K.R. Conway's Blog, page 18

Cassie Mae Book Reviews

Last year I stumbled upon an author by the name of Cassie Mae and her book, FRIDAY NIGHT ALIBI.

The riotous way Mae wrote her main characters quickly had me hooked. In FRIDAY NIGHT ALIBI, soon-to-be-college student Kellie makes quite a few bucks thanks to the boys in town who want to date girls their parents don’t exactly approve of. Kellie offers these guys an alibi for a buck – she sits at home playing video games and pretends to be on a date with “Frank” so “Frank” can really sneak off on a date with a totally different girl.

Kellie answers the phone when parents call, writes down a full itinerary of the fake date for the boy who purchases her services, and TA DA! Kellie makes money and the boys make out with the chicks they aren’t supposed to date.  But then Kellie runs into Chase who is older than she is, and for the first time Kellie may no longer want to be just an alibi. Perfect brain candy for a rainy day!

So, then I read SWITCHED, because I loved ALIBI and sure enough, it was another fun, addictive read. It was a chocolate-covered pretzel, can’t-stop-eating-it type of literary snack attack. It was basically about a boy and girl teaming up to break up their friends from their significant others in an attempt to have a chance with those they are trying to split apart. Only problem is, they find themselves falling for one another and NOT the couple they are supposed to be driving a wedge between. Total fun.

But it wasn’t until I read REASONS I FELL FOR THE FUNNY FAT FRIEND that I really thought Cassie Mae showed her true ability as a storyteller. I loved the concept, the idea of body image in young girls and how boys really see them. I loved the main characters and their chemistry and the running thoughts of the boy’s POV (which the entire story is written from – hello AWESOME idea). And while it was still a fun, fast read, it had a more serious slant that I loved.

So, whenever I need to come up for air from the dark worlds I write and read, Cassie Mae is my perfect ray of sunshine. Her stories are a tipsy combination of FRIENDS, 10 THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU, and maybe just a pinch of 16 CANDLES.

And let’s face it – everyone needs a little Long Duk Dong in their life now and then :)

 

 

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Know thy Audience. ALWAYS.

If there is ever a phrase that sends chills through my body, it is: “Well, I’m not really sure if my COMPLETED manuscript is exactly aimed for teens. Maybe it is more middle grade? But then again, I guess it could be adult.”

Oh, dear lord.

There is nothing, NOTHING more important than knowing WHO you are writing for before you even put pen to paper. You need to know EXACTLY who your audience is – from how they live, talk, socially function, what would make your book appeal to them, WHY they would buy it in the first place, blah, blah, BLAH. How do you sell something if you have no clue who would want to buy it? That’s like designing a hot air balloon that can’t fly and saying, “I know this will appeal to SOMEBODY.” Well, heck – you would be 112 years old before you figured out WHO would buy an unfloating air balloon (FYI – this would sell to those funky, futuristic tent designers who want some killer fabric and who would upcycle the basket parts. SEE??? I know my audience!!!)

As cool as your story may be, it NEEDS a set audience to S-E-L-L. So . . . let’s take, uh . . . OH! The Shadow and Bone series by Bardugo. Dark fantasy set in a brutal remake of a Russian-like empire. Totally awesome. Love it. Go read it. Well . . . go read it IF YOU LIKE THAT TYPE OF THING. See???? Audience. I like dark and creepy with a few well placed bodies here and there. I can do fantasy as long as the fairies are the type to murder you in your sleep while acquiring your tooth.

So Bardugo’s audience is the type that:

A. Likes dark fantasy. This would include those who enjoyed the last few books in the Harry Potter series best, and those who liked Lord of the Rings and (if you’re ancient like me) The Dark Crystal.

B. They are 14 + (maybe a few, high-level 13-y-o readers too). She appeals to those who like vivid world building over smooching scenes. People who are willing to see a character fail and have mixed feelings about the “bad” guy (who happens to be a hottie).

C. Her readers tend to be thinkers. People who like puzzles, especially the ones that require you to out-manuver an opponent. They are the people who tend to be the quiet ones, but their imagination is always running and it isn’t playing Cinderella scenes over and over, if you get my gist.

D. They are bold, but not for the sake of others. They will pierce their tongue not to fit in nor stand out, but because doing so speaks to who they are as a person. They don’t follow the crowd.

E. They like twists and unseen complications. They like to see the characters fail as well as conquer. Romance is okay by them, but it is not the only reason they read the story. In fact, the romance aspect is low on their list of must-haves and they like that the main characters are a bit tortured in their love for one another.

You may say, “Holy heck, Conway – that is a TON of detail. How are we supposed to know that much about our audience?!” Well . . . that’s part of being a writer, and I was a journalist before I was a novelist. As a journalist I had to always, ALWAYS sell my story – not only to my editor, but to my potential readers. I needed to pitch every story to my editor and tell them WHY it was timely. WHY people would read it and WHO would read it. I needed to tell them how I would learn about the topic I was pitching and LEARN ABOUT WHO IS INTERESTED in such a topic.

I basically became my audience, every time, for every story. To become my audience for UNDERTOW, I began reading any and all YA books that were a bit similar. I started watching every teen movie I could find, plus those that were not aimed for teens but had young main characters. I shifted my playlist in the direction of pure Alternative music, hard rock, and a bit of metal.

I was willing to be a teenager – jump on beds (okay – my daughter’s bed at least), leap from the Town Neck bridge, argue over t-shirts at Abercrombie, and generally act like I was 16 rather than . . . well, older. I began to look at the world as a high schooler again – to understand fully what they loved, what tormented them, what mattered to them. Now-a-days it is easy for me to shift from the “run for your lives, MOM IS PISSED!” mode into a full on, nag-worthy, “Can we please, PLEASE, PLLLLLEEEAAASEEE go to the movies???? Can we go dye our hair??? Can we go hang out at the beach with our kites??”

If you have any doubt in my ability to be a teenager, just ask my daughter and her friends. They will tell you I am full-on nuts, but 100% wildly fun. Well . . . until you pick on your little brother or dare to sass me.

Then it’s GAME-ON-EVIL-MOTHER MODE.

And yes – I will totally write my Mean Mom character into a novel at some point . . . as long as it fits with the audience I am writing for. As for now, I work exclusively for the teens I strive to please, and always, always for my fans.

 

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Book Launch Date for STORMFRONT

There are two things that should be known about me as a blogger (cue the whole “excuses, excuses” rant):

1. I am CONSTANTLY working – editing for someone, working on my own stuff, and getting grabbed to do a screen play (yeah, that last one was a shocker for me too).

2. I have kids and it’s summertime on Cape Cod. This means beaches, ice cream, pool parties, camping, dogs escaping, rock concerts, etc. Oh – and the beach photo above is of Town Neck Beach in Sandwich, which is what the boardwalk scene and bonfire is based on in UNDERTOW.

Because of these two things, my blog gets a wee bit, uh, neglected. And I am totally sorry about that, because I do have a ton of super cool followers on this blog. Therefore I shall try to be better about updating this at least three times a week (or when not shaking the beach sand out of previously unknown body crevices).

I will try to mix this blog as always – books, writing, rants, and Cape Cod life in general. Slowly, I will be reposting all the “writing craft” stuff over to my new blog site, which is dedicated to the schools and libraries I teach for (StoryRebels). On that site I hope to have student writing examples, details on how I edit, the classes I teach, and storytelling in all its fabulous forms. It is a slow process, but it will be worth it when it is done!

But for today, I’d like to announce the local launch of STORMFRONT at Marstons Mills Public Library! Details are below. Be there to get your copies if you want them 10 days before the world-wide launch on August 13, 2014!!

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Two Authors, One Free Story

Well, my friends and fellow YA authors, Trisha Leaver and Lindsay Currie, have gone and done the unthinkable in the publishing world – they are GIVING AWAY one of their co-authored novels FOR FREE (online that is). Their novel SILO is a gift to their readers and will be posted in stages to WattPad. Below is a note from both Trisha and Lindsay about why they are giving away the farm for free . . . or in this case, a silo:

With the release date of CREED rapidly approaching, Lindsay and I have been fielding questions about what our co-authored voice sounds like, how psychologically twisted our collective mind is, and do I need to read all of your co-authored pieces with the lights on?

Rather than simply answer those questions, we thought we’d take it one step further and actually show you! We toyed with writing a prequel-type novella to set the stage for CREED, but you know us…why write a novella to CREED when you can give them an entirely different book to enjoy!

After much discussion with our agents and an enthusiastic ‘go for it’ from our publisher, we have decided to utilize Wattpad to give the world a sneak peek at what they can expect from our co-authored voice. So here it is, a new, psychologically twisted, co-authored YA Thriller.

“The darkness would’ve scared me years ago, but not anymore—if you couldn’t see it, then you didn’t know it was there to be afraid of.” ~Jake Holloway, SILO

Starting today, we will be sharing a chapter a week of our co-authored book, SILO, on Wattpad for the world to enjoy, hate, question our sanity, run screaming from… The last chapter of the book will drop the week of November 8th, the same week CREED releases!

So, go forth and be appropriately frightened as you realize just what our twisted minds of capable of. Spread the word, leave a comment on Wattpad or simply enjoy the book in the dark confines of your own home.

Link to SILO on Wattpad: http://www.wattpad.com/54090436-silo

 

Trisha Leaver lives on Cape Cod with her husband, three children, and one rather irreverent dog. Her co-authored, YA Psychological Horror drops November 8, 2014 from FLUX. Her solo YA Contemporary, THE SECRETS WE KEEP, releases April, 28th 2015 from FSG/ Macmillan

 

www.trishaleaver.com

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Lindsay lives in Chicago, Illinois with one incredibly patient hubby, three amazing kids and one adorable, but irreverent Bullmastiff named Sam. She graduated from Knox College in the heart of the Midwest and has been writing for as long as she can remember.

  Today, Lindsay is an author, as well as a freelance editor for young adult, new adult and middle grade fiction.  She is a proud member of SCBWI, The YA Scream Queens and OneFourKidLit.

                              

www.lindsaycurrie.com

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Four Seas Ice Cream and Undertow

It’s no secret that much of what is in UNDERTOW is “doable” in real life on Cape Cod. It’s like a teen’s guide on what to do on the Cape.

Jump from the Town Neck bridge? Yup.

Bonfire on Sandy Neck? Check!

Drive out on the sand with a vehicle? Damn straight!

Nosh on decadent ice cream at the Milk Way? Always!

Of course, some things got renamed . . . like MJ William’s “Milk Way” shop, which was based on Four Seas Ice Cream in Centerville. The fabulous shop is still a staple of Cape Cod – a quirky, four-walled testament to what we are like as Cape Codders in general – sort of slanty, unique, artsy, and multilayer. We beach dwellers strive to be the best at whatever we do, and the hard working crew of Four Seas is no exception.

I remember Four Seas from my childhood days (I am totally a mint chip girl). My Dad would order us scoops in sugar cones and show me how to bite the end off the cone and suck the ice cream through the bottom. We would sit in the open hatch of his beat-up station wagon, watching people in line as they debated the flavor choices on the chalkboard menu. Every once in a while a moan would climb through the line of patrons when a worker would wipe away one chalked selection, signally that the flavor had sold out for the night. Luckily the list was always long and varied and soon the people waiting would begin debating other options.

Really – you could never go wrong with any flavor. Ice cream that good was borderline illegal for its addiction potential.

At Four Seas, toppings were limited, mainly because the ice cream was the true star. It was unneccesary to load such creamy perfection with mass-produced candy bits. Nay, it could almost be considered an insult to the ice cream gods.

The screen door always banged against its faded white frame, and the cow bell jangled with each new customer – nearly inaudible over the sound of voices and laughter. In some ways Four Seas reminded me of Mel’s Diner in American Graffiti – that same vibe of youth, friendship, food, and memories. Many shops strive for such an elusive mix of qualities, though few will earn their way into the same league as Four Seas.

Kids I went to school with often worked there, shoulder to shoulder, scooping madly to keep up with the crowds. The scoops were cone-shaped rather than round, which seemed to make the ice cream even more fantastical. I’m dead serious – don’t mock the scoop!

So yes, I built my vision of The Milk Way on that one ice cream shop I adored and my children now relish. And on Cape Cod, the past often becomes the future, not because we can’t think of anything better, but because that past is just too darn perfect to mess with.

I will be signing UNDERTOW at Four Seas on Saturday, June 7th from 6-9pm.

Come join us for killer ice cream . . . and killer characters.

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Welcome to Cape Cod

So . . . I have been totally neglectful of my blog, but it wasn’t because I was addicted to reruns of X-Files or something. I was finishing some edits to STORMFRONT which will launch this summer on Cape Cod (end of July  . . . I am hoping). I am also a mom and a Cape Codder (born and raised) and certain weekends on Cape Cod = BBQs, parties, and traffic. It also means that my office is essentially off limits for three days straight.

This weekend is Memorial Day weekend – it is considered the “kick-off” event for our beachside heaven; the roads are packed, the grocery store mobbed, and the scent of charcoal seems to hang in the air. It is a time of water balloons, beach bonfires, and paper table cloths. We spend time entrenched with our family and friends and remember the sacrifices that let us enjoy our beachside freedom.

So, no. I haven’t been on my blog, but now I am. Back because I feel it my duty to relate the “Rules of the Road” if you are visiting Cape Cod (and no – Piping Plovers probably do not taste like chicken, and if you test that theory, you will find that prison food tastes like crap, and that’s a fact).

Cape Cod Road Rules and Funky Facts:

1. Installed beneath the Rte 6 highway are a set of giant gears that make the road become more narrow and thereby cause an even greater crush of traffic. Okay – that’s a total lie, but if you try to come to Cape Cod between 2-8pm on Fridays and 9-2pm on Saturdays, you will find yourself begging for a Teleporter from StarTrek. I’ve actually heard some people scream, “Beam me up, Scotty before I kill someone!”  FYI – SMART visitors, come to the Cape on Thursday nights, Friday at the crack of dawn or anytime on Sunday.

2. Leaving is worse than coming. Never, EVER try to leave Cape Cod on a Sunday (anytime) or Saturday before 5pm. Just trust me . . . it’s a golden ticket to the nut house if you try it. And no – 6A won’t save your soul.

3. We get hurricanes. And earthquakes, though they are fairly small. If there is a hurricane coming, just stay put (see afore mentioned traffic nightmares) and don’t try surfing. Ever. You can, however, sandblast your vehicle if you drive down to the beach to watch the wind and waves.

4. Cape Cod is a great place to ride bicycles . . . IN DESIGNATED AREAS. We have miles of canal and rail trails for you to hop on your two wheeler and enjoy the picturesque beauty of our land. Please, for love of God, DO NOT RIDE YOUR BIKE DOWN 6A, RTE 28, RTE 6 – it is a sure fire way to end up standing at the Pearly Gates and not at the local cafe your were headed to.

5. No, we won’t divulge our super-secret backroads that allow us to get around the traffic.

6. Yes, we have sharks, great whites included and yup – they come close to shore. They also hang out in the canal and watch the traffic over-head and try to take note of the people who disobey rules 1, 2, and 4  . . . it makes them less guilt-ridden when they chew on the rule-rebels.

7. The town of Bourne (that last ditch effort to get off the traffic clogged highways that head on Cape) is home to stunning beaches that most people totally ignore . . . which, I guess is actually okay, because I can have my pick of beach spots. You know what? Just ignore this part of my post . . .

8. The Silver Seas cruise line heads through the Cape Cod Canal once a week (around 10pm) and is an insane sight to behold. It is completely worth camping at Bourne Scenic Park to just get a glimpse of it.

9. For most Cape Codders, fall is the most stunning time of year. The weather is perfect, the beaches endless and open, and the traffic has dwindled. We will miss you, our visitor friends who come for a small piece of our world and our lives, and we encourage you to think long and hard about what you have enjoyed while here. Because if you loved it for a weekend, why not come and live here, along side us, all year round?

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Laser Tag with a Cover Model

 “Raef” (aka Colby McWilliams) hanging with some UNDERTOW fans :)

It’s tough being a supernatural killer in a bestselling book . . .

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#NESCBWI14 here I come!

I am super-duper excited to flee my M-F job as a school bus driver and head to Springfield MA for the NESCBWI conference! And yes – you read that correctly. I drive the Loser Cruise filled with my target YA audience. Horror stories of the madness from the road can be found by typing “bus” into the search box on this blog. Brace yourself – it can be frightening ;)

I will be taking classes and also helping out as a mentor for Friday’s Pitch Practice with Trisha Leaver, Karen Rock, Lindsay Currie, and Christina Laurie, so I hope to see a bunch of cool new faces (and a few old ones . . . not that you’re old. I mean, “old” in the sense that I already know you. Though some of you are actually older than me, not that you LOOK older than me. I mean . . . ah, screw it – you know what I mean).

In honor of meeting new people (and loads of twisted minds that pair nicely with my own), I thought I’d list five things that people might not know about me AND HOPE YOU WILL DO THE SAME – HINT HINT. I am crossing my fingers that this sparks a trend for the rest of the people at the conference, which will make spying on one another much easier.

1. I was hired right out of college to be a book editor for a political non-profit, which was quickly followed by loads of freelance journalism work (16 years and counting). Apparently everyone thought a Bachelor’s degree in Forensic Psychology = professional writer. I was definitely crazy enough to take the job, so yeah, I guess the degree relates in a “Mars is a bit warm” kinda way . . .

2. I am a native Cape Codder, and thus anything past a 15 minute drive might as well be five hours. I drove to upstate New York once and was sure I had made it to L.A. We are a bit spoiled, given that our wedge of sand is only 20 miles wide at most, followed by water. Lots of water . . . and sharks. We encourage the tourist to swim often.

3. My thirteen-year-old daughter is known for climbing on the roof to read, and convincing me to jump from the Town Neck bridge fully clothed. Not only was the water bloody cold and I nearly flattened a kayaker, but my clothing stuck to me like a second skin. Note to self: wet t-shirt when young? Awesome. Wet t-shirt once you have had kids? Ugh. Damn you BAYWATCH!

4. I don’t like calling myself an author (though I do write YA novels, like UNDERTOW and STORMFRONT). I prefer the terms unstable storyteller or talented scribe of literary lies. I mean, I drive a school bus and dress as though I raided my daughter’s Abercrombie collection. Most days I look like an extra from ANIMAL HOUSE. I will admit that I TOTALLY snuck into my girl’s room today and helped myself to a few things. I should be safely tucked into the Sheraton by the time she realizes I snagged her orange, leather jacket – Mwaahaahaaa.

5. I love teaching Fiction Craft to teens and do so often. Getting invited into high schools and libraries to teach those who wish to become storytellers is a truly amazing experience. Plus, I am known as a wild teacher, getting the kids to use their iPods, act out characters, develop scenarios, etc. Before you know it, the room is full of howling laughter as the students re-write their teachers as mind-sucking aliens. Best. Thing. Ever.

So that’s my five things . . . What about YOU??

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Cover Reveal for Blood of a Mermaid

I am pleased to be part of the cover reveal for Katie O’Sullivan‘s BLOOD OF A MERMAID, the second book in the SON OF A MERMAID series! The artwork on both her books is fabulous! A terrific YA read for the summer!

BLOOD OF A MERMAID by Katie O’Sullivan

Coming from Crescent Moon Press, May 2014

About the Book:

Mermaid blood.

When Shea MacNamara fell into the ocean for the first time, he found he could breathe underwater. The son of a mermaid, the sea is in his blood. Literally. The best part of Shea’s new life? His girlfriend Kae, who also happens to be a beautiful mermaid.

But darkness lurks under the sea. When evil mermen kidnap Kae, the king reminds Shea that having royal blood means making tough choices.

An Arctic dungeon, a fiery plane crash, the legendary halls of Atlantis…and narwhals?

Having mermaid blood just got a lot more complicated.

About the Author:

Katie O’Sullivan lives with her family and big dogs next to the ocean on Cape Cod, drinking way too much coffee and inventing new excuses not to dust. A recovering English major, she earned her degree at Colgate University and writes romance for young adults and the young at heart. Her editing column, “The Write Way,” appears in the Literary Women section of CapeWomenOnline magazine.

Living next to the Atlantic influences everything she writes. Her YA mermaid series begins in Nantucket Sound with SON OF A MERMAID, and continues the undersea adventures with BLOOD OF A MERMAID, coming from Crescent Moon Press in May 2014. Her latest contemporary romance from The Wild Rose Press is MY KIND OF CRAZY, a Cape Cod story of second chances and starting over.

Check her out at the following sites:

Blog: http://katieosullivan.blogspot.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorKatieOSullivan

Twitter: https://twitter.com/OkatieO

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3326303.Katie_O_Sullivan

Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/author/katieosullivan

 

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Chuck Wendig and Young Adult Fiction

I write YA (Upper YA, if we are getting technical). My main audience is in the 15/16 year old range right through adulthood. The UNDERTOW series is a thinking person’s mystery, threaded through a wild cast of supernatural characters. My focus has always been on building real characters who jump off the page and haunt people in their dreams, and I’m pleased to say that reviews often reflect this. But to continue to honor their realism, means that I must be true to the characters:

Raef is entirely lethal. Eila is absolutely fearless. Ana is a straight shooter who hides her pain, while MJ is a goofball, but a true fighter. And Kian has checked his morals at the door, though his devotion to Ana is unshakable.

As the series grows, so the do the characters – how they define themselves, how they interact, what they will sacrifice and for who (or what). But with YA, I have to think if I’m crossing a line (violence, sex, language). Will I alienate parents? Librarians? Teachers? I try very hard to maintain a story that I would be fine with my 13-year-old daughter reading. Certain curse words are forbidden. Sex, if it’s there, must be true to the characters and be a reflection of their emotions, rather than a blow-by-blow. Violence needs to be honest and not gratuitous. Looking back, YA isn’t so easy to write, but I adore working my butt off for this audience.

Below I have reblogged a fabulous post from Chuck Wendig, who has the coolest book trailer on YouTube for his books, Blackbirds and Mockingbird. Must watch it here!

 

25 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT YOUNG ADULT FICTION by Chuck Wendig (reblogged here from his AWESOME writing blog, TERRIBLE MINDS).

As always, this is not meant to be my bold-faced proclamations about This Particular Thing, but rather, twenty-five hopefully constructive and compelling talking points and thought bullets about the topic at hand. It is not meant to be gospel etched into stone, but notions — sometimes controversial — worth discussing. Let us begin.

[EDIT: It's 28, now. Because, reasons.]

1. IF YOU SAY THE WORD “GENRE,” I’M GOING TO TEAR GAS YOUR MOTHER

Young Adult is not a genre. I hear that often — “the YA genre.” You’re wrong. Don’t call it that. Stop it. Young Adult is a proposed age range for those who wish to read a particular book. It is a demographic rather than an agglomeration of people who like to read stories about, say, Swashbuckling Dinosaur Princesses or Space Manatee Antiheroes or whatever the cool kid genres are these days. Repeat after me: Young Adult is not a genre designation. See? Not so hard.

2. AND THAT AGE RANGE IS…

“Teenager.” Young adult books are generally written for teenagers. I’ve seen 12-18, but really, just call it “teenager” and be done with it. (The age range before it is “middle grade,” which runs roughly from 8-12.) This is where someone in the back of the room grouses about how when he was a young reader they didn’t have young adult books and he read whatever he could get his hands on, by gum and by golly — he read the Bible and Tolkien and Stephen King and Henry Miller and Penthouse and he did it backwards, in the snow, besieged by ice tigers. “In my day we didn’t need teenage books! We took what books we had and liked it! I once read a soup can for days!” I’ll cover that in more detail, but for now, I’ll leave you with this lovely Nick Hornby quote: “I see now that dismissing YA books because you’re not a young adult is a little bit like refusing to watch thrillers on the grounds that you’re not a policeman or a dangerous criminal, and as a consequence, I’ve discovered a previously ignored room at the back of the bookstore that’s filled with masterpieces I’ve never heard of.”

3. YOUNG ADULT IN FACT RUNS GIGGLING OVER MANY, MANY GENRES

Young Adult can be whatever you want. It can be epic fantasy. It can be space opera. It can be (and often is) dystopia. It can be elf romance. It can be funny cancer. It can be ghosts and fast cars and serial killers and Nazi Germany and one might even say that it operates best when it karate-slaps all your genre conventions in the face, when genres run and swirl together like paint and make new colors and form new ideas and change the way you think about stories.

4. IT SHOULD FEATURE A TEEN PROTAGONIST

It’s not a completely bizarre thing to suggest that teen books should feature teenage characters. I mean, I guess it’s not essential, but I’m not sure that your book about an old man fighting raccoons in the park — young and sprightly as he may seem! — will really qualify. And here is where Cranky Old Crotchpants in the back says, “Them dang teenagers should read about more than just themselves! Selfish little boogers always stealing my flip-flops!” And here I say, the best thing about YA fiction is that it’s talking to what was once an under-served population: teenagers. It’s not saying, You will buy this book because you’re solipsistic little shitbirds but rather, it’s saying, I will write this book because finally someone’s going to start telling stories about all the things that are happening to you and your friends.

5. THIS TEEN PROTAGONIST SHOULD IDEALLY SUFFER FROM TEEN PROTAGONIST PROBLEMS

We write about teens to talk to teens. And you talk to teens by embracing their problems. Teen problems are — well, crap, do you remember being a teenager? Holy fuck was that ever a weird time. High school! Sex! Drugs! Drinking! Parents! First love! First breakup! Bullying! College planning! SATs! Pregnancy scares! The realization that your parents don’t know all the things you thought they knew! Even in a genre-based setting teen-specific problems can be reflected (quick plug for a friend’s book, out today: The Testing gets pitched as The Hunger Games meets the SATs). Young Adult fiction isn’t about selling books to teenagers. It’s about writing books that speak to them. And speaking to them means talking about their problems.

6. SEX, DRINKING, DRUGS

I mentioned it above, but it bears repeating here: sex, drinking and drugs are part of a teenager’s reality. This isn’t me suggesting every teenager has sex, or drinks, or does drugs — only that it’s there. It exists for them. And some adults may bluster — “Bluh, bleh, muh, not my teenager!” — to which I say, even Amish teenagers deal with this. The Amish. The Amish. So, I’m always dubious of any young adult book that doesn’t at least address one of these three in some way. Not saying they need to be drug-fueled drunken orgy-fests, mind you.

7. THE HORMONE TORNADO AND THE UNFINISHED BRAIN

Read this: “The Teenage Brain Is A Work-In-Progress.” Their brains ain’t done cooking yet. They’re these unfinished masterpieces that are pliable in some ways, rigid in others, and whose emotional and intellectual development is driven by a drunken chimpanzee whacked-out on a cocktail of high-octane hormones. The teenage brain is like, NOW IT’S TIME TO KNOW SHIT AND DO SHIT AND HAVE SEX WITH STUFF AND KICK THINGS AND POUR YOUR HEART OUT AND DRIVE FAST AND AAAAAAAAAAAH. I’m not saying a teen protagonist has to act like a coked-up ferret, but it is important to recognize that the teen psyche is a really strange thing.

8. WHAT WERE YOU LIKE AS A TEEN?

Write What You Know is one of those roasted chestnuts of writing advice that fails to tell the whole story — it sounds like a proclamation, that it’s the Only Thing You Should Do, but it’s not. It’s just one of the things you can do. And given that most of the people writing young adult fiction are not themselves young adults it behooves us to not just study teenagers like we’re Jane Goodall or Dian Fossey (“I am hiding in the teenage human’s locker. This locker smells suspiciously of gym socks, weed, Cheetos, and desperation”) but rather to look back our own time doing battle in the Teenage Arena. Rip off the old gnarly Band-Aid and let the memories flow. What were your teenage years like? What did you deal with? Remember! And write.

9. THE PREVALENCE OF FIRST-PERSON POINT-OF-VIEW

YA fiction is often told in a first-person point-of-view. One could intuit reasons for this: first-person tends to be a faster and more forthright read, teenagers often embrace their own first-person narratives (from handwritten journals to, say, Tumblr), teens might be more inwardly-focused than adults. The first-person POV is not a necessity, to be clear — nobody will beat you with a copy of Divergent if you write in, say, close third.

10. THE PREPONDERANCE OF PRESENT TENSE

YA fiction is also frequently given over to the present tense. One might suggest reasons for this: present tense is a snappier, sharper read (more “cinematic” as the saying goes); it also provides a more urgent read; the teen mind lives more in the present than in the past, and so narrative tense should reflect it. Again, present tense is not a requirement, just a frequent feature.

11. SHORTER, PUNCHIER BOOKS

You won’t find many Young Adult books that are big enough to derail an Amtrak train or to bludgeon a silverback gorilla. The average Young Adult novel probably hovers around the 70,000 word mark — shorter if it leans away from genre and toward literary, I think. That’s not to say you won’t or can’t see BIG GIANT GALLUMPHING TEEN EPICS, but it isn’t really the norm. Particularly for the first in a series.

12. PACIER, CHATTIER BOOKS

They also tend to be more quickly paced and with a great deal of dialogue. I’ve read some young adult books that read with almost the spare elegance of a really sharp, elegant screenplay.

13. THE ROLE OF THE ADULT CHARACTER

Adults are rarely the main characters of a young adult book. Why would they be? They don’t have teen problems. They’re witnesses, at best. That said, adults can be the supporting characters (though usually still peripheral to the teen world — teachers, parents, older siblings) and they can certainly be the villains (which is true to the teen mold because sometimes, when you’re a teenager, the adults in your life can be giant, cankerous assholes). What I mean to say is, TEENS RULE, ADULTS DROOL *flushes Dad’s toupee down the toilet and sets fire to the house*

14. THE TEENS SOUND LIKE ADULTS

Sometimes the teens you read in young adult books sound like adults. They speak with intelligence and wit. I’ve seen this as a criticism against YA fiction, but hey, fuck that. I write with the assumption that — drum roll please – teenagers are capable of intelligence and wit.

15. BUT THEY SHOULD ALWAYS ACT LIKE TEENS

Just the same, teenagers in your young adult stories are best when they actually act like teenagers. Teens do stupid shit. I look back over my teenage years and it’s like… oooh, oh, wow, yeah, I made some poor life choices. Driving way too fast. Unprotected sex. Disputing authority even when authority might’ve actually been right. Doing things because they seemed “cool” rather than because it was actually a good goddamn idea. I once punched a locker based on misappropriated jealousy (still have the scar). I once accidentally shot a hole in our kitchen ceiling with a .22 rifle. I was once in a car with a friend who tried to circumvent like, five minutes of traffic by driving on the side of the road, thus breaking the car on a giant drainage block. I could probably do a lecture on all the really teenagey things I did as a teenager, and I didn’t even drink in high school (it took me till college to learn the love of the sauce).

16. RISKIER STORIES

Personal opinion time: some of the bravest, strangest, coolest stories right now are being told in the young adult space. It’s stuff that doesn’t fly by tropes or adhere to rules — appropriate, perhaps, since young adults tend to flick cigarettes in the eyes of the rules and don’t play by social norms as much as adults do. (Though teens certainly have their own social codes, too.) I wish adult fiction so frequently took risks on the material at hand, but it doesn’t. And as a person (relatively) new to the young adult spectrum, I used to assume it was all Twilight: generic pap. But then you read John Green, or Libba Bray, or Maureen Johnson — or holy shit, have you read ?! — and your eyes start to go all boggly. Amazing storytelling in this realm. Amazing! I’ll wait here while you go read it all. *stares*

17. MORE “ADULT” STORIES

Young adult stories are encouraged to deal with some heavy shit when needed. Suicide, racism, misogyny, teen pregnancy, depression, cancer, rape, school shootings, and so forth. Don’t feel like it needs to be all cushy and cozy and given over to some Hollywood notion of what it’s like being a teenager. Sometimes YA books get called “children’s fiction,” which makes it sound like it stars characters looking for their next cotton candy fix while trying to stop the playground bullies from stealing their truck toys. Young adults still deal with some particularly adult things.

18. VERY HARD TO COMPARE TO FILM RATINGS

A lot of young adult books hover somewhere between PG-13 and R in terms of how you might translate it to a film rating — but that’s ultimately a broken comparison because of, well, how broken film ratings happen to be. For example: if you were to film The Hunger Games as close to the book as you could make it, it would almost certainly be an R-Rated film for the depiction of violence. Some of the sex in young adult books would similarly earn an R-rating or — given our deeply Puritanical roots — something closer to NC-17 (GASP TEENS HAVE SEX OH GOD BURN THE BRIDGES SINK THE BOATS). The takeaway is, you can get away with some profanity and some sex in young adult fiction – though, I have seen talk of some libraries, teachers and booksellers refusing to promote certain books to teenagers because of edgy content found within. This is, as always, a YMMV issue.

19. ADULTS LIKE IT

Adults read a lot of young adult fiction, particularly “cross-over” fiction that leans toward the higher end of that teen age range. One might speculate adults like it because it recaptures some part of their youth. Or that adults are frequently not as grown up as they’d prefer these days. Or that they get some vicarious thrill. Mostly, if I’m being honest, I think it’s because of what I said in #13 and #14 — some of the bravest, most “adult” storytelling is happening in the young adult space. They’re gravitating to the quality. Or so I like to hope. At the very least, those who claim young adult books are there to play off of adult nostalgia for the age have never read a young adult book. (“Teen suicide. Remember those good times? Like a Norman Rockwell painting!”)

20. SOMETHING-SOMETHING NEW ADULT

Now there’s this other thing called “new adult,” which I think is maybe like “diet adult,” or “adult, now with zero calories?” I dunno. My understanding is that it’s maybe just a sexed-up version of young adult? Or that it’s the next age range after young adult for, say, 19-25 year olds? (Soon we’ll be writing books based on your birth month. “THIS BOOK RECOMMENDED FOR THOSE BORN IN JUNE OF 1984.”) I always thought that 19-25 year olds were just regular old adults by then, but maybe I’m that crotchety old crotchbasket on the lawn yelling at you kids to stop trampling his begonias.

21. AS ALWAYS, HELL WITH TRENDS

THE TREND RIGHT NOW IS TEEN MUMMY UTOPIAS FEATURING SPUNKY CHARACTERS LOCKED IN TURBULENT LOVE RHOMBUSES. Whatever. Fuck trends. You can’t really beat trends. You can’t really write to them either. Trends are boring. Write what you want to write and make it as awesome as you can make it. Set the trend instead of following it.

22. YOU ARE READING YOUNG ADULT, RIGHT?

If you’re gonna write it, you better be reading it.

23. OF WANING SNOBBERY

I was once a young adult snob. I was that old dude on his front porch yelling at the wind — “I don’t need your stinky young adult fictions! I read Ender’s Game when it was just a book and the author wasn’t a homophobic Tea Party sociopath! It’s just a marketing category! I’ll fill your hide with rock salt from my shotgun MARTHA GET ME MY SHOTGUN.” But I think that’s changing. In part because folks like myself acquiesced and actually starting reading what was prematurely condemned. I’m happy to be seeing fewer and fewer essays elsewhere about how YA is too dark or too puerile or how adult fiction is just fine, thanks, shut up — as if the presence of young adult fiction somehow eats away adult fiction instead of contributing to the overall health of a great book market. Go read that Nick Hornby quote again.

24. TEEN SELF-PUBLISHING SQUAD

I don’t really know how self-publishing impacts young adult fiction or vice versa. I did self-publish an “edgy YA” (Bait Dog) which did well over Kickstarter and has since sold fine enough since (well enough that Amazon picked it and a sequel up to publish with Skyscape starting next year). Trends have been that teen readers preferred physical books as they did not often own their own e-readers — though, I’ve heard they’re inheriting e-readers now, thus opening them to the digital space more easily. Good for indie publishing types, I think.

25. YOU’RE NOT MY MOM!

We as adults have a tendency to talk down to children and adolescents. “Eat this. Don’t eat that. Get good grades. If you pee in the pool, the pool filter will release piranha. Don’t do drugs. Definitely don’t steal Daddy’s drugs. If you masturbate too often, your fingers will turn white and fall off.” Don’t do this in your books. These books aren’t lesson plans. You’re not preaching from the Adult-Sized Podium. (This is true of all books, by the way — you should be telling stories while within your audience, not from outside it. I just think the tendency to get all teachy-and-preachy is stronger when writing for teens.)

26. BIG-ASS MARKET SHARE

The young adult market is strapping and robust, like a young Russian lad thick on borscht and vodka. Last year sales in young adult were up 13%, and up 117% in e-books which is more than twice the digital growth in adult markets — plus, by most reports, young adult fiction yields bigger advances, too. And it’s these bigger advances right now that maybe suggests young adult authors are better leaning toward more traditional publishing than self-publishing (whereas in other areas, like in romance, the reverse may be true).

27. GENRES BEING CODIFIED

I always poke around the Barnes & Noble YA shelves and I’ve noticed that the big bookstore has begun to lump YA into weird, clumsy genres. What I used to love about that shelf is that it was once just YOUNG ADULT. No “general fiction,” no “mystery,” no “SFF,” just — boom, here’s all the awesome books, please dispense of your genre tropes and judgments. That’s changing. Now it’s like, “Teen Adventure!” and “Teen Romance!” and “Teen Boondoggles With Drugs And Dystopias!” and blah blah blah. I don’t like it. I also don’t like that the shelving seems almost arbitrary, like someone let my toddler do it.

28. GOOD STORY IS GOOD STORY NO MATTER THE AGE RANGE

Young Adult is not just some easy space to jump in and make a quick buck. It’s a place for great storytelling and no matter what the rules are now or what they become for this age range, good story is always good story. I’m not so blindly optimistic to suggest that you can’t lose with a good story (nor would I say you can’t win with a bad one because, well, c’mon), but just the same: put your best foot forward with the best story you can tell. If it’s a story about teens or toddlers or geriatric dudes or koalas or space koalas or teenage space koalas, fuck it: slam your best effort down on the table. Write a killer story. The end.

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