially no different than the school bully he had to deal with at the start of the book.  Yet another high school metaphor that anyone can relate to, but I put my own unique twist on it.

So layering in aspects of high school into your YA novel is something you should definitely consider while writing.

Tip #7:  Don’t Forget The Conflict!

I think all readers can agree that we get a giddy joy over seeing characters overcome great obstacles.  I, personally, love stories that have a backdrop set against incredible conflict.

Harry Potter has the fight against the Dark Lord Voldemort, the most powerful dark wizard ever.  Lord of the Rings has the epic quest to destroy Sauron.  The Hunger Games has a deadly reality TV show.  Percy Jackson has the rise of the Titans, the original Gods who are out for revenge.  It’s this type of epic conflict that can really suck a reader in, because… well, it’s just so dang cool!

However, SO MANY young adult authors forget about the conflict!  They get caught up in their side-stories or romance plots or whatever, so that the actual action of the story is almost an afterthought.  I think the Twilight series was certainly guilty of this, particularly as the series progressed.  The books focused so much on the Edward/Jacob/Bella triangle, that the vampire threat in each book kind of seemed tacked on just so there was something for the trio to struggle with.

The best example I can think of regarding this is the TV show LOST.  This was a case where the show’s writers got so caught up in the character relationships, they neglected the central conflict of the story, which was the mysteries behind the mysterious island the characters were on.  They took what was widely regarded as one of the most brilliant TV shows of its time and turned it into a joke, because they failed to address the conflict that drew the fans into it in the first place.  Nowadays, many LOST fans (myself included) regard the show as a piece of trash, and a cautionary tale of how not to treat your loyal fanbase.

When writing any novel, there is always a fine balance between plot and characterization.  Too much of one and not enough of the other makes for a less-than-enjoyable book many times.  Many writers get bogged down with their “message” or their attempt to create deep characterization.  I know I had many debates with the author of The Descendants over the many backstory tangents she went on in her novel.  Her plot got side-tracked by incredibly boring (in my opinion) flashbacks about the main character’s relationship with her father.  During the climax of the book, the main character is tied up, watching a fight between super-powered teens, and suddenly we get a flashback to some traumatic childhood field trip with her daddy that does nothing to advance the plot and actually takes us away from the conflict that is occurring in the story.

I think the best YA novels keep their central conflict in mind, and do a good job of allowing it to play out.  In fact, the characterization and sub-plots all tie into it, and help lead to its resolution.  When a sub-plot overtakes the main plot, trouble arises.

If the main selling point about a book is “a chosen hero destined to destroy evil must fight a legion of the undead to save the world,” I don’t want 90% of the book to be about this hero pining about his love life.  I want to see him fight against this evil and see him struggle to fulfill his destiny!

If you look at the Chronicles of Prydain series, there is a romance there between the main character Taran and Princess Eilonwy.  However, though it is an engaging subplot, it never overtakes Taran’s journey to becoming a wise and courageous King who defeats the evil that is threatening the land.  I have a feeling if this series had been written by a typical YA author, we’d see much more emphasis on Taran and Eilonwy to the detriment of the central conflict with the Horned King.

Another example of this is the novel The 100, which is now a TV series on the CW.  The primary issue with that novel is it places way too much emphasis on the teen angst, and not enough on the actual conflict of survival on a post-nuclear wasteland Earth.  Rather than focused on food, water, and shelter, the teens in The 100 are worried about who likes who and who’s gonna hook up.  The TV series fixes this, and is actually better than the book because of it.

Therefore, it is always necessary to keep in mind what is driving your plot, and not get sidetracked by less-important subplots.  If your book is primarily a romance, then focus on that romance.  But if you’re promising epic battles, do not forego those in favor of something else.  Titanic delivered on the epic tragedy, yet was still an amazing romance.  Do not fall into the YA trap of shucking conflict in favor of angst.

Conclusion

There is more than one way to write a novel, and I don’t pretend to know all the answers.  However, I feel I have a good enough grasp on the technique of writing to share my opinions on this subject.  I love YA books – even the bad ones that make me want to claw my eyes out.  They are a guilty pleasure.  It is my hope that these suggestions will help and inspire others to improve upon their work and add examples to this genre that will inspire others to become fans of it as well.

As usual, I have been long-winded and self-indulgent.  But if you enjoyed these insights, please let me know by leaving a comment and engaging in discussion.  My ego demands it!!!

Peace out.

Las Vegas Review Journal features Earthman Jack!

Greetings humans!

So like any total narcissist, I have Google Alerts set up to ping every time someone mentions my name or the name of my book, and lo-and-behold, what did I wake up to find this morning?

The Las Vegas Review Journal featured my book!

It’s not exactly a review, just a “spotlight” piece that tells people about me, the story behind the book, and gives a little introduction to the book itself.  I’m tickled pink to actually be featured in a real newspaper!  The Ghost Planet got into a few newspapers for their holiday gift guides last Christmas season, but they were just short blurbs lumped in with a ton of other things.  This is the first real mainstream media piece that features The Ghost Planet exclusively, which is pretty exciting.

Hopefully this will lead to other mainstream press picking up on the book.  With new Young Adult sci-fi entertainment hitting it big, like Divergent and The 100, I’m hoping more people will be interested in checking out my offering.  And right now, it’s still just $0.99 on Amazon!  So there’s no real reason not to check it out, right?

On the sequel front, The Secret Army continues to plug along.  I’ve completed 7 full chapters so far (well, 8 if you count the introduction, I guess).  So the writing is coming along at a brisk pace.  Because I sit hunched over my computer most of the day, I have no real concept of time anymore, and I didn’t realize March was almost over!  *le sigh*  I’m still hoping to have my first rough draft done by the end of April, but I don’t know if that’s very realistic still, because I have so much more to write!  The good news is that I can definitely say with 100% certainty that Book 2 WILL NOT take 4 years to write like Book 1 did, ha ha ha.  So… glass half full?  I guess? 

Right now, the manuscript page count sits at 136 pages for my rough draft, and that’s without a lot of the scenes I’ve already written added to it, so total page count written so far is probably closer to 200.  Right now, I’m guestimating (it’s a word, damn you spell check!) that the final product will be in the vicinity of 500 manuscript pages, much like The Ghost Planet was.  Lord knows I wish it were shorter!  It would make the writing go so much quicker.  But it’s gonna be however long it is.  I doubt it will be longer than Book 1, but then again, you never know.  When you’re writing epic space opera, the tales tend to grow in the telling.  I have so much backstory and worldbuilding to fit into the narrative, just so everything makes sense and some things to come in future books are properly set up, that sometimes it ends up padding out chapters more than I’d like.  I may cut some of this stuff back during the editing process, but I’m not one to edit myself on the first go-around.  Lots of my work tends to have a LOT of boring stuff in its first draft because I throw everything (including the kitchen sink) into it at first.  It’s always easier to cut stuff than to add stuff later on, so I guess I just add everything I can as I write.  It also helps me keep things straight in my head.  I somewhat shudder to think how writing books 3-7 is gonna go, because I’m gonna have a LOT of crud to remember and keep straight!  Ha ha ha.

Okay, well, back to work, I guess.  I’d like to thank all two of my fans who actually read this blog (hi mom!) for stopping by.  By the way – a goal of mine this year is to get up to 200 reviews on Amazon and 100 reviews on Goodreads.  If either of you know of people who’d be willing to review the book, have them contact me.  I’ll be happy to send them a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

L8trz!