Category: Writing Craft, Writing YA
Recently, Robin and I had a conversation about how there seems to be a lot of confusion surrounding the differences between YA novels and MG novels. Most people know the basics, such as MG books are shorter than YA books, and MG protagonists are younger, under 14 as opposed to YA protagonists who are 15-18 years old, but word count and age are not the only differences. In fact, I’d argue that they’re not even the most important. So what is?
For the answer, read the full post on WriteOnSisters.com.
Category: Writing Craft, Game Writing, Writing YA
For more than a year I’ve been writing and story editing a dating adventure game called LongStory. At the start of the game, players select their avatar and gender, choosing whether they want to be referred to as “she”, “he” or “they”. We don’t write different dialogue or storylines for different player genders. LongStory is written to be gender-inclusive.
What does that mean? Well, gender-inclusive or gender-neutral means using language that avoids bias towards a particular gender. This might seem daunting considering this is a dating game that includes romantic storylines, but it’s not if you follow these three tips…
Category: Writing YA
When it comes to writing for teenagers, the general rule regarding language is this:
Don’t use slang in your YA novel.
I abide by this rule, yet it’s come to my attention that I may be using slang accidentally! WTF?
Read the post on WriteOnSisters.com to find out what happened.
Category: Writing YA
If the interwebs are to be believed, YA readers are sick of insta-love – that moment when the heroine sees a cute stranger and decides immediately he’s the one! On Goodreads people have made “No Insta-Love” shelves and there’s even a Listopia “Young Adult Books Without Insta-Love.” So why is this trope still in so many YA novels? Well, it does have its pros…
Category: Writing YA
At a writing conference the topic of swearing in YA lit came up. I was surprised some writers vehemently believed you couldn’t put the F-word in a YA novel. They claimed no agent or editor would publish it with that word (or even other lesser curses) on the pages. I looked at them in disbelief because I devour dozens of YA novels a year and encounter swearing in… well, I couldn’t tell them an exact percentage or which books, except for a handful that were especially profane due to the characters’ circumstances. The rest? I was sure they all had the odd swear word, but I had no stats.
So how common is swearing in YA novels? For the answer, I hit up Google…