Thursday, May 27, 2010

Why Write YA?

Tip of the Day: Check out author Carrie Ryan's blog post from yesterday-- she very nicely outlines the process of a book going from author's head to in your hands.

This topic fits in perfectly after Deena's great post yesterday about why she loves to read young adult fiction. And it's also been on my mind because in a little over a week Kristin Walker and I are going to be giving a presentation together at a local library and one of the things they'd like us to talk about is why we write young adult fiction. I think this is really good question and I bet there would be lots of different answers from YA writers. As for me, I never thought I'd write fiction let alone write young adult fiction books. I always loved writing and got my Masters in Writing and wanted to teach writing at the high school and college level. And I did a lot of technical writing and magazine writing. But YA writing was never on my radar. Around five years ago I had an idea for a book and it happened to take place in a high school with four girls. I wrote the book and discovered, WOW, I love this! And then I just kept doing it and I'm working on my eight book now. It's kind of like dating a bunch of schmucks and then finding Mr. Right. You just know when he's the right one. And that's what happened with me and YA writing. Something clicked when I stumbled upon it and I knew it was the right fit. I think a lot of it has to do with my voice being a good fit for the genre. And I like that a lot of firsts happen at this age so I get to sort of re-live things through my characters. It's a time of big dreams and hopes and the idea that anything is possible so it's a lot of fun to write for this age group.

So tell me writers, why do YOU write YA?

Kristina, Miss See Me on the Shelves

5 comments:

Kathleen Wall said...

One of the reasons I write (and read!) YA is because it's such an exciting time of self-discovery. Teens also experience life with such intense emotions. It's so much easier to have conflict on every page when we write about teens.

Kate Fall said...

Teens are more open to new ideas. Adults have their minds made up about a subject before they read something. I have lots of reasons for writing YA, but that's one of them.

Emily Marshall said...

You named about every reason I write YA as well. I never even thought of writing books until I started to read teen fiction, and then I was hooked as well.

I love the comparison to meeting Mr. Right and just knowing it's a good fit for you.

DeenaML said...

I've always read YA, MG, and adult books. Then I took the YA Services class for my MLS and after reading a ton of newer YA, that was when I decided to write it. I never even had the urge to write adult though in the past 15 years I've read so much of it. Not sure why exactly except it's fun!

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