Y is for YA Fiction

Cartoon by Debbie Ridpath Ohi at Inkygirl.com

I'm pretty excited about taking on Year of the YA Novel, so today I'm sharing some links for information on writing for teens.

Writing Young Adult Fiction for Dummies - this is a cheat sheet with lots of tips on writing for teens.

Radio National - The Book Show - How to Write YA Fiction - download the audio file to hear a talkback show on writing YA fiction.

10 Top Issues to Address in YA Fiction - this came from discussions with teens at my last high school. They were very honest about issues that were important to them, these can be the basis for your conflict and your theme. Some of their responses might surprise you.

My top tip for writing YA fiction? A non-judgemental voice. Yes teen pregnancy is a good edgy topic for a novel. No, we do not want to encourage a bunch of teens to rush out and get pregnant. BUT. If you are writing from the teen perspective, you have to be honest about their feelings, you have to be truthful about describing the rush of endorphins experienced with a first kiss, and the desire to take things further. You can't just skip straight to the consequences, otherwise you'll be like the coach in Mean Girls, "Don't have sex because you'll get pregnant and die." 

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Y is for YA Writing

I'm very excited :)

I need to take my girls to Sydney in May for a dinosaur show, and it just happens to be the same weekend there are some great events happening for the Sydney Writers Festival!

I've signed up for a day's workshop on writing for YAs hosted by Jeni Mawter:

Acne is Optional, Attitude is Not: Writing for Young Adults

Do you try to attend workshops, or writers festivals? I get so much out of them, even if the information is not new (and there's always something new), I get so motivated to write by being in the presence of other writers. If you need an excuse here's my post:

8 Reasons to Attend Writers Festivals

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A Linky Kinda Day

I was thinking about how pictures can be used as story prompts (something I like to do in class) and I came across this pic entitled "There's always one idiot to spoil your holiday snaps" in an environmental newsletter. It made me laugh and think about the classes I teach, there's always one kid like that seal, exasperating but delightful too.

I've decided this week is a Linky week, I've been spending a lot of time blog hopping (when I should be editing) and wanted to share some writer's links I've found.

Publishing:

Dreaming In Text Brian Keaney took the time to comment on my blog about self-publishing last week, and his site has many posts regarding this topic. This link will take you to Brian's posts on publishing.

A Newbies Guide to Publishing for the flip side, here is an author exploring what works when self-publishing on Kindle.

Editing:

NaNoEdMo If you've read previous posts from me you'll know I became a huge fan of NaNoWriMo this year, to the point of creating a lesson unit for high school English. NaNoEdMo is a separate site which starts in a few days and encourages you to edit a novel for 50hours in one month. I'll give it a go with my NaNo novel: The Costume Maker.

Story in Literary Fiction this site has essays on editing fiction.

Reviews:

I also branched out more this week and started reading more book review sites (usually I stick to the blogs about writing fiction). Reading reviews can help you find your market, see what similar fiction is out there and get direct feedback on what readers like and don't like in fiction. Here's where I was reading reviews this week for YA fiction:

Rhiana Reads the reviews here are quite honest and critical. Positive and negative feedback is given for popular YA fiction, this week was Evermore.

Teens Read and Write I think I was most blown away with how professional this site looks, makes me want to make mine a bit more snazzy now.  What better way to write YA fiction than to hear what YAs have to say about it?

Hooked on YA Books Blog on YA literature by YA.

Have a favourite link or blog about writing or books? Feel free to add the link in comments, I'd love to visit!

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