Is writing YA really THAT different from normal fiction? Really?

Book #3:  Writing Great Books for Young Adults by Regina Brooks

On "The Office" yesterday, Pam told her audience that she is writing a Young Adult paranormal book about unicorns.  OK, if I'm competing with Pam, I need help so I turned to  Writing Great Books for Young Adults by Regina Brooks. 

This book is a mix of general writing and publishing advice with some pointers specific to the YA author.   For instance, young readers have even less patience for setting description than adults.  They are less tolerant of ambiguous endings and epilogues should be avoided.  POV should be from a teen and the MC should experience life changing events.

  Here is a brief summary of Chapter 1:
1- Don't be a phony - convince your teen audience that you are one of them.  To do this, dredge up the angst you experienced as a teen and inflict it on your reader.

2-Avoid the preach and teach; don't be condescending

3-Familiarize yourself with today's YA market (I've been reading YA lately and it is different than I thought)

.4- Silence your worries about how marketable your book is  (Is this advice exclusive to YA?  Really?)

5- Lastly, go ahead and write that book about crack smoking, boy-friend smacking, bulimic teen girl who turns into a mermaid at the full moon.  YA is a genre that forges new paths. 

Oh, and one more random tip from this book: Surf facebook.com  and visit teen profiles.  I have actually done this with my friends' teen sons and but  it did  help me visualize my MC.

I love writing YA and will continue to read books about how to write it properly.  I'm fascinated at how inbetween teen agers are.  How they can act strikingly adult  at one moment and act hopelessly immature the next.  Give me a well written teenage characters and I have instant conflict and angst - a good start to any book, no matter what the genre.