Writing a novel that appeals to a younger audience takes a certain amount of finesse – especially if you are no longer in that age bracket! It is not easy to venture into the minds of young adults and, essentially, “relive” your own past.
Let’s have a look at six essential tips from published authors when it comes to writing YA novels.
Do you struggle with screenplay structure? Especially sustaining momentum in that long second act?
When learning how to write a script, writers are overwhelmingly taught that screenplay structure is all about three acts. The problem with this three act formula, however, is that it often leads to writers running out of steam in act two as they try to fill it with “conflict.” This means act two becomes a series of disconnected events that aren’t really connected and seem to exist just for the sake of “things happening.”
This happens when screenwriters focus too much on traditional three act structure and ignore the building blocks underneath each act—sequences.
If you’re anything like me, you hope in your heart of hearts that your writing will reveal a Great Truth to your readers, that it will open a doorway to compassion and understanding that will ripple out to change the world. Ah!
The authors who have been most effective in ushering me to that doorway are those whose writing reveals connections between images, ideas, and sensations I otherwise would have missed. Like Annie Dillard’s terrific simple line: “The air bites my nose like pepper.”
How did Dillard come up with such a lively sentence, one that bridges two physical sensations (cold and biting) and scent (pepper)? And how can we play around with unlike sensations to create similes that shine?
You finally finished writing your book. There’s a glimmer of hope that the end is near. It’s time to pass your rough draft on to an editor to clean it up, right?
Not so fast. Have you revised it yourself yet?
What a lot of bestselling authors and writing coaches will tell you is the hard part of writing a book is not writing the book. The hard part is rewriting your book.
Let’s be honest. There is no such thing as Writer’s Block.
This is a phrase that we use to describe the frustrating experience of wishing to write without being able to. But there’s no such thing. We say that we have this thing called “writer’s block” and it’s the reason why we’ll never achieve our dreams. As if it’s a contracted disease. But it doesn’t exist.
What we are experiencing is the self-inflicted phenomenon of writers making choices that frequently lead to failure. And knowing that writer’s block is a myth is exactly what you need to beat it.
