L.D. Taylor
A family tragedy actually launched me into writing for teens.
Let's start with, 'why crime thrillers' though. I've always loved mysteries: I grew up on a diet of Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden (girl detective fiction) and graduated into 1930's classic crime novels and short stories. I looked originally at writing crime thrillers for adults, but I didn't like much of what was currently being published (too sordid). However, I quickly realised that in writing for teens: you're expected to keep it clean (whoohoo!) I was dragging my butt a bit though, when my eldest son (then 13) had an incident at school where a kid broke his arm (intentionally). We lived in rural Ontario at the time and had to make numerous trips into Ottawa to the Children's Hospital over the next couple of months. It was on one of those trips (2 hours each way) that I said, 'Ok. Let's see if we can come up with the outline for a mystery novel set in the video game industry." Everyone in the family (except maybe my daughter who was then 1) threw her/himself into it. That's why the first book is dedicated to my two sons: it was really born of their trauma (even my second son ended up having to leave school due to the commotion that followed with the school over how they handled this). So… you never know how something good can be born of something tragic.
Let's start with, 'why crime thrillers' though. I've always loved mysteries: I grew up on a diet of Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden (girl detective fiction) and graduated into 1930's classic crime novels and short stories. I looked originally at writing crime thrillers for adults, but I didn't like much of what was currently being published (too sordid). However, I quickly realised that in writing for teens: you're expected to keep it clean (whoohoo!) I was dragging my butt a bit though, when my eldest son (then 13) had an incident at school where a kid broke his arm (intentionally). We lived in rural Ontario at the time and had to make numerous trips into Ottawa to the Children's Hospital over the next couple of months. It was on one of those trips (2 hours each way) that I said, 'Ok. Let's see if we can come up with the outline for a mystery novel set in the video game industry." Everyone in the family (except maybe my daughter who was then 1) threw her/himself into it. That's why the first book is dedicated to my two sons: it was really born of their trauma (even my second son ended up having to leave school due to the commotion that followed with the school over how they handled this). So… you never know how something good can be born of something tragic.
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