That’s the thing with parents in Young Adult literature—can’t live with them, can’t live without them. Teens are exploring their world for the first time, attempting to establish their own identity separate from their families of origin, so you will find almost all characters going on adventures independent of their parents.

If you are writing a young adult novel, it’s important to consider your characters’ parents on the front end, and develop them into three-dimensional, well rounded, fully fleshed out people to avoid stereotypes and cookie cutter plot devices.

Where it Started, Where We Are

When some of the first young adult novels came out in the 1960s, Julie Just from the New York Times said the parent narrative “fit in neatly with the classic narratives: its strongest stories were about orphans and lost boys of one kind or another.” In these novels, issues weren’t with parents but with other kids. 

But by the 70s and 80s, the narrative started to shift the conflict from friendships to what was happening at home. This is where the problem parent narrative entered the scene, and has never left. It’s not to say all parents should be problematic, because surely there are still supportive parents out there, but you do have to consider the role the parents will play because it’s a significant part of young adults lives…and of course, how to get rid of them so teens characters can go on their adventures.

Approaches to Developing Your Characters’ Parents

Active and supportive parents 

By all means, you can make the parents a positive force in your protagonist’s life. Or even if the protagonist’s parents aren’t the greatest, one of the side characters could have supportive parents. They can serve as mentors, confidants, or sources of guidance for the protagonist. 

This approach emphasizes a positive parent-child relationship and showcases the protagonist’s growth while navigating challenges. 

Here are a few examples of novels who took this approach:

• The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas: The protagonist, Starr, has parents who are actively involved in her life, providing support and guidance as she navigates the aftermath of witnessing a police shooting.
• Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling: Although Harry’s parents are deceased so you wouldn’t consider them active, their love and sacrifice play a significant role throughout the series, shaping Harry’s journey and providing emotional support.

Tips for crafting Active and Supportive Parents

• Show moments of emotional connection between the parents and your characters.
• Illustrate how the parents’ guidance and presence positively impact the protagonist’s journey.
• Use the parents’ wisdom or advice to provide insights and lessons for your characters’ growth.

Absent or Neglectful Parents

Absent or neglectful parents create a ton of opportunities for tension and conflict. This can lead the protagonist down the path of having to fend for themselves or seek support from alternative sources, such as friends, mentors, or other family members. It allows for a greater sense of independence and self-discovery as the protagonist overcomes obstacles. 

And the reality for a lot of kids is this is their lived experience, so experiencing a character overcoming this struggle can help them process their own life circumstances. 

Check out these novels for examples of this approach to parents:

• A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas: The main character, Feyre, has a neglectful and unsupportive family. Her journey takes her into the magical Fae realm where she finds a new family and discovers her own strength.
• Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell: The novel tells the story of two misfit teenagers, Eleanor and Park, who bond over music and comics. Eleanor comes from a troubled home with neglectful and abusive parents, which adds to the challenges they face in their relationship.

Tips for crafting Absent or Neglectful Parents

• Explore the protagonist’s emotions and reactions to their parents’ absence, such as feelings of abandonment or independence.
• Emphasize the impact of the absent or neglectful parents on the protagonist’s self-reliance and resilience.
• Showcase the protagonist seeking alternative sources of support and building relationships with other characters.

Overprotective or Controlling Parents 

This is basically the opposite of the parental figure we just explored. There are so many challenges characters can face when dealing with overprotective or controlling parents, and a tremendous amount of conflict can come from this. 

In some novels, this role of the parents actually creates the plot in the novel. Obstacles arise as the main character tries to assert her independence, make her own choices, or pursue her dreams. The positive side, it creates opportunities for the protagonist to develop resilience and assertiveness. 

Here are a couple novels that wrote this kind of parental figure well:

• Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon: This is a novel where the main character’s overprotective mom creates the plot for the whole novel. Olly has a rare disease, where she is allergic to basically the whole world, and her mother keeps her protected from it. But when the new boy next door catches Olly’s eye, she begins to push the boundaries of her mother’s rules thus setting the story into motion.
• We Were Liars by E. Lockhart: The story features a wealthy family known as the Sinclairs, and the main character, Cadence, has overprotective parents who try to control her life. Their actions and secrets play a significant role in the unfolding mystery.

Tips for Crafting Overprotective or Controlling Parents

• Highlight the tension and conflict arising from the overprotective or controlling behavior.
• Explore the internal struggle of the protagonist, torn between their desire for independence and their parents’ restrictions.
• Allow the protagonist to assert their autonomy and challenge their parents’ control throughout the story, creating opportunities for the protagonist to defy their parents’ expectations and find their own path.

Complex Parent-Child Relationships

No one is really all good or all bad, right? Creating nuanced parent-child relationships that blend positive and negative aspects might be the most realistic approach to developing parents in young adult novels. 

Showing the complexities of family dynamics, with parents who have their own flaws, conflicting expectations, or differing values from the protagonist can add depth and realism to the story. 

A couple examples of novels that did this well are:

• Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver: The main character, Samantha, experiences a time loop, reliving the last day of her life repeatedly. Her complex relationship with her parents, including their expectations and conflicts, contributes to the overall narrative and Samantha’s self-discovery.
• Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo: The characters in this novel come from various backgrounds with complex relationships with their parents or parental figures. Kaz Brekker, for example, has a complicated history with his deceased parents, which shapes his actions and motivations.

Tips for Crafting Complex Parent-Child Relationships

• Unveil the layers of the relationship through meaningful dialogue, flashbacks, or shared experiences.
• Explore the conflicts, misunderstandings, or differing values that shape the complexity of the parent-child dynamic.
• Show instances where the protagonist learns from their parents or reevaluates their relationship as they grow and change.

Parental Absence Due to External Factors 

Sometimes parents might be absent, but it’s not because they don’t care or are neglectful. External circumstances could be forcing the parental absence, such as work commitments, illness, death, or other external factors. 

This can create a sense of longing or loss for the protagonist, leading them to seek understanding or fill the void in their lives. It also offers opportunities for personal growth, resilience, and the formation of unconventional support networks. 

Check out these novels that show this type of parental relationship:

• Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi: In this West African-inspired fantasy, Zélie’s mother is absent due to being killed in a brutal raid. Her absence fuels Zélie’s desire for justice and sets her on a quest to restore magic to her world.
• The Clock Strikes by Dominique Richardson and Sorboni Banerjee: This is the fourth novel in my Everbeach series, and Elle’s father is absent but not because he doesn’t want to be there, but because he’s a truck driver and his work takes him on the road. This leaves Elle at the mercy of her soon-to-be-step mother Juniper, and she seeks guidance and comfort with her godmother, Titania. 

Tips for Crafting Parental Absence Due to External Factors

• Establish the reasons behind the parental absence, such as work, illness, or other circumstances.
• Depict the protagonist’s emotional response to the absence, capturing their longing, grief, or resilience.
• Introduce surrogate parental figures or unconventional support networks to fill the void left by the absent parents.

Whether the parents in your young adult novel will have a positive or negative impact (or even a mix of both) is yours to determine. Hopefully these ideas, examples, and tips will help you craft well-rounded, three dimensional parents for your young adult novel.

Dominique Richardson is the coauthor of The Everbeach Series—a young adult, romantic suspense series full of forbidden romance, deadly twists, and scandalous secrets that will keep you turning pages into the night. The fourth and final book in the series comes out June 6th. Check out the first book, Red as Blood, if you’re looking for your next bingeable read. Passionate about all things books and giving back to the community, she is also the Executive Director and cofounder of YA by the Bay, a nonprofit young adult reading and leadership festival, dedicated to inspiring teens to “be the author of your own life.” Raised between Jamaica and the United States, her biracial heritage finds a home in her books. She spends her free time passing on her love of unicorns to her twin boys, running in the Florida heat, and drinking all the coffee. She now lives in Tampa, Florida with her family.

She would love to connect with you! Find her online on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. If you’d like to stay in the know about her upcoming book releases, sign-up for her email list. To learn more about the YA by the Bay Young Adult Book Festival, check out the website.

The post Crafting the Parents in Your YA Novel appeared first on DIY MFA.

Or maybe you got hooked on a BookTok sensation like Inheritance Games, These Violent Delights, or They Both Die at the End. 

Whatever it was that led you to wanting to write for young adults, you’ll need to understand some basics to write in this exciting space.

Guess What? It’s Not a Genre

One of the first things to understand about young adult is that it is not a genre. It’s actually an audience, just like adult books are referring to the audience. A book written for young adults will fall into one of many genres, such as romance, fantasy, or thriller.

Thinking of it as an audience will also help you get into the right mindset to write for teens. And writing for teens can be a rewarding journey as you can build a rabid fan base who will be loyal to your main character (especially if you write a series), share your work with their friends, and stay up into the wee hours of the night reading by flashlight.

Make Sure You Get Several Things Right

There are a few basics you need to nail down when you’re developing your YA novel. They are as follows:

Age of Your Protagonist. 

Think high school when you’re writing young adult. Since kids typically “read up” in age, reading stories about kids older than they are, you should aim for your main character to be between 15 to 18, with some young adult books, especially in fantasy, having protagonists as 19. 

Younger protagonists, that fall in the age range of 11 to 14, will typically belong in the Middle Grade category—think Harry Potter when he first gets to Hogwarts.

Mind Your Word Count. 

You’ll want to keep your manuscript between 70,000 to 90,000 words. Fantasy and science fiction can skew higher than this, but books spilling over 100,000 words are usually reserved for seasoned authors with built in fan bases. 

Mary Cole, author of Writing Irresistible Kidlit, offers this advice for sticking to the shorter word counts, “It’s always easier to add just the right thing to a sleek and streamlined project than it is to cut from an overlong one.” 

If you do choose to go over in word count, remember it might be to your own peril because the truth is, longer manuscripts are harder to sell.

Remember You’re Writing for Today’s Teens.

Avoid setting the story in the same decade you were in high school (unless you just graduated, then have at it). Believe it or not, teen stories set in the 80’s or 90’s would more than likely be considered historical fiction, not a young adult novel for today’s teen audience. You’ll want to write in either modern or future time periods for this market.

Understand the Teen Mindset. 

Young adults are starting to step away from their parents and figuring out how they fit in the world beyond their family. Being a teenager is an all-consuming stage of life, filled with all of the firsts happening in rapid succession. 

Teens also start to see the darker side of life for the first time, and fiction can be a safe place for them to explore these issues, explains Cole. 

Since teens are naturally in a stage of constant self-reflection, it makes sense that the stories themselves are also full of self-reflection and internality. Because of this, YA novels are often told from the first-person point of view.

Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll…Yes, No, Maybe?

The question of content is something you should strongly consider up front. Many of today’s books written for the young adult audience deal with real issues, and because of this, real content is permissible (content defined as sex, drug and alcohol use, and violence). 

Although there are books in the young adult section that would make any adult’s cheeks blush, take care if you’re considering writing explicit scenes, staying away from erotica. Since teens are exploring their own sexuality, the lines are fuzzy and you might be surprised at what you find on the page. 

The reality is most books on the young adult shelves will have a love story in it whether it’s the main plot or a subplot because romantic relationships are important to teens, bordering on obsessively important. I mean, you remember your high school crushes as clearly as I remember mine, right?

The same goes for drugs and alcohol. It is permissible in young adult, but take care when adding edgier elements to your work ensuring it is essential to telling your story. There are some publishers that will steer clear of substance use and many others who publish books exploring this side of life. 

Violence and profanity are also allowed, but typically not to the level a George R.R. Martin novel might take it.

A great way to gauge what is allowed for the young adult audience is to read widely in the genre you wish to write in, which is a central tenet to the DIY MFA approach to your writing career. What level of content you might see in a young adult fantasy novel will differ from what you’ll see in a young adult contemporary. You’ll develop a sixth sense for what content works and what doesn’t and see how there truly is a wide range permitted for this audience. 

The most important questions to ask yourself when adding edgy elements to your story are these: Is this level of graphic content needed to tell my story authentically? Or could I dial it back and still achieve the same effect?

Are You Telling Your Own Story?

You’re writing fiction not memoir, so your initial response to this question should be, no, I’m making this up as I go along, nothing is real except in my imagination. Yet, it’s more complicated than this. 

In September 2015, the hashtag #ownvoices was born, used by the author Corinne Duyvis to identify books written by diverse authors whose main characters shared the author’s identity. This, coupled with the movement started by We Need Diverse Books, a grassroots organization focused on advocating for more books written by authors of diverse backgrounds, has changed the marketplace for young adult in a meaningful way. 

Today, shelves are lined with stories where every kid should be able to see themself on the page. There is still a lot of work to do, but great strides have been made over the past several years to make sure there is representation across the board.

And this brings us to the point of this section: When developing your main character, it is incredibly important that you choose their identity with care. 

Today’s young adult reader is looking for authenticity, and they want to know the person telling the story truly understands the journey the main character is growing through. And to avoid the harmful perpetuation of stereotypes and shallow treatment of diverse experiences that have too often occurred in the past, publishers and readers are looking for stories told from the experience and identity an author shares with the main character.

That being said, even if you are telling your story from your own experience, as of June 2021, We Need Diverse Books and the market at large started to reduce its usage of the term #ownvoices. Because the term expanded to become a “catch all marketing term by the publishing industry,” use of it started to raise “issues due to the vagueness of the term, which has then been used to place diverse creators in uncomfortable and potentially unsafe situations,” explained Alaina Lavoie, in this article from We Need Diverse Books. Instead of #ownvoices, choose to use the description the author identifies themselves as, such as in my case “Lebanese-Jamaican Author.”

For further discussion on why writing from your experience is important, check out this article by Colice Sanders on the DIY MFA website It’s Messy in the Middle: Unpacking Cultural Appropriation. Sanders does an incredible job of explaining why representation matters, and also, if you do choose to write outside your experience, she offers several great tips on how to do it the right way. 

To Help You On Your Way

If you want to dive deeper into the world of writing for young adults, then check out these books for an in-depth exploration of writing YA:

• Writing Irresistible Kidlit: The Ultimate Guide to Crafting Fiction for Young Adult and Middle Grade Readers by Mary Cole.
• Writing Great Books for Young Adults: Everything You Need to Know, from Crafting the Idea to Getting Published by Regina Brooks.
• Writing Young Adult Fiction for Dummies by Deborah Halverson.
• Save the Cat! Writes a Young Adult Novel by Jessica Brody (this one is a pre-order, but it’s worth the wait given Jessica’s written over 20 novels and is an excellent teacher).

In addition to the above books, Mary Cole also has a blog dedicated to Kid Lit, and you can read the young adult archives on her website.

If you love young adult and want to hear from some of the leading authors in the young adult space, then sign-up for my email list so you’ll be in the know when our show FIND YOUR FAIRYTALE launches, where we will interview young adult authors about their journey to find success in publishing.

Dominique Richardson is a Lebanese-Jamaican author and former CPA turned CEO of YA by the Bay, a 501c3 young adult book festival coming to Tampa, FL in October 2023. She’s worked in management across the business spectrum—from a Fortune 100 company to a Big 4 Accounting firm, from a tech start-up to several nonprofits. She spends her free time writing books and passing on her love of unicorns to her twin boys. Dominique presents #DomsDownload on FIND YOUR FAIRYTALE, the forthcoming show for YA by the Bay, breaking down books that help people live their best lives.
You can find her on her website or follow her on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok. Also, if you love young adult and want to hear from some of the leading authors in the young adult space, then sign-up for Dominique’s email list.

The post The Ins and Outs of Writing a Young Adult Novel appeared first on DIY MFA.

Have you signed up to be a DIY MFA Radio Insider yet? This is an exciting new monthly newsletter especially for our podcast listeners. Every month, you’ll get an email from our podcast producer with recaps of the most recent episodes, a curated Listening List of episodes on a particular theme, and other fun goodies we only share via email. Best of all, it’s free to join! The theme for January is Debut Authors, and you can become an insider by signing up with your email at diymfa.com/insiders.

In this episode Leslie Vedder and I discuss:

• What genre inspired her and helped her keep a fast pace throughout her novel.
• Why she loved blending science and magic and how her characters approached each.
• How she approached varying levels of character relationships—both romantic and friendship.

Plus, her #1 tip for writers.

About Leslie Vedder

Leslie Vedder is a queer ace author who loves fairytale retellings with girl adventurers and heroes! She grew up on fantasy books, anime, fanfiction, and the Lord of the Rings movies and met her true love in high school choir. She graduated from San Francisco State University with a B.A. in creative writing and currently lives in Colorado with her wife and two spoiled house cats.

When she’s not reading or writing, you can find her watching anime and sci-fi shows, walking in the woods and pretending they’re enchanted forests, or playing old video games. She always collects all the Skulltulas in Zelda and all the Dalmation puppies in Kingdom Hearts.

Her debut YA novel The Bone Spindle released in January 2022 from Penguin / Razorbill.

You can find Leslie on her website or follow her on Twitter, Instagram, and Goodreads.

The Bone Spindle 

The Bone Spindle is a genderflipped Sleeping Beauty meets Indiana Jones fantasy, starring two girl treasure hunters!

Fi is a bookish historian under a dark curse. Shane is a fierce, queer, ax-wielding warrior with a past she’s left firmly in the dust. They team up to take on a lost ruin, looking for the score of a lifetime, but get a lot more than they bargained for when Fi pricks her finger on a bone spindle and finds herself face to face with the spirit of the sleeping prince, Briar Rose. Now she’s stuck with him—literally forever!—unless she and Shane can break the ancient curse on his kingdom.

Traps, ruins, riddles, curses, and bad exes all stand in their way, not to mention a mysterious Witch who might just steal Shane’s heart along with whatever else she’s after! 

Set in a lush world inspired by beloved fairytales, The Bone Spindle is a fast-paced young adult fantasy for fans of Sorcery of Thorns and All the Stars and Teeth.

If you decide to check out the book, we hope you’ll do so via this Amazon affiliate link, where if you choose to purchase via the link DIY MFA gets a referral fee at no cost to you. As always, thank you for supporting DIY MFA!

Link to Episode 392

(Right-click to download.)

If you liked this episode…

Head over to iTunes, Stitcher Radio, Spotify, or Google and subscribe so you’ll be first to know when new episodes are available.

Also, remember that sharing is caring so if you know anyone who might enjoy this podcast, please tell them about it or leave us a review so other listeners will want to check it out.

Until next week, keep writing and keep being awesome!

The post Episode 392: World Building and Character Friendships in a YA Fairy Tale Retelling – Interview with Leslie Vedder appeared first on DIY MFA.

But I think more importantly, books were where I saw and really began to understand myself. The things I connected to and the stories that drew me helped me shape my sense of self, and I always connected most to the stories that had a strong friendship at their core. As a result, I’ve always had strong central friendships in my own books. 

The Role of Friendships for Teens

Friendships are generally where teens begin to explore social dynamics away from their immediate family. Not only does having friends create a feeling of security and belonging, it’s also where teens begin to test the identities they want to create for themselves, and where they learn who they are outside of parental influence. 

When different types of media send the message that teens are catty or are supposed to be enemies, it can be extremely isolating. It can make them mistrust people before they’ve ever had the chance to form significant connections. And it can create a sense of competition in situations where there should be camaraderie, which leads to unhealthy perceptions of the world when they are just beginning to find their place in it.  

When friendship is given care and importance, books can be windows, and they can also open doors. Stories give us the opportunity to see what we can be in even the most fantastical settings. They show us things we never knew we wanted or thought we could have, and they can shape the way we view each other as well as ourselves. 

When authors create strong friendship bonds between characters, it can illustrate how essential these relationships are in life. Being a teen is a complex time and it can often be lonely, even for those who exist in crowded spaces. But it becomes easier to navigate if they have people they can lean on who are going through similar things, if they have honest conversations, and they are able to open up about their experiences and who they hope to be.

This is why I think friendships are so essential in YA, no matter the genre. Oftentimes, friendship is treated as a lesser relationship. The phrase “just friends” comes to mind, as if friendship is some form of settling. But having positive relationships modeled in the media can shape the way kids and teens approach each other. From a craft standpoint, there are several ways to make friendship a more prominent part of a story: 

1. Make Secondary Characters Unique 

People might have similar ways of acting, speaking, and thinking, especially in friendship groups, but they will still have things that make them stand out: things that are unique to them, qualities, quirks, hobbies, or skills that no other character has. By taking that quality or skill and giving them a specific purpose in the story, especially one where they are necessary to the overall plot, it will ensure they feel like more than set dressing to the main character. 

Even if every detail of a secondary character’s backstory and history remains off-page, they can become as layered and complex as the main character. The details will inform their actions and will end up making them more well-rounded as a result. 

2. Allow Friends to Be Vulnerable and Upset with Each Other

By letting characters lean on each other and be honest with each other helps create a bond between characters that readers will find relatable, but it’s also a good idea to let friends be angry with each other and resolve conflicts. 

Friendships are rarely all sunshine. There are disagreements, moments of gentle calling in, and hurt feelings. And the ways characters handle these situations can not only be revealing, but can also give their relationship more depth when they find ways to overcome issues and still be there for each other. Scenes like that can also solidify just how meaningful the relationship is as well, if it’s worth fighting for and saving. 

3. Avoid Diminishing the Role of Friendships 

Treating friendships within a story like they are expendable and there without purpose can make them feel like a lesser relationship. Giving rich conflicts and layered nuance only to romantic or familial relationships can cause the reader to feel like the friendships aren’t as worthy of their emotional investment. This can be disheartening to those whose relationship with their friends is such a large part of their own agency and self-discovery. 

Friendship is so important in The Lost Girls, to the point where the story doesn’t work without it. Taking girls who should (according to outdated media expectations) hate each other, and creating a situation where they depend on and lean on each other was something I always sought in stories when I was young and trying to find my own place among my peers. 

Friendship creates hope and community and a sense of belonging that most people want to feel and shines a light for those who are lonely, letting them know they won’t be lonely forever. 

Sonia Hartl is the author of Not Your #Lovestory and Have a Little Faith in Me (Page Street), which received a starred review in BookPage and earned nominations for the Georgia Peach Book Award, YALSA’s Quick Picks for Reluctant Readers, and ALA’s Rise: A Feminist Book Project List. She’s a member of SCBWI and the Managing Director for Pitch Wars 2020. When she’s not writing or reading, she’s enjoying pub trivia, marathoning Disney movies, or taking walks outside in the fall. She lives in Grand Rapids, MI, with her husband and two daughters. Follow her on Twitter.

The post The Importance of Friendships in YA appeared first on DIY MFA.

Syed M. Masood grew up in Karachi, Pakistan, and now lives with his wife and children in Sacramento, California, where he is a practicing attorney. He wrote a few couplets in Urdu when he was a teenager, and his family still tells everyone he is an Urdu poet. He is not. More Than Just a Pretty Face is his young adult debut novel.

In this episode Syed and I discuss:

• Why you need to listen to what your characters want as you write
• How honoring universal experiences allows readers to understand your reality
• Ways to keep the romance trope interesting, but also staying within the form

Plus, his #1 tip for writers.

About Syed M. Masood

Syed M. Masood grew up in Karachi, Pakistan, and now lives with his wife and children in Sacramento, California, where he is a practicing attorney. He wrote a few couplets in Urdu when he was a teenager, and his family still tells everyone he is an Urdu poet. He is not. More Than Just a Pretty Face is his young adult debut novel. You can find Syed on his website and on Twitter.

More Than Just a Pretty Face 

For fans of Becky Albertalli and Jenny Han, a sweetly funny YA rom-com debut about arranged marriage, falling in love, familial expectations, and being a Renaissance Man.

Danyal Jilani has no lack of confidence. He may not be the smartest guy in the room, but he’s funny, gorgeous, and going to make a great chef one day. His father doesn’t approve of his career choice, but that hardly matters. What does matter is the opinion of Danyal’s longtime crush, the perfect-in-all-ways Kaval, and her family, who consider him a less than ideal arranged-marriage prospect.

Then Danyal gets selected for the Renaissance Man, a school-wide academic championship and the perfect opportunity to show everyone he’s smarter than they think. He recruits the brilliant, totally-uninterested-in-him Bisma to help with the competition, but the more time Danyal spends with her…the more he learns from her…the more he cooks for her…the more he realizes that happiness may be staring him right in his pretty face.

If you decide to check out the book, we hope you’ll do so via this Amazon affiliate link, where if you choose to purchase via the link DIY MFA gets a referral fee at no cost to you. As always, thank you for supporting DIY MFA!

Link to Episode 317

(Right-click to download.)

If you liked this episode…

Head over to iTunes, Stitcher Radio or Google Play and subscribe so you’ll be first to know when new episodes are available.

Also, remember that sharing is caring so if you know anyone who might enjoy this podcast, please tell them about it or leave us a review so other listeners will want to check it out.

Until next week, keep writing and keep being awesome!

The post Episode 317: Be True to the Character and Tell Your Truth – Interview with Syed M. Masood appeared first on DIY MFA.

Below, we’ll look at ways authors and illustrators are helping young readers and parents, and then explore some free or inexpensive resources currently on offer. But first:

If you’re struggling to create… you’re not alone.

In the first days of quarantine, there were a lot of people talking about it like a vacation–a period with lots of free time in which people could get things done. Surely writers, who prefer isolation anyway, would be writing up a storm now!

But that’s not always how it works. Sure, some people are able to throw themselves into their creative work–it can be cathartic, a mental escape–but for others creating right now is an uphill battle. COVID-19 is scary. The uncertainty is scary. And being anxious, worried, and uncertain is not necessarily a great recipe for creativity. Or productivity in general.

Rule #1 is to be kind to yourself. That means you shouldn’t berate or blame yourself if you’re having a hard time right now. 

What Kidlit Authors & Illustrators Are Doing For Readers

While parents and kids are stuck at home there’s a growing need for entertainment, comfort, and educational resources. The outpouring from creators has been overwhelming.

Writers are doing read-alouds and discussions, illustrators are doing draw-with-me sessions, and publishers are granting permission to teachers and librarians to stream or record themselves reading books. All in the name of helping our favorite people: kid readers! 

Rather than try to collect the myriad links for these online resources here, check out these articles with lists of where to find them: 

• BookRiot – Kid Lit Authors Stepping Up During the COVID-19 Crises and Quarantine
• LAist – Coronavirus Storytime: Here’s Where To Find Celebrities Reading Children’s Books Online 
• The New York Times – Home With Your Kids? Writers Want to Help 
• Publishers’ Weekly – How Kids’ Lit Is Responding to the Coronavirus 
• School Library Journal – Kid Lit Authors Step Up To Help Educators, Students, and Parents 

Indie authors are also getting creative. Many have discounted their books, or made them free. Sarra Cannon is reading a paranormal YA novella on YouTube as she edits it, an interesting twist for writers. 

Don’t Miss

LeVar Burton Reads – Yes, the same LeVar Burton who used to host Reading Rainbow on PBS now offers a podcast and Twitter streaming reading series for grown ups, and during the pandemic he’s expanding to multiple times a week with offerings for kids and teens! Including works by Neil Gaiman! 

Everywhere Book Fest – A virtual book festival designed to “bring the book festival experience to everyone.”  

Coronavirus: A Book For Children – A free book to help explain the virus to young children, illustrated by Alex Scheffler of Gruffalo fame, and written in consultation with psychologists and medical experts. 

Resources For Kidlit Writers

It’s not just love for readers being put into the world. Writers are helping other writers, too. 

Funds

Because time is a critical factor in addressing people’s needs, deadlines and thresholds may already have passed. There will likely be more, and these are listed as examples of what to keep an eye out for. Social media can be an excellent resource for finding similar opportunities. 

We Need Diverse Books Emergency Fund for Diverse Creatives in Children’s Publishing – A fund to support diverse traditionally published writers and illustrators, and publishing professionals. 

Maurice Sendak Emergency Relief Fund by the New York Foundation for the Arts – A fund for picture book writers and illustrators in need due to the crisis. 

Education

The Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators (SCBWI) is offering members free digital workshops every week. 

WriteOnCon Anytime Archive Access – This year’s virtual writers conference has passed, but access to four years of content for 30 days is now only $10. 

About Publishing

Authors, illustrators, agents, editors, and other publishing pros are all enduring this pandemic alongside us. Their reactions range from “Give me more manuscripts to read!” to “I made… more tea? That’s something, right?” to “I have kids I have to homeschool there’s no way I can work right now!” 

YA author Alexa Donne is a wealth of writing and publishing knowledge. On her YouTube channel she answers the question, “Should you query your book now?” She also talks about how other parts of the traditional publishing machine are faring. 

There are also a ton of resources being aimed at indie, and aspiring indie authors right now. A lot of them are very expensive. A lot of them are free. Start with the free resources so you can better judge which gotta-buy-now offers may or may not be worthwhile. 

While these are uncertain times, you can count on the kidlit community to prioritize young readers. And in the writing community at large there’s always someone offering a helping hand up. 

Take care of yourselves, Word Nerds, and stay safe.

Bronwen Fleetwood writes fiction for young adults, and nonfiction for writers. Bronwen studied creative writing at Eugene Lang,The New School for Liberal Arts, has acted as leader of the Princeton Writing Group, and as a Municipal Liaison for National Novel Writing Month. Bronwen currently lives on the Whale Coast of South Africa, between the mountains, the sea, and a lake. You can connect with her at bronwenfleetwood.com.

The post Kidlit’s Coronavirus Response appeared first on DIY MFA.

Jeff is an author, musician, and podcaster and his debut novel, Symptoms of Being Human has received a ton of accolades. It is an ALA Best Fiction for Young Adults Selection, Lambda Literary Award Finalist, and has garnered starred reviews from Booklist and Publishers Weekly. 

Before becoming a novelist, Jeff acted on TV and toured as the lead singer of a rock band. He has a BFA in Film from Chapman University and lives in Southern California.

Now, I have been looking forward to this episode since last July, when Jeff and I met at a ThrillerFest cocktail party. We connected right away and when Jeff told me about his new novel The Lightness of Hands I knew I just had to have him on the show. This book grapples with some heavy topics, but one in particular that really hits home for me: mental health.

I am so thrilled to be recording this interview (finally! After 8 months!) and to introduce Jeff and his moving (sometimes gut-wrenching) YA novels to my word nerd listeners.

In this episode Jeff and I discuss:

• How real life experiences inspired Lightness of Hands
• Living with Bipolar II
• Breaking the stigma around mental illness
• Starting a book with a question you can’t answer
• Writing a character that is hyper-attuned to her inner life
• The power of mindfulness meditation
• The hero’s journey, applied to writing and life

Plus, his #1 tip for writers.

About Jeff Garvin

Jeff Garvin is an author, musician, and podcaster. His debut novel, Symptoms of Being Human, is an ALA Best Fiction for Young Adults Selection, a Lambda Literary Award Finalist, and garnered starred reviews from Booklist and Publishers Weekly. Before becoming a novelist, Jeff acted on TV and toured as the lead singer of a rock band. He has a BFA in Film from Chapman University and lives in Southern California. Check out his podcast, The Hero’s Journey, and connect with him on his website, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.   

The Lightness of Hands

Sixteen-year-old Ellie Dante is desperate for something in her life to finally go right. Her father was a famous stage magician until he attempted an epic illusion on live TV—and failed. Now Ellie lives with her dad in a beat-up RV, attending high school online and performing with him at birthday parties and bars across the Midwest to make ends meet.

But when the gigs dry up, their insurance lapses, leaving Dad’s heart condition unchecked and forcing Ellie to battle her bipolar II disorder without medication.

Then Ellie receives a call from a famous magic duo, who offer fifteen thousand dollars and a shot at redemption: they want The Uncanny Dante to perform the illusion that wrecked his career—on their live TV special, which shoots in Los Angeles in ten days.

Ellie knows her dad will refuse-but she takes the deal anyway, then lies to persuade him to head west. With the help of her online-only best friend and an unusual guy she pairs up with along the way, Ellie makes a plan to stage his comeback. But when her lie is exposed, she’ll have to confront her illness and her choices head-on to save her father—and herself.

If you decide to check out the book, we hope you’ll do so via this Amazon affiliate link, where if you choose to purchase via the link DIY MFA gets a referral fee at no cost to you. As always, thank you for supporting DIY MFA!

Link to Episode 301

(Right-click to download.)

If you liked this episode…

Head over to iTunes, Stitcher Radio or Google Play and subscribe so you’ll be first to know when new episodes are available.

Also, remember that sharing is caring so if you know anyone who might enjoy this podcast, please tell them about it or leave us a review so other listeners will want to check it out.

Until next week, keep writing and keep being awesome!

The post Episode 301: Dismantling the Stigma of Mental Illness – Interview with Jeff Garvin appeared first on DIY MFA.

Born and raised in Springfield, Missouri, Brandy spent a few years living in Chicago before relocating permanently to Los Angeles. She is very active on social media and also works as a copy editor for magazines and books. She is also on faculty at Hamline University’s MFA program in writing for children.

In this episode Brandy and I discuss:

• The inspiration behind The Revolution of Birdie Randolph
• Exploring black friendships and experience in The Only Black Girls in Town
• How books can functions as both mirrors and windows
• Exploring the theme of family over multiple books
• Grappling with race in the context of a contemporary story
• Moving into middle grade after writing YA

Plus, her #1 tip for writers.

About Brandy Colbert 

Brandy Colbert is the critically acclaimed author of the novels POINTE,  Stonewall Award winner LITTLE & LION, FINDING YVONNE, THE REVOLUTION OF BIRDIE RANDOLPH, and the 2020 releases, THE ONLY BLACK GIRLS IN TOWN (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers) and THE VOTING BOOTH (Disney-Hyperion). Her short fiction and essays have also been published in several critically acclaimed anthologies for young people. Born and raised in Springfield, Missouri, Colbert spent a few years living in Chicago before relocating permanently to Los Angeles. She is very active on social media and also works as a copy editor for magazines and books. Visit her website, and connect with her on Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr. 

The Only Black Girls in Town

Currently promoting two books! The first is Brandy’s middle grade debut, THE ONLY BLACK GIRLS IN TOWN (in stores March 24, 2020), about the only two black girls in town who discover a collection of hidden journals revealing shocking secrets of the past. Beach loving surfer Alberta has been the only black girl in town for years. Alberta’s best friend Laramie is the closest thing she has to a sister, but there are some things even she can’t understand. When the Bed and Breakfast next door finally finds new owners, Alberta is ecstatic to learn the new family is black, and they have a 12-year old daughter just like her.

Alberta is positive she and the new girl, Edie, will be fast friends. But her dads are quick to warn her, “all skinfolk ain’t kinfolk”. While Alberta is an upbeat sporty beach lover, Edie is a moody Wednesday Addams come to life. She wears black dresses and lipstick, and doesn’t get any of Alberta’s jokes. 

When the girls discover a collection of secret journals in Edie’s attic, their curiosity gets the best of them and they put their differences aside. Soon they discover shocking and painful secrets, and the role the unrelenting violence of racism played in it.

The Revolution of Birdie Randolph

Dove “Birdie” Randolph works hard to be the perfect daughter and carry out the path that her parents have laid out for her–drop the sport she loves, keep her head in her books, and finish high school at the top of her class. But Birdie can’t help falling in love with a sweet and handsome boy, despite his troubled past, and it’s getting harder and harder to obey her parent’s every wish and command. 

When her estranged aunt Carlene, who has been in and out of a drug rehab facility for years moves in, the tone in her home begins to shift. Birdie finds a confidant and ally in her aunt. But as Birdie gets closer to Carlene, buried secrets come out, and everything she’s ever known to be true is suddenly turned upside down.

If you decide to check out the books, we hope you’ll do so via the above Amazon affiliate links, where if you choose to purchase via the link DIY MFA gets a referral fee at no cost to you. As always, thank you for supporting DIY MFA!

(Right-click to download.)

If you liked this episode…

Head over to iTunes, Stitcher Radio or Google Play and subscribe so you’ll be first to know when new episodes are available.

Also, remember that sharing is caring so if you know anyone who might enjoy this podcast, please tell them about it or leave us a review so other listeners will want to check it out.

Until next week, keep writing and keep being awesome!

The post Episode 298: Character-Driven YA and Middle Grade – Interview with Brandy Colbert appeared first on DIY MFA.

Claire is a secondary school teacher who works with teenagers with mental health issues. She has had two adult horror novels (Predator X, Nine Eyes) published by Australian indie publisher, Severed Press. FUGLY is her first YA novel.

Claire lives with her husband, two daughters, a cat called Hiccup, and various dinosaurs. Her interests include drawing, baking, palaeontology, horror, and roleplaying.

In this episode Claire and I discuss:

• The very personal inspiration for Fugly
• The toxic love of cruelty online
• Writing a character that behaves in a problematic way
• Expectations for negative female characters verses male ones
• Bringing personal experience to a fictional character

Plus, her #1 tip for writers.

About Claire Waller

Claire Waller is a secondary school teacher who works with teenagers with mental health issues. She has had two adult horror novels (Predator X, Nine Eyes) published by Australian indie publisher, Severed Press. FUGLY is her first YA novel.

Claire lives with her husband, two daughters, a cat called Hiccup, and various dinosaurs. Her interests include drawing, baking, palaeontology, horror, and roleplaying. Connect with her on Twitter. 

Fugly

A wrenchingly honest, thought-provoking exploration of a girl judged and dismissed by society who must break the cycle of shaming that traps her in her real life and comforts her in her online one.

In real life, eighteen-year-old Beth is overweight, shy, and geeky. She’s been bullied all her life, and her only refuge is food. Online, though, she’s a vicious troll who targets the beautiful, vain, oversharing It Girls of the internet. When she meets Tori, a fellow troll, she becomes her online girlfriend-slash-partner-in-crime.

But then Tori picks a target who’s a little too close to home for Beth. Unsettled, Beth decides to quit their online bullying partnership. The only problem is, Tori is not willing to let her go.

If you decide to check out the book, we hope you’ll do so via this Amazon affiliate link, where if you choose to purchase via the link DIY MFA gets a referral fee at no cost to you. As always, thank you for supporting DIY MFA!

Link to Episode 295

(Right-click to download.)

If you liked this episode…

Head over to iTunes, Stitcher Radio or Google Play and subscribe so you’ll be first to know when new episodes are available.

Also, remember that sharing is caring so if you know anyone who might enjoy this podcast, please tell them about it or leave us a review so other listeners will want to check it out.

Until next week, keep writing and keep being awesome!

The post Episode 295: Writing an Unlikable but Sympathetic Protagonist — Interview with Claire Waller appeared first on DIY MFA.

This much-debated topic has no easy answer. First, an overview of the debate, then we’ll discuss how the dynamics shift when your target audience skews younger, and how to make your references work if you do decide to use them. 

The Changing of the Old MFA Guard

According to Electric Literature, the question picked up steam in the 1980s at MFA workshops. The professors had grown up in a world largely devoid of corporate branding slapped onto every aspect of their lives, but their students had come up surrounded by brand name cereals, trademarked products, and a wider common culture made possible by the spread of national TV and radio. To the young writers it was normal to say Kleenex or Hoover, instead of tissue or vacuum: the brand was the item. 

Their teachers objected, essentially claiming that all these brands and pop culture touchstones were ephemera, that they were fads that would fade as easily as they had come. After all, there was no MTV when they were kids! These professors said literature should seek to be “timeless” rather than products of their era. 

That’s the theory, anyway. 

What actually happened is that while specific pop icons like Davy Jones and Bananarama faded from popular consciousness, a lot of things haven’t. Coca-Cola is a prime example, a brand that’s been around since 1886 and keeps reinventing itself to stay relevant. Their product is so ubiquitous that many people don’t say “I’ll have a soda” or “pop,” they say, “Gimme a Coke.” Brands are absolutely everywhere (we’re all encouraged to even have personal brands to compete). The Internet has been divided up between Facebook, Google, Amazon, and other massive conglomerates. “To google” is now a verb. We now communicate through pop culture using GIFs taken from popular shows and movies. The zeitgeist has zeitgeisted itself. It’s all very meta. 

All that to say: this is how we live now.  So, can contemporary fiction that doesn’t incorporate or refer to the ubiquity of pop culture and big brands really call itself realistic fiction? 

What Readers and Other Writers Think

Both readers and writers are split, but they tend to have strong feelings about their preference. Discussions on Reddit are illuminating, from both the writers’ perspective and the readers’. Here are some highlights.

Don’t use references when they’re… cheesy, overdone, exist ‘just to appeal to readers’, are used as a prop, can be ‘distracting filler’, look like showing off, or come over like Steve Buscemi’s “How do you do, fellow kids?” when not used correctly.

Do use references when you want to… flesh out worldbuilding, anchor your story firmly in time and/or place, add in-jokes and layers of additional meaning, or quickly communicate something about a character through the references used. 

Most readers agree that if it’s done well, it can work. We’ll get into how to use pop culture references well in a moment. 

Pop Culture 4 Kidz

The same Do’s and Don’ts provided above still apply to writing for kids. However, age does make a difference when it comes to how specific and far-reaching your references can be. 

When writing kidlit, your first responsibility is always, always, to the intended audience: young readers. You want to depict a reality (be it historical, fantasy, or the future) that current young readers can understand and relate to. That means that when you’re writing about right now, you have to reckon with the influence of pop culture on our everyday lives. 

You also want to be careful about seeming to promote or endorse something you have no control over (people and brands can make mistakes!), and looking like you’re selling to kids. The opposite won’t save you–if you’re too harsh, you might have to deal with a legal team alleging that your work is insulting and damaging. 

In works for younger readers (picture books through some Middle Grade), it’s safest to steer clear of specifics. Generic terms can still get the point across, like tablet instead of iPad. (Besides which, iPad implies the money to acquire one, that the family uses Macs vs. PCs, and so on. Word choice matters!) Because younger kids have less experience, their frame of reference is limited. Today’s ten year olds were born when the 6th Harry Potter movie debuted, so Harry Potter means something different to them, if it means anything at all. 

Older readers (some Middle Grade and Young Adult) are more likely to be aware of pop culture and history, but they’re also extremely discerning. They can tell when an author is dropping names and slang they’re not comfortable with. You can use specific references for this age group so long as you don’t overdo it. 

How To Make References That Work

Provide context

Think of pop culture or historical references like uncommon or “fancy” words: the reader should be able to get the gist from the surrounding text. The Writer magazine has a great piece on how to make references, and the linked New Yorker piece has a lot of examples. 

The Writer provides this example:

[In his essay “Frame of Reference” in the New Yorker, John] McPhee cites a reference in the book Captured by Aliens [by Joel Achenbach], in which a professor supposedly looks like Gene Wilder, with “some of the same manic energy.” Readers who are familiar with Wilder are immediately treated to a vision of blond curls and bright blue eyes; readers who aren’t are still clued into the key reason for the comparison (the “manic energy”).

Try to anticipate frame of reference

…but don’t drive yourself to distraction. You can’t anticipate what every reader will or won’t be familiar with, but you can make assumptions based on their cohort. 

Every year since 1998, Beloit College circulates the “Mindset List” which “reflect[s] the world view of 18 year-old entering college students each fall”. For instance, the class of 2022, born around 2001, has “always been able to refer to Wikipedia” and “Oprah has always been a magazine.” College professors need to keep their references current if they want to reach students, but we as kidlit writers can glean important insights from them, too. Historical writers can refer to the book The Mindset Lists of American History: From Typewriters to Text Messages, What Ten Generations of Americans Think Is Normal.

Aim for popular or universal references, where possible

…but remember that you can’t cover every frame of reference. 

Keep in mind that with the Internet all knowledge can be searched for (and usually found), so if a reader really wants to know they can find it. But no one knows everything, and we increasingly occupy siloed communities which have their own subcultures. A political wonk will know things that a K-POP fan has never heard of, and vice versa. (Don’t forget the person who follows both! Crossovers happen because people contain multitudes.)

Try to use enduring references

There’s a conversation to be had about historical works that make pop culture references. They do! Some we recognize, some we don’t. Electric Lit points out that these are often considered references to “high art”, which means the item is still recognized because it’s become an enduring “classic”. Often we confuse “enduring” with “superior”. Just because the Odyssey has survived to the present doesn’t mean a play written in the same year was a worse play. 

It’s impossible to say in 2019 whose legacy will endure (BTS, Adele, or Beyonce?), so we just have to use what will be meaningful to current readers, and our best guess for future readers.

If you really want to play it safe, stick to references that are safely in the past. THE HATE U GIVE’s title refers to Tupac Shakur lyrics, and it works because time has passed since his death and his legacy is now relatively stable. The same book also references current pop stars, prompting a reddit user to say:

Some of the references already aren’t aging well, like the am I Beyonce or Taylor Swift today reference since now T Swift is seen as a problematic white pseudo-feminist that causes drama instead of a broken hearted girl anthem queen. Even Beyonce’s image, while still positive, now has changed to a woman who stayed strong through a betrayal. So the reference has a completely different meaning already which confused me (Did Chris cheat? Is that why she’s Beyonce?) etc. 

Make your reference serve more than one purpose

Why are you using a given reference? Does a character’s favorite TV show say something about their taste, and what we can expect of them later in the book? Will naming the band playing at prom flesh out the worldbuilding? If the reference adds something to your story, it’s often worth leaving in. 

Next time you pick up a new book, ask yourself what hallmarks of the era are included, and what’s left out. 

There is so much more I could say about this topic. (Thank you to Rachel for suggesting it!) Ultimately, using pop culture references is a choice for each writer and each project. Hopefully these tips and resources will help you make that call. 

Bronwen Fleetwood writes fiction for young adults, and nonfiction for writers. Bronwen studied creative writing at Eugene Lang,The New School for Liberal Arts, has acted as leader of the Princeton Writing Group, and as a Municipal Liaison for National Novel Writing Month. Bronwen currently lives on the Whale Coast of South Africa, between the mountains, the sea, and a lake. You can connect with her at bronwenfleetwood.com.

The post Should You Use Pop Culture References in Fiction (For Kids and Teens)? appeared first on DIY MFA.