The secrets of Young Adult (YA) literary success
Author Sarah Webb talks to award-winning colleagues Dave Rudden, Deirdre Sullivan, and Sheena Wilkinson about how they write YA.
Young Adult (YA) books have never been more popular. They race off the shelves of bookshops and libraries and have won critical and popular acclaim with the young people — and adults — who are reading them. (A Publisher’s Weekly survey showed that over 55% of YA books were bought and read by adults). Celebrities have even got in on the act, producing popular novels and graphic novels about a wide range of topics, from being a blogger (written by one of Britain’s most famous vloggers, Zoella) to saving the world (written by her brother, Joe Sugg).
YA novels have inspired Hollywood movies – The Hunger Games, The Fault in Our Stars, The Hate U Give (currently in production) – and theatre productions. Louise O’Neill’s searing YA novel about consent, Asking for It, will have its world premiere on the stage of the Abbey Theatre in November.
But what exactly is the difference between a YA novel and a Teen novel, what issues do teens and young adults want to read about, and how do you write a YA bestseller? I asked award-winning YA writers, Dave Rudden, Deirdre Sullivan and Sheena Wilkinson for their thoughts.
All three agree that the difference between YA books and Teen books is largely a marketing one. Deirdre Sullivan’s recent book Tangleweed and Brine - a feminist retelling of fairytales - won an Irish Book Award. She says: “I think that’s a distinction that bookshops make to guide readers, or the people who buy books for them. We’re all able for different things at different times. YA generally means older teens, so darker themes may be tackled more explicitly.”
Author of the bestselling Knights of the Borrowed Dark series, Dave Rudden, says: “The media associates the term ‘YA’ with hard-hitting issues and the raw edge of adolescence, whereas there are novels for all ages of young people that deal with tough scenarios, and rightly so. Life generally doesn’t make allowances for your age when it throws things at you, and I think there should always be well-written fiction to show you that you’re not alone.”
“My most recent book, Star By Star, is marketed as teen or even younger,” Sheena Wilkinson explains, “but the main character is 15; all the other important characters are adults, and the book centres on political engagement – quite adult in theme, I’d say, though accessible to a bright ten-year-old. On the other hand, Taking Flight, my first book, is seen as YA: most of the characters are 15/16; it’s about horses – but it does have a few swear words. I just think it’s a lazy shorthand from publishers.”
So what subjects do teenagers and young adults want to read about? Dave thinks they want “to see themselves reflected in prose. They want real characters with honest emotion.”
Deirdre thinks all readers want their fiction to be about “the acquisition of new experiences, coping with adversity and negotiating friendships”. She believes voice is really important to teenage readers. “For them to find a narrator, or a tone that they engage with, and that isn’t patronising,” Sheena says. “Readers of all ages like a good story and engaging characters.”
How do they start writing – with a setting, a main character, or something completely different? “There is no one way,” Deirdre says “but finding the main character, or the voice the story will be told in, is generally when it starts to feel most possible and exciting for me.”
Dave says: “I generally have a flash image of a scene, but a scene that tells me a lot about the main character. Someone put in a strange circumstance, because it’s in those moments we show the world who we really are.”
For Sheena, it often starts with a subject or piece of history, for example, music in Street Song, another of her YA novels, or women’s suffrage in Star By Star. “Then I think, well, who would be the most interesting character to be in that situation?” she says. “I spend a lot of time getting to know the characters and the setting and then I start planning the story very roughly.”
Sheena plans her books “using a great number of mind maps and highlighters and coloured pens, but I always find things change once I start writing, and I have learned not to be scared of that.”
Dave says “I’d love to tell you there’s a cork board, and coloured string, and (the planning) is all very clever. But once I have three or four character-revealing scenes, I write a messy first draft to tie them all together. It doesn’t have to be good - I’m only telling the story to myself - and it shows me what works and what doesn’t. Then the book stops being an amorphous mess and starts becoming an equation - if a scene is bad, I take it out and replace it, if it’s good I leave it alone. Cue six more drafts of doing that...”
For Deirdre, things never quite go according to plan (in her writing). “Like with life,” she says.
And what’s the best writing advice they have ever been given? In 2007, former British Children’s Laureate, Malorie Blackman, told Sheena Wilkinson to “write a first draft, let it be rough, even terrible, and then you’ve got something to work on.”
For Dave it’s “Cockroaches don’t roll”. “When you have your plot and structure down,” he says, “you need a diamond focus on every line to make sure you’ve chosen each word carefully, that every sentence is as beautiful as it can be. There’s a line in Chapter One of Knights of the Borrowed Dark: ‘The word rolled from his tongue like a cockroach.’ I was very proud of it, until my friend and writing mentor pointed out that ‘cockroaches don’t roll’. I hated him for it, but he was right.”
Deirdre loves her friend and fellow writer, Sarah Maria Griffin’s motto, which is: ‘Write the thing!’ “It’s simple and perfect and it works.”
Now you know how to write like a YA pro, what’s stopping you? Write the thing!