My YA Experiment
My YA Experiment
I have always loved reading YA novels. They are direct, engaging, and more than fulfill a novel’s duty to entertain its readers. I respect YA Authors’ abilities to create, develop, and adapt rules to new and existing worlds. Their imagination proves time and time again to be their greatest assets.
That is why I decided to finally sack up and try writing my own YA. Just under one month in, I am hovering just under 60k words with only a few chapters to go. It has been one of the most fun manuscripts I have ever written, especially as I look ahead to what I want to do with the series down the line (another exciting thing about YA novels is how easily they can be turned into a series).
It’s been a quick write for me. Even while I am at work (for the past week working up to and beyond 12 hour days) I find myself obsessing about what I want to do my next opportunity in front of a computer. I find myself knocking 2,000 words out before breakfast, worried I wont have another chance to write that day and desperate to put my latest thoughts to the page.
Is this why YA is such a popular genre? Not just for the enjoyment it brings readers, but for the writers as well? I have always loved writing and have always obsessed over my work, but YA conjures a different kind of excitement. It’s more concrete. With other work I focus on the themes and get excited over the meanings but with YA I’m actually describing characters as “cool” and “awesome.” It’s far more vernacular. Paragraphs are far more straight forward, with simpler language, because the language is not the focal point; it is the vessel for the story and my main focus is creating a plot the invisible reader in the back of my mind won’t be able to put down.
YA has earned its place as a top genre. It has beautifully intertwined reader entertainment and author creativity to produce one of the most dynamic genres. This experiment with a new genre has been a blast, and I hope to add more YA manuscripts to my archive for years to come.
As always thank you for reading.
Best regards,
-R.K. Gold
I have always loved reading YA novels. They are direct, engaging, and more than fulfill a novel’s duty to entertain its readers. I respect YA Authors’ abilities to create, develop, and adapt rules to new and existing worlds. Their imagination proves time and time again to be their greatest assets.
That is why I decided to finally sack up and try writing my own YA. Just under one month in, I am hovering just under 60k words with only a few chapters to go. It has been one of the most fun manuscripts I have ever written, especially as I look ahead to what I want to do with the series down the line (another exciting thing about YA novels is how easily they can be turned into a series).
It’s been a quick write for me. Even while I am at work (for the past week working up to and beyond 12 hour days) I find myself obsessing about what I want to do my next opportunity in front of a computer. I find myself knocking 2,000 words out before breakfast, worried I wont have another chance to write that day and desperate to put my latest thoughts to the page.
Is this why YA is such a popular genre? Not just for the enjoyment it brings readers, but for the writers as well? I have always loved writing and have always obsessed over my work, but YA conjures a different kind of excitement. It’s more concrete. With other work I focus on the themes and get excited over the meanings but with YA I’m actually describing characters as “cool” and “awesome.” It’s far more vernacular. Paragraphs are far more straight forward, with simpler language, because the language is not the focal point; it is the vessel for the story and my main focus is creating a plot the invisible reader in the back of my mind won’t be able to put down.
YA has earned its place as a top genre. It has beautifully intertwined reader entertainment and author creativity to produce one of the most dynamic genres. This experiment with a new genre has been a blast, and I hope to add more YA manuscripts to my archive for years to come.
As always thank you for reading.
Best regards,
-R.K. Gold
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