Writing Great Books for
Young Adults
My Verdict: Don’t Bother
Writing Great Books for Young Adults by Regina Brooks covers the basics needed for any novel, nothing revolutionary for the Young Adult genre.
The first
chapter has five decent tips for writing YA (like "don't be a phony"
you should have current cred with kids today so you aren't out of date or
preachy and read a lot in the genre you are writing). After that the book gets
less specific to the YA genre and reads more like a thesis paper on how to
write a novel (making characters, dissecting plot structure, choosing POV, how
not to write dialogue, etc).
Even though the book
discusses different structures and clichés it does not use a lot of examples.
The ones it does mention were not necessarily YA books when they were written
(but it could be argued that they were the forefathers).
It was refreshing to see “Dialog
Tags” (p.95), “The verb to be” (p.
102) and “Adjectives and adverbs” (p.102-103) covered in a concise way (use “said”
for everything, cut out was, -ing, and –ly words by using past tense).
As a quick, basic refresher
book it does fine. More current examples from the YA field would've helped
define the genre today (even though it was published in 2009).
If you are looking for another book on general writing advice you might find her concise writing style helpful.
Homework: compare your favorite YA book from your youth to a YA book that came out within the last year.
If you are looking for another book on general writing advice you might find her concise writing style helpful.
Homework: compare your favorite YA book from your youth to a YA book that came out within the last year.
Rating Scale: Keep On Desk, Own it, Read it, Skim it, Don't Bother
