Editor's note: Audrey is a 13-year-old student from California who is currently working on her own novel between school, sports and choir. She's also a Contributing Editor to Write4Kids, focusing on middle grade and young adult literature. If you have writing-related questions for Audrey, or want to suggest a topic for a future column, please contact Laura at Laura@write4kids.com.

Visit Audrey's blog, Audrey Reads and Reviews, for more of her insights into YA lit.

Hello, people! I have two topics that I’d like to address today.

First off, something that I don’t like.

I’ve been reading lots lately, more than usual (which is saying something). I’ve also been reading different genres—I’ve picked up some paranormal, high fantasy, and lots of literary contemporary.

Throughout a bunch of the paranormal and high fantasy that I read, there was a recurring theme (not so much in the literary-contemporary):

Those perfect little people who talk like they’re from the Victorian Age (i.e. very smart and formal) and always look super pretty! even after some intense battle scene. In fantasy/paranormal, they usually have powers that are super epic! or they’re the Chosen One. In realistic fiction they’re always super popular! or super misunderstood!

OK, so they annoy me for two reasons:

One, on a more technical level: relate-ability. I mean, who looks completely gorgeous and/or devilishly handsome (a common description of the male characters of this persuasion) all the time? And sorry, authors, but everyone uses contractions. You shouldn’t, can’t, and hopefully won’t have a character who says “should not” “cannot” and “will not” all the time.*

Also, am I the only one who thinks the Chosen One is a little…you know…cliché? I mean, there are a lot of books out there about someone who is the special-est…

Also, if your character is popular, that’s okay. If your character is misunderstood, that’s okay too. But if your character is misunderstood because she is so beautiful, it’s a complete curse, like, you know?! we might have a little problem, and I suggest you read My Immortal by Tara (Google it).

Two, on a completely personal level: they. are. everywhere. It’s the attack of the clones, people!

I recently read a series of books, paranormal mystery-romance. These weren’t little books, they were like 600-700 pages each. I liked some parts of it a lot—the action/battle scenes were well written, and the world nicely developed. But every single character in it was super perfect, beautiful, either a sweetheart or sexyevil. Very Mary-Sue like. So I stopped reading about halfway through the second book.

I mean, even the character who is supposedly is so evil, you guys! is oh-so-sexy and devilishly handsome.

It really bugged me. You know, a friend of mine said that you should kill off a character that gets WAY too much physical description compared to the other characters.

Well, if this extremely popular series killed off the overly-described characters, there would be no story. **

Just a tip: describe your character once. You can reinforce it, if you like, with “she flicked her pink hair” or something like that, but you do not need to remind us that Elaina has luscious blonde hair or Damien has devilishly handsome black eyes every single page.

Be creative. Your character should have a great personality, not just a beautiful exterior, because… shallow, much?

Now the good:

I just finished reading Will Grayson, Will Grayson, and I absolutely loved it! I strongly encourage you read it.

I liked it because it was bubbly. One of the Wills was a normal teen; the other one was severely depressed. But, somehow, the two authors (John Green and David Levithan) managed to make it…light. It dealt with heavy subject matter at times (self-identity, self-harm, depression, lying, revenge), but it retained a nonchalant tone throughout.

That’s not to say that you should write a novel with a suicidal main character, and have her sound all breezy and offhand. But it’s a nice juxtaposition that the two authors did well.

Another thing I liked about Will Grayson, Will Grayson was that it was smart. The narrators were both intelligent, and I am sick of reading books with narrators who sound dumb or have no interesting insights. You don’t have to write a SAT Vocabulary book to make your main characters sound smart, however. Just have them talk like normal intelligent human beings—witty retorts, irony, and sarcasm are always a plus.

I also read Marcelo in the Real World, and I absolutely loved it!

The main character, Marcelo, had Asperger’s Syndrome. However, he was a very real, engaging, interesting character to read about. His struggles weren’t ones that teens would face every day, but I grew to relate and care about Marcelo.

Also, the voice (written by Francisco X. Stork) was amazing! It had interesting wordplay, humor, and was really touching. During most of the novel, I could feel Marcelo’s passion for his cause.

I really enjoyed the cast of characters, too. I liked how the main characters were so different from each other, and disliked each other from the start, but grew to be friends. I liked how everything didn’t work out perfectly. And I especially liked how, in the end, you could see exactly how the characters grew as people and as friends.

Audrey

*unless they’re geniuses, or something like it.

** no, I did not read Twilight. What kind of person do you think I am?

****disclaimer: I have no problem reading about characters with exceptional looks. Just don’t make their looks the only exceptional thing about them, and give them at least one physical flaw. Just 'cos nobody’s perfect. ****

Editor's note: Audrey is a 13-year-old student from California who is currently working on her own novel between school, sports and choir. She's also a Contributing Editor to Write4Kids, focusing on middle grade and YA literature. If you have writing-related questions for Audrey, or want to suggest a topic for a future column, please contact Laura at Laura@write4kids.com.

Visit Audrey's new blog, Audrey Reads and Reviews, for more of her insights into YA lit.

For this blog post, I’ve interviewed Alma Alexander. Ms. Alexander has published the YA fantasy series Worldweavers from HarperTeen. Her side project is a very interesting one—she wrote a novel as a 14 year old, and she has been editing it and revising it on a website: http://heritageofclan.wordpress.com/. Visit her online at: http://www.almaalexander.com/.

Audrey: I really like the social structure of the story (with the clans and guilds etc). But, more than that, I like the world you’ve created. Do you have any advice for creating a world so thoroughly? When I read your work, I feel like there’s a bigger world out there than just the parts that you’ve written about. Any advice?

Alma: Actually there is a whole file that I created about that world (and yes, I still have that too) which delves into ALL SORTS of detail about it – most of which never ever makes it into the book/story itself. It’s what I call the Iceberg Theory of Writing – what the reader sees is only the top 5% of what there is to know, the stuff that’s above the waterline and looks pretty and spectacular. But it RESTS on all that invisible 95% that is under water, never seen. That is what provides the stability and familiarity for that 5% which appears to be floating effortlessly in mid-air.

In our own everyday mundane world that 95% can be as visible as the rest – simply because we LIVE in this world 24/7, live it breathe it hold it touch it smell it every day, and it’s deeply and utterly familiar and transparent to us. We take a huge amount of stuff for granted, simply because we KNOW that it is there. Creating a fantasy world from scratch means that you lack this built-in scaffolding, and you have to build your own. The advice you are asking for boils down to one simple thing – ALWAYS know more about your world than you let on, and then the reader will instinctively pick up on the fact that there is more to know, and therefore the world has a depth and a reality which is then comparable to our own “real” world.

Audrey: You have a lot of characters. They all seem to have totally different personalities. How do you do this? I love ensemble casts (I usually write them, but mine are mainly all teenagers), and you seem to be writing about all different social castes and ages. How do/did you figure everything out about the characters? How do/did you keep everything straight about them? When I try to do a lot of characters, I mix them up.

Alma: Hi, my name is Alma and I HEAR VOICES…

Well, that’s a simplistic way of putting it, but that’s what it boils down to, for me. I don’t so much create characters as allow them in, simply let them wander by and tell me a story, and I simply take dictation. The fact that they all have different voices stands to reason – they are all different people. I contain many many people, I contain worlds. But it isn’t something I do on a conscious level. I simply listen.

Part of the ability to write across the boundaries of class and race and age comes from the fact that I am a voracious reader. I devour books – and every book I read teaches me something which gets filed away for future reference for if and when a character who might be so VERY different from myself might need such knowledge or identity markers. If I am writing about somebody from a culture with which I am less than adequately familiar, I will immerse myself in reading about that culture until I “internalize” some of its basic ideas and beliefs – and with those, comes the voice.

A character’s voice is rooted in that character’s context and culture. These are creatures who all exist in a complex mix of relationships to the people and places in their lives, to their set of beliefs, to their faith, to their worldview, to their morality, to their physical and metaphysical address in the world in which they live. All of these things inform the way they respond to that world.

In the Clans book, for instance, I am setting up a conflict between two people who love and respect each other – who are foster-brothers – who have both grown up aristocrats in a world where aristocrats have a certain social position – but their minds and the thoughts and feelings therein are very different, and when their positions in their world are rocked by new revelations they respond in ways that will set them up as enemies in what amounts to a civil war. It is important to realize that even people who on the face of it look almost identical to one another might react very differently to the same stimulus – and once you keep this in mind, the different inner voices of these people will make themselves known to you if you listen closely. Read more

Editor's note: Audrey is a 13-year-old student from California who is currently working on her own novel between school, sports and choir. She's also a Contributing Editor to Write4Kids, focusing on middle grade and YA literature. If you have writing-related questions for Audrey, or want to suggest a topic for a future column, please contact Laura at Laura@write4kids.com.

Hi!

Since I’ve received some questions from YA writers, I’ve decided to do a Q-and-A post. If you like it, I’ll do more in the future.

Elizabeth asks:

 Do historical mysteries appeal to you at all?

My answer:

I hate to have a cop-out like this, but honestly, it depends. The historical fiction we read in school is so darn boring. Everyone agrees about that. It’s because every single book we read in class has the exact same plot: orphan goes on a “quest” to find their remaining family/find out who they are. Seriously, all the books we read have the same plot, but just a different time period. The Girl Named Disaster (Nancy Farmer), Crispin and the Cross of Lead (Avi), The Sign of the Chrysanthemum (Katherine Paterson), The Winter People (Joseph Bruchac) are some of the books we’ve read, and if you are interested, choose a couple of titles out of that list, read them, and just see for yourself the oddly identical plots.

I know there is an influx of “glam” historical fiction coming into the YA market now. The Luxe (Anna Godbersen) is what, in my opinion, started this influx. But I apologize in advance, because some people now equate insulting The Luxe to dissing Twilight (but dissing Twilight has become somewhat PC now), but I really didn’t like The Luxe. Ok fine, it was superbly researched, but it was just boring, because once you get over the pretty cover picture and fluffy vocabulary, it’s like, “Plot? What plot?”

So I guess it depends. A historical novel I enjoyed was Wicked Girls (Stephanie Hemphill), which was a beautiful novel-in-verse about the Salem Witch Trials. I liked Wicked Girls because the characters were very interesting and entertainingly creepy, and the poetry was stunning. Another that I enjoyed was Abundance (Sena Jeter Naslund), a fictionalized account of Marie Antoinette and the French Revolution (Abundance is listed as adult fiction, but I’d say it is very YA). I liked Abundance because it was very intriguing, and painted the queen in a sympathetic manner. I also enjoyed the semi-insane cast of supporting characters. What I didn’t like about Abundance was that it got really boring and overly political in the middle/end parts.

History has always interested me, but I’ve yet to find a completely engrossing historical fiction novel, which is a shame.

Taurean asks:

What's Behind the Curtain anyway. What is it about Ty that's so irresistible?

My answer:

Behind the Curtain is a very well-written younger YA mystery by Peter Abrahams. Check it out.

Now that I’m over Ty (fickle, fickle teenage girls) I can tell you why I liked him without being all fan-girly.

Ty was awesome because he was a normal badass. Like, he didn’t carry around a switchblade and he couldn’t fly. He was also pretty detached and had his own life, but he was super sweet and/or protective (NOT in a creepy Edward stalker way) to girls. Also, he was the only freshman on varsity football and I found that cool, because, I don’t know, athletic guys are usually pretty cool.

But he did have his issues. He was on steroids for a lil bit there, but he got it all sorted out.

And also somewhere it said that he looked like an Abercrombie model, and that’s always a plus.

So, yeah. That’s why I liked Ty Levin-Hill.

Nancy asks:

From your last post: “A lot of times, the language in YA books seems really dated and not authentic…." Not to split hairs, but a sincere question: Do you mean to refer to YA manuscripts? Or do you actually find recent, published YA books to be dated/not authentic?

My answer:

Both. I remember reading a book a few weeks ago aloud to my mom, and laughing about how out-of-touch it was. And it was published in February. One of the many examples is, “'Oh, nuts,' she sputtered, looking down at her once perfectly creased tan slacks that matched the stripe in her violet sweater vest.”

Actually, I’ve researched, and turns out it’s an entire series of books (I only read the first one). So yeah, books with awfully outdated slang have been published.

Also, I read another book (published last year), and the only sort of slang it had was an abundance of swearing. And trust me, swearing isn’t slang.

Amber-Dawn asks:

You mentioned that you hate it when young people in books have dialogue that sounds like they’re from another time period. Do you feel the same way if a book is written in a fantasy world that is supposed to be from, well, you know, a long time ago? And also, I’ve never tried to do accents before, but you mentioned it’s a pet peeve of yours for writers to sound out the words like an accent would sound. So is it ever cool to try and write a character’s dialogue in the accent where they’re from?

My answer:

I meant that I don’t like it when books that take place in modern times have characters who speak like they’re from another time period. If you are writing a book that takes place in a fictional world or is set in 1853 or whatever, you should definitely have the characters talk like they’re from the past.

I don’t know what you mean by accent. If you’re writing about a character from the South, you should definitely have the stereotypical Southern-isms in it, such as “y’all”. But please don’t write the character’s normal speech like “can yah pah-lease tell me the tahme?” That would be really annoying, like, trust me, as annoying as reading a The Clique book. Because that’s how they talk in those books (for example, “'Uh’v koursse!' said Ah-nna.”)

Tobi asks:

What’s your take on the incursion of “dark” young adult novels?

My answer:

I hate vampires. Sorry. They’re lame. Like, Edward Cullen is the most stalkerish, creepy, epic fail at badass-ness character ever. So he basically killed all curiosity in vampires that I could potentially have. And all my friends feel the same way. Also, Stefan, from the Vampire Diaries, really annoys me because he’s all sensitive but tries way too hard to be a tough guy. And I don’t particularly like werewolves either, but everybody knows they’re dead by now.

Also, the Ellen Hopkins novels (Fallout, Glass, and others) are something that I have absolutely no interest in. People with serious and creepy mental problems don’t interest me. Same with Wintergirls. I don’t particularly like books about mentally disordered people (such as cutters or anorexics), but I do enjoy the books by Mary Downing Hahn, which are interestingly scary.

Don’t follow trends, because trends will be dead and gone by the time your novel is out on the market. So, if you’re writing a book about vampires (dead last year) or werewolves (dead last summer), stop now, hit the Control-f keys to find and replace the word “vampire” or “werewolf” with “guido” and the word “pale” or “furry” with “orange”.

Any other questions? Comment or email!

Audrey

Editor's note: Audrey is a 13-year-old student from California who is currently working on her own novel between school, sports and choir. She's also a Contributing Editor to Write4Kids, focusing on middle grade and YA literature. If you have writing-related questions for Audrey, or want to suggest a topic for a future column, please contact Laura at Laura@write4kids.com.

Hey!

This is my second column, and I’m totally like, taking on the topic of like, slang, n’ stuff.

I’ve critiqued manuscripts written for a YA audience before, and one of the major things that stand out to me about these manuscripts is dialogue. Nothing is better than reading a manuscript in which the author really knows his/her audience and the way they talk. Other times, I’m wincing while I read—the author has no clue.

One of the worst things (in my opinion) an author can do with teen language is mess up the characterization. Say you’re writing a novel about a girl named Anaìs. So, Anaìs is a child prodigy, who lives in Seattle, and is reserved and sort of icy.

How would Anaìs say hi?

If you said, “Ayy, girl, wassup?!”, it wouldn’t fit her character, right? However, some authors tend to try and oversimplify teen language, or they give every character the same way of speaking.

Anaìs would probably say something like, “Hello (insert name of other character here). How are you?” Something a bit more reticent and subdued.

Another thing I’ve seen authors do is have every character in a novel talk like this: "OMG, that’s totally, like, really cool, like, I can’t believe it, ya know?!” Sorry, but teenagers don’t really talk like that. I, for one, have overused the word ‘like’ before. But no one wants to read my tendency to stutter ‘like…like… like’ when I don’t know what to say.

An insanely annoying thing that A TON of authors do is spell things phonetically based on the way their character speaks. For example, “Ohmuhgawd, I cannawt bee-lieeve she’d do thaht.”

For some reason, that phonetic-spelling thing is probably my biggest language pet peeve. Don’t do it. Please. It feels sort of tacky and also a bit patronizing. It’s okay to say “so-and-so had very affected speech” but please don’t write her speech affectation.

Also, another thing that annoys me is when your protagonist is 17 years old and talks like she has a Ph.D. from Harvard. I know you’re trying to make her seem all sophisticated and smart, but come on. No true teenager talks like that. Unless she’s a 173 year old vampire, in which case… never mind.

Slang is hard. I strongly advise against writing a novel not set in your city (or fictional city like yours) or state. It’s really annoying when a person tries to write a novel set in your city, and they get it all wrong. Read more

Hi! My name is Audrey, I am 13 years old and I live in California. I like to play sports, especially water polo. I sing in a choir and enjoy acting. I love reading and writing. At the moment, I’m reading Bullet Point by Peter Abrahams (and so far, it’s quite captivating), and I’m writing a novel titled The Good Girl’s Guide to Jewel Theft. But that will change, because, starting November 1st, I will be participating in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month).

For my inaugural column, I chose to interview some of my friends about the aspects of YA lit they especially like.

Caroline C. (14 years old):

• People who are funny and cool (Caroline defines cool as “people who are smart, funny, and maybe a little out there.”)

• Good-looking people (Caroline really hates when the good-looking main character is in love with a “freak of the week”, and she wants at least one beautiful person in a novel, preferably more.)

• Mysteries, theft, and murders

• Sports

• Inside jokes that are funny!

• Characters like Ty from Behind the Curtain by Peter Abrahams and Adam from The President’s Daughter by Ellen Emerson White—Caroline likes male characters who are “nice, smart, funny, confident, and beautiful.”

Eleri Q. (13):

• Beautiful people

• Fantasy worlds that you wish you could see

• Unique names

• Whole worlds made up of new, exciting entities and lives and laws and societies.

• Books that make you want to cry when they’re over—not necessarily because they’re insanely sad, just because you want to be in the world for a little bit longer.

• Mysteries where you have to think/predict what will happen, mysteries that aren’t obvious.

• British accents (Audrey and Caroline agree with this times 20)

• People who are intelligent/smart, and tall, because “I seem to connect with them.”

• Eleri feels really connected to the character if the character in question is super smart but then makes a stupid mistake

• Characters with a really ironic sense of humor, characters who get the humor in bad situations

• Characters who are just a teensy bit wicked!

Kailey S. (13):

• The one character who no one likes because they’re annoying or bratty or just misunderstood

• Characters who speak their minds, characters who are opinionated

• Kailey doesn’t like talking animals because they’re annoying and lame

• Ty from Behind the Curtain by Peter Abrahams

Alex W. (15):

• Alex likes The Hobbit (J.R. Tolkien) because there are funny characters and it’s interesting. It’s interesting because it’s fantasy but you can relate to the characters and understand why they made their decisions. He also likes this book because it’s not crazy out-there fantasy.

• He especially likes the Dragon from The Hobbit because he was tricky and smart, but also had flaws. Alex doesn’t like characters that are too perfect.

• Alex likes the Life of Pi by Yann Martel because it was kind of funny and also an adventure. Alex likes adventure stories a lot.

• Alex likes characters who are smart and funny and witty.

Audrey (Me!) (13):

• Interesting explanations of non-interesting things (I swear, The Red Blazer Girls by Michael Beils taught me how to do algebra. Now if someone does a good example on how to factor equations, I will be Set For Life.)

Characters who occasionally talk in other languages (Por ejemplo, I sometimes parle francais, y tu?)

Characters who do relatable things (believe it or not, sometimes teenagers actually have to stay home and study on Saturday nights and miss the party of the year. Pity.)

Books about art theft or jewel theft or the mafia or spies or criminals in general—except for psychopath teenage killers/druggies, they’re boring and way too depressing for me to care about.

Characters who betray other characters

• Characters like Ty (seriously, everyone loves Ty from Behind the Curtain. It’s indisputable.)

• Inside jokes! Seriously, if you’re writing for teens, and you don’t include an entertaining inside joke, I’ll be like “no.”

• In plots: at the risk of sounding cliché, the bigger the better. I like plots with some drama, some intrigue, and a bit of action.

• In characters: I happen to like characters who are unique, who aren’t perfect. I like the character named Allison who lives next door—but secretly, Allison has an alias that supposedly lives in Prague.

To close this, I would like to state what (in my opinion) is over in YA. Vampires—I hope you know that vampires are finally dead. Ditto vampire boarding school. Seriously, how many books must be written about anti-social vampires at boarding school?

Also, the name Damien/Damon/Damion/etc. for the bad-boy love interest irks me. If I read this line ever again—But when she arrives at the Academy, danger is waiting for her, in the form the darkly passionate Damien.—I think I shall die.

I’ve noticed a trend in YA lately—semi-dystopian heroic fiction. I’ve seen a lot of main characters with special powers, be it the power to fly, or the power to morph into a wolf. My opinion is this: it’s not overdone yet, but it looks like it’s heading in that direction.

Finally, I have a request. Write a normal love interest for us. Someone who isn’t all mysterious and dark and brooding. Someone who doesn’t have eyes that convey hidden depths or battle scars that form weird tattoos. Someone who doesn’t display exceedingly stalkerish traits and isn’t illogically overprotective.  Someone who isn’t named Damien.

Audrey is a Contributing Editor to Write4Kids and Children’s Book Insider: The Newsletter for Children’s Writers. She’ll be writing on middle grade and young adult literature topics about once a month. If you have questions for Audrey or topics you’d like her to cover, send an email to Laura@write4kids.com.