{"id":5788,"date":"2020-10-17T19:56:24","date_gmt":"2020-10-17T23:56:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/?p=5788"},"modified":"2020-10-17T19:56:24","modified_gmt":"2020-10-17T23:56:24","slug":"writing-ya-when-youre-not-a-teen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/writing\/writing-ya-when-youre-not-a-teen\/","title":{"rendered":"Writing YA When You’re Not a Teen"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>A friend asked me lately how I, as an adult, write YA. In particular, she wanted to know if I need to be around teenagers to write for them.<\/p>\n

It helps, certainly. I taught high school English for years, I\u2019ve volunteered with teen writers, I\u2019ve raised my own kids, and I have teenage nieces and nephews. I once was a teen, too, which counts for something. Still, since I\u2019m not around teens on a daily basis right now, I\u2019m conscious of my limits.<\/p>\n

For instance, I would not attempt to capture current teen speech patterns. These change so rapidly that I couldn\u2019t do it with authenticity even if I were privy to their private, unfiltered conversations. However, since I set my stories in the future, I have some leeway in making up my characters\u2019 speech patterns. Friends develop shorthand ways of talking to each other that often create their own humor, and I can do that. Also, if my teen characters’ speech reflects their backgrounds, emotions, and thoughts, especially if what they say varies a bit from what they\u2019re thinking, the dialogue can feel layered and believable.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more important than the way my characters speak, however, is conveying how quickly they think. The teens I know pivot around their ideas with lightning flexibility, going in a heartbeat from how best to roll the waistlines of their uniform skirts to the impact of gases produced by the cattle industry. They\u2019re just as ready to question and argue as they are to be tender or self-effacing. Fortunately, even if I can\u2019t pull off this quickness in a first draft, I can revise via my slower thinking to create the right effect on the page.<\/p>\n

Finally, I\u2019m highly conscious that my teenage readers are interested in music, art, social justice, social media, climate change, survival, honesty, language, relationships, work, exploring the world, saving the world, understanding their parents, dystopias, and discovering their roles in society–in short, the same subjects that puzzle and fascinate me. If I can write a story that turns around things that matter, I might have a shot at appealing to my readers.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re not that different, teenagers and adults. The biggest mistake would be to forget that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A friend asked me lately how I, as an adult, write YA. In particular, she wanted to know if I need to be around teenagers to write for them. It helps, certainly. I taught high school English for years, I\u2019ve volunteered with teen writers, I\u2019ve raised my own kids, and I have teenage nieces and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5787,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5788"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5788\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5793,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5788\/revisions\/5793"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}