WRITING FOR TEENAGERS

I did a talk at the Edinburgh Book Festival today about writing for teenagers and I promised** the participants that I'd put a fuller version of my notes here on my blog. Of course, devoted as I am to you all, I have not actually rushed back from Charlotte Square to do this - by the wonders of modern technology and forward-planning, I scheduled this post back when I wrote my notes. God, I'm clever. (PS - and, unlike other times, blogger graciously allowed me to do this.)

(** Actually, I forgot to promise this. But the intention was there.)

Anyway. Here's what I planned to say. Of course, it may have come out quite differently, since I tend to ignore my notes. Also, because my actual notes are just bullet-points, I have fleshed them out and turned them into sense. In fact, frankly, these are not really my notes at all. These are simply the words I imagine I might say if things go according to plan.

(Vivian French will have spoken before me, about writing for older children, ie 9-11s. I have no doubt she was brilliant - she's written enough books for kids of all ages and no one knows more than her.)

WRITING FOR TEENAGERS
The best way to understand how to write for them is to understand who they are. And who they are as readers. (Yes, they do read! In fact, those who read do so avidly and deeply, and want as wide a range of books as adults do.) Some successful authors say they don't particularly need to think about their readers when they write - Tim Bowler is a great example. He seems to have the perfect voice and interest-level for teenagers, without thinking about it. I suspect with him that it's all subconscious, and actually he's a big kid himself (he's a friend, so I can say that) so it comes naturally.

But the reason I think it's important is that, as the writer, you must know exactly what your teenage character would do /think / feel, otherwise you risk your story not ringing true. And teenagers can spot things that don't ring true a mile off - and will tell you about them. Ruthlessly.

ABOUT TEENAGERS:
Not children, not adults - so books are different from children's and adults'

• How are they different from children (and therefore books are different from children’s books)
  

1. Teenagers are (and should be) less protected - so we can’t pretend the world is rosy
2. They are interested in different things - different things affect, worry, intrigue them, especially the things they may have to deal with now or soon
   
3. They have a need for risk-taking / need to break rules - including reading books their parents don't like!
   
4. They hate moral messages, hate to be preached at
5. They can spot middle-aged voice - esp a m-aged voice pretending to be teenage

• How different from adults (and therefore adult books)

1. Teenagers are less patient, less forgiving of waffle; story must get straight to the point
   
2. They have some different interests (eg don't care about menopause/surviving on pension). remember that we have been teeangers and so are more naturally interested in them than they are in us
   
3. Teenage viewpoint essential to main character - and this MUST be an actual teenage viewpoint, not that of an adult looking back and remembering being a teenager
   

MUST CONSIDER THE GATE-KEEPERS - adults who buy the books and who choose what gets published and what goes in the shops / schools / libraries.

I believe anyone should read any book, whatever their age, but this is a genre, and you have to know the rules for that genre. There are boundaries you can’t cross, but it's hard to pin them down - you just know when you crossed them. If you're unpublished, it's your crossing of the boundaries which may raise alarm bells with an agent/editor that you don't know the market.

• Eg Deathwatch - this was always going to be about a stalker but I needed to nail right from the start that this was not paedophilia and had no sexual connotations at all.
  
• Eg my current planned WIP - about a celebrity-obsessed girl: I'm having trouble with the potential outcome because if she comes a cropper then the story is too trite and moral, but if (as I want) she gives two fingers to everyone's boring opinions, where’s my moral stance? I'm trying to find a way to be radical yet get past the gate-keepers. PS - I've now moved on a long way from this potential WIP and it's all completely different from how I started out.
  
• So, nothing can be gratuitous. Violence needs a context, a moral position; certain topics would be very hard to handle** - eg incest, paedophilia.
• Where you show any characters using eg violence or drug-taking, the outcome for those characters would need to be carefully handled.
• Certain elements may make your book regarded as a no-go by schools: Eg guns, swearing, sex, drugs - yet these are all topics are of interest to teenagers and therefore legitimately covered - but beware.

Extra point about these boundaries - the fact that a topic is hard to handle (eg incest /paedophilia) does not mean you can't handle it. It means you have to know exactly what you're doing. Read Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan if you want to see what I mean! It is (in my view) utterly brilliant. It's the work of a phenomenal imagination and brilliantly handled.

The real point to hang onto is that everything has to be about the story. So, you don't write "about" eg violence - you tell a story, and if violence has to be in it, then it has to be in it. But the reader should never think you simply set out to ram violence at them to shock them.

THE SAFETY NET FACTOR - this is my little analogy to define a difference between writing for young children, older children, teenagers and adults;

• young children - barely any need for a safety-net , as you know nothing bad will happen. Safety-net more like soft-play ball-park
• older children - safety-net there: reader knows that even though it feels scary, nothing terrible will happen even if it seems as though it might as you slip off the rope
• teenagers - no visible safety-net: the reader feels that something terrible could happen. But, in fact, the safety-net is there because, even if the reader doesn't know it, the author cares. hope will not be destroyed.
• adults - no safety-net necessary, especially in some genres. The reader knows that anything could happen.

The skill of writing for teenagers is keeping the safety-net invisible.

SUGGESTED ROLE MODELS - because you MUST read the best in current successful fiction

• for the dark, deep and dangerous side: Kevin Brooks, Keith Gray, Catherine Forde
• two books that handle dangerous topics but get away with it because of the writers' skill: Looking for JJ (Anne Cassidy), Killing God (Kevin Brooks)
  
• gripping and fast: Ally Kennen, Catherine MacPhail
• fab for girls: Cathy Cassidy
• the epitome of boundary-breaking - Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan
  

TIPS:

• Every sentence has one aim: to stop them going off to listen to their ipods
• Never sound like an adult telling them a story
• Never sound like an adult pretending to be a teenager telling them a story
• Avoid teenspeak - a) it'll be out of fashion next year and b) teenagers will laugh you out of town
  
• Get the practical details of teen life spot-on - account for mobile phones / internet etc
• Never preach or patronise
  
• Keep that safety-net invisible
• Get rid of the parents

That's it! No idea how I'm going to round it off but I've got some time yet ...

And do check out how I Define A Teenage Novel here and finally some Common Mistakes When Writing For Teenagers.

RANT: WHY I WON'T SIGN THIS STUPID FORM

Sorry, I've been ranting over on my irregular other blog. I'm pretty incensed about this vapid plan. One author friend asked me why I was so bothered. I'm bothered because it pretends to protect children but it simply can't.

I know this isn't about becoming published but it's important to me and I'd like to know your views on it.

Here's the news story, though I admit that not all agree. But how would this ruling have prevented the William Mayne case? That's why I think it's pointless. Of course children need to be protected, but how does this protect them? It's about box-ticking; it says, "look, we've got this form - now we can worry less" - but why would a sensible person worry less when there's been zero difference to the actual threat?

OK, rant over. Maybe my speaking diary will be emptier this autumn, since I am refusing to tow the govt line. I'll be very sad if that's the case, and no, I can't afford it. But maybe I might get some writing done.

Do you sense my anger? I just get so irritated by rules that have no point. Always did. It's the campaigner in me. I'll obey all rules that are well designed to help, but not stupid ones that can't.

EDITED TO INCLUDE NEW INFO: I now gather that this doesn't apply till November 2010 and has already been postponed once. Therefore, I'm much less worried because I think that common sense (if expressed loudly and clearly enough) will win. But I feel that makes it even more important that people who disagree with it should speak out about it now, to make sure that the relevant people know our feelings.

The ISA website is at www.isa-gov.org.uk and the phone number is 0300 123 1111. The ruling was originally brought in to cover people who apply for "employment within a care setting" - which of course would be a really valuable reason for such checks to be made. An author speaking in front of a group of kids with teachers looking on is just not in the same game.

EXCELLENT article here.

ANTI-GUFF RANT POSTPONED BY PLEONASMS

The best laid plans, etc. There I was, all set to have a good old rant about the guff spouted by arts organisations, and along comes something from an arts organisation that is actually useful and to the point. My guff-detector was rendered silent.

Honestly. I was sent some info about a project or three by an organisation called Hi-Arts (Hi = Highlands & Islands - as in "of Scotland") and found myself quickly shunted onto their website, from which I seamlessly garnered some crystalline and - pause for astonishment: after all, this is public money we're talking about and usually that means it's headed drainwards - practical resources for writers. Not a whiff of waffle.

Depending on who you are, you will have different needs and interests, but surely all of you fall into one or more of these categories:

1. You want to know how to write a great covering letter and synopsis and you'd like a leading agent (Jenny Brown) to tell you how.
2. You're a Scottish author interested in having a FREE, anonymous and professional critique of your WIP. (Are you still there? I know, it's hard to take in without hitting your head on the ceiling. But you do have to be Scottishish ...)
3. You're trying to break into the children's writing world and want some fab advice from leading literary agents and general founts of all knowledge of the genre, Fraser Ross Associates.
   
4. You are a writer of any sort and want to make sure that you're not littering your writing with pleonasms and really want Allan Guthrie to explain it to you.
5. You don't know what a pleonasm is ....

Links to clear guidelines on all these things are to found here, on a single page. Yes, an arts org that doesn't hide its info deep in the recesses of a labyrinthine website designed to fool anyone with a normal brain and less than four years to find the right page.

It really is quite remarkable. And now I'm going to lie down in a darkened room and work out how I can justify a major rant about arts organisations. I will find a way. They will not defeat me.

And please don't analyse this post for all the pleonasms. This is a blog, not a literary novel, and besides, I'm self-publishing it and it's well-known that self-published work has a tendency to be less rigorously edited than other work ...

PICTURE BOOK PERFECTION

Writers of grown-up books, stay with me: picture books have a lot to teach the adult novelist. They are, when done well, a perfect illustration of structure, pace, voice, word choice and engagement with the reader.

Besides, poor old Bev J has been patiently looking at this blog EVERY day, waiting for me to honour my rash promise to say something about picture books.

And another besides, last night I was at the launch of a new picture book by the wonderful Catherine Rayner, "Sylvia and Bird", and it got me thinking. A couple of glasses of fizz later (well, ok, maybe two and a half but Malcolm was very persuasive and Vanessa had got the sparkly stuff in just for me so I felt obliged) and I was thinking with the extra perception that only comes from sparkly booze.

You should have been there. You'd have seen a room full of adults utterly engaged by a story. We were right back at kindergarten. Honestly, we were asking to sit cross-legged on the floor and I'm sure I saw several people suck their thumbs. Dewy-eyed we all were and if someone had come along with that Valrhona chocolate with the little gold bits that Jane Smith keeps telling me about, we'd have hissed at them to shut up and go away with their boring brown product.

You see, a good picture book has everything that any reader or listener needs:
shape, structure, voice, pace, character, setting, and the reader's desperation to know what's going to happen. And isn't that the point about novels? That the reader must want to know what's going to happen? Must in fact be relentlessly driven on by that urge. Otherwise, why would a sensible person sit around listening to a made-up story?

That's why, in my humble etc, a picture book has such a lot to teach us all.

Here are a few other things to know about picture books.

• writing a picture book is way way WAY harder than it looks. Why do you think I've never tried? Oh, apart for some Thomas the Tank Engine books, but that was so painfully difficult that I never plan to do it again. Unless I'm tortured and/or paid a lot of money. Which, by the way, a) I was (paid, not tortured, though there was a bit of that) and b) you almost certainly won't be for an original picture book (paid or tortured).
• do not - oh please please do not EVER - consider writing a picture book because you "want to teach young children" anything - eg "how to share things", as a highly unlikely-ever-to-be-successful aspiring writer said to me recently, shortly before I removed myself from such a pointless conversation. Why? Because there is only one reason to write a picture book:

The Only Reason To Write A Picture Book:

You have a lovely story you want to tell.

Nitty gritty bits:

• a picture book works to a format of a fixed number of pages - usually 24 or 32. Go and buy / borrow some to see how this works. Once you've decided your format (depending on age - as in age of reader not your own age ... - and bearing in mind that shorter is easier to sell, as it's cheaper), work your story around it, remembering that the number of pages includes the "prelims" (the beginning couple of pages where the title and other info comes).
• note that the first page and the last page are single pages, with everything in between being called "double spreads". Keep this in mind as you plan how your story will divide over the pages.
• note how few sentences appear on each page. That's one of the reasons it's so hard - it's incredibly difficult to tell an engaging story in a few words. Even if you start with such a fascinating and engagingly likely character as Thomas the Tank Engine ...
  
• a pic book story must have a shape, just like any other story. So you might start gently, build up, have a setback, build up again, build up more, reach an exciting outcome, and settle down into a feeling of satisfaction. It is a rounded whole and creates an expectation of resolution followed by a small flutter of worry about resolution before the resolution arrives.
• it must have a rhythm and a flow - this story will have to be read by an adult again and again and again. So, read it. Again and again and again.
• unfortunately, you need to avoid or at least be cautious about rhyme, unless you are someone fabulously successful like Gruffalo creator Julia Donaldson - someone else whose launch I've been to and where I've seen grown adults dribbling. Actually, more than that, we acted it out the story for her, with sounds and silly faces and very embarrassing things and we LOVED it. It was fizzy wine again, I admit, but even so.
  
• (btw, the boring reason for avoiding rhyme is that it can't translate easily into foreign languages and publishers usually need to be able to do this.)

Extra nitty gritty bit: Jane Smith just directed me (see comments below) to a REALLY technical and good Editorial Anonymous lesson about pic books here. Way too technical for me but if I was actually writing a pic book ....

What about the pictures?

• If you are a trained illustrator who has written a story, offer yourself as an illustrator who has written a story. In other words, send text and pics.
  
• If you are a writer who happens to be pretty good at drawing, just offer the story - you are welcome to include sketches, just to give an idea, but you are highly unlikely to be taken on as the illustrator. The publisher will find an illustrator - this is not your job and you'll be wasting your time.
• If you are a writer who can't draw for toffee, don't. Just write the story. The publisher will find the artist.
  

About the submission:

• send the whole thing, not just a sample
• but if you are the illustrator, there'd be nothing wrong with only sending some of the finished artwork (but with complete text), with perhaps some sketches for the rest, as long as your style and consistency are absolutely obvious alongside your incredible talent
  
• if sending just text, make sure you indicate how the text will be split between pages
• you won't usually need a synopsis, as your covering letter should give all that's necessary. But a short (obviously!) synopsis on a separate sheet would not go amiss to show you've understood about structure etc
  
• if you are an illustrator, you could send a sample of your work as well as anything you send for this project - you could be taken on as an illustrator for someone else's story
• whatever, you must show a long-term commitment. Simply having written one pic book story on a whim won't be enough. Mention some other ideas you've had, say whether you've written anything else, and give some idea (eg in a CV / resumé) that you have a relevant background and a future. Too many people think that a pic book is easy and a way to get a foot in the door - it's neither of those things and a publisher or agent needs to know that you are worth investing time and money in. One pic book on its own is harder to sell than a potential pic book star author.

Now, if any of you have any technical questions about submitting artwork, please don't ask me, as I haven't a clue. I'm no artist and have absolutely no technical knowledge of that side of things. And I'd be delighted if any experienced pic book writers would add comments to fill in any gaps or add any insights. As I said, I haven't written any pic books and anything I know comes from being interested in all forms of writing and from listening to other people's experiences, including many Society of Authors members.

All I know, and what I really want to emphasise, is that writing a picture book is a real art in itself and that writers for older readers of all ages should read, analyse, inwardly digest and ultimately respect and learn from the best picture books around. And here are three of my favs to get you started.

Think of an Eel, by Karen Wallace - the most magical writing. Perfection.

Sylvia and Bird by Catherine Rayner - beautiful simplicity

The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson - deservedly a classic

Meanwhile, I'm going back to Vanessa's shop to buy a copy of Sylvia and Bird, because I ... er ... forgot last night. Well, I was having too much fun listening to a story.

DEFINE A TEENAGE NOVEL

OK, so two posts in a row about teenage fiction is hardly balanced, but then I never made any claim to be balanced and any time I'm asked to walk along a white line I find myself becoming suspiciously unbalanced. Besides, your comments and interest in the subject were really all the excuse I needed, if I needed any excuse to talk about one of my pet subjects, which I don't.

Do we need to define a teenage novel in order to write one?
Some teenage authors whom I respect claim not to be able or wish to define or even particularly think about what a teenage novel is when they write one. Others are with me, enjoying trying to pin it down without restricting it, and trying to reach a level of understanding that helps us identify with our readers as perfectly as possible. The former authors prove that you don't have to. But I think those authors are very few and far between and happen to write books which happen to be teenage in tone simply because those happen to be the books they want to write.

For the rest of us who dare to tread the tight-rope between writing a great story from the heart and writing a great story that will hit specific readers in the heart, and for those of us who want to understand our market, we need some analysis and some knowledge.

PLEASE NOTE: a teenager, like any other reader, is perfectly entitled to read and enjoy ANY book. When I talk about "teenage novels" I don't mean "novels that teenagers often enjoy". I mean "novels aimed specifically at teenagers" (but which other readers may indeed enjoy).

It would help if you first read my last post - COMMON MISTAKES WHEN WRITING FOR TEENAGERS. In fact, without it you won't understand what I'm about to say, especially about safety-nets. Yes, safety-nets - essential tools for writing for young people.

A perfect illustration
If you are prepared to borrow or buy three books, I can show you with absolute clarity what makes a teenage book a teenage book. A quick read of the first few chapters of these three books will illustrate all I am about to say. Without reading the books, however, you'll still get a pretty good gist of what I mean from what follows. All three start with a young person being bullied or set upon at or near school, which is one reason they make a great comparison:

Bad Girls by Jacqueline Wilson
Malarkey by Keith Gray
The Illumination of Merton Browne by JM Shaw

Bad Girls is not a teenage book - for a start, the protagonist is too young. The language is simplifed, with short sentences and gentle vocabulary, and there is a great deal of protection by adults. You can see the mesh of the safety-net. It's not particularly relevant to our topic except that it's when you then read Malarkey that you see the great leap that the reader must take, both in terms of topic and safety-net distance, to go from one book to the next. Bearing in mind that the reader of Bad Girls may well be 10 or 11 but that an 11/12 year old could easily be reading and enjoying Malarkey, and you see the leap the reader has made in a very short theoretical time. The main character in Malarkey is 16ish, which, according to the "rules" of writing for young people means that our intended readership is up to 14/15.

But then consider The Illumination of Merton Browne. There is a level of violence (extreme domestic abuse) which goes beyond what we'd be able or probably want to offer teenagers. There's a total absence of safety net. There is a great deal of swearing. The age of the character is interesting too - at the time of writing he has left school and is thinking back to his childhood, relating events which happened mostly around his eleventh birthday, and much of the initial action takes place as he arrives at secondary school, aged eleven. A teenage book would not normally be this retrospective: it would normally take place during the relevant teenage years of the reader (although earlier episodes might well be related) and in fact cover a very small part of those years. So, by having the main character an adult looking back to being mostly eleven, we already skew it for the teenage reader and make it not a teenage book.

However, it's a book which many older teenagers might like - if they could get their hands on it, which they won't in a school library in the UK or US or Australia or anywhere else I can think of. unless the librarian really wants to lose his/her job.

Why have teenage books anyway?
Ooh, I could write a whole post on this, and have already written about it in the Scotsman, but I see they have put it very annoyingly onto their "premium pages" and I'm sure you don't want to pay for it. Anyway, maybe another day. Consider simply that some people still argue that teenage books are unnecessary because readers should do what "we always did", ie go straight from kids' books to adult books. Thing is, (amongst other things), adult books have changed in the last 20-30 years and you simply cannot go from Bad Girls to Merton Browne. Or at least not without experiencing severe trauma on the way.

What you said
Some of you posted comments about eg whether Terry Pratchett's Tiffany Aching books were teenage or not. DanielB and anonymous / tbrosz were talking about whether something was "quite right" / felt properly teenage in those and other stories which we might have thought were teenage. I haven't read those Pratchett books but I have always thought of him as one of those writers who isn't a teenage writer but who writes books that many teenagers love. I'm guessing that it's the "adult perspective" of the story that you are referring to and have noticed. Yes, in my view this would be something which would make them "not deliberately teenage books". And it's once you've identifued the "teenageness" or otherwise that (I think) you can fully understand what teenage really is. And you clearly have!

Another one to think about is perhaps Doctor Who - much loved by teenagers for generations but (you'd agree??) not exactly "teenage"? Like Pratchett? And Children of the Stones?

Which I guess brings me to my attempt at a definition, granted that all definitions break down when you start to pick at their edges, and that there will be exceptions, and that books are just books forchristsake and why should they have to be pigeon-holed ...

The "definition"
I see a teenage novel as a story with a teenage character(s) at the centre, written from a teenage viewpoint, which explores a situation which teenage readers often fear, aspire to, dream about or experience, and which provides an emotional connection to themselves as teenagers now. It has no visible boundaries or safety-nets and may be frightening, cutting-edge, brutally honest, shocking or sad, (but doesn't have to be) but in fact there are boundaries of acceptability and hope:

"it takes them to the edge but will not throw them over."
That's my definition anyway.

Of course, I can't shut up when I should so I feel obliged to give a few extra "rules", some of which I touched on in the previous article but which bear repeating:

• the teenage characters find their own solutions because the story is about them and not the adult secondary characters. Get the adults out of the way. Kill them if necessary (preferably before the book starts, or at least before we get to care)
  
• though some teenage novels are deep and some are shallow (as with adult books), the language does not patronise by trying to be simple
• although the voice is teenage, this does not mean you have to sound like a teenager - see my post on voice. The voice has to be appropriate, a voice they'd like to listen to. ie not a teacher, parent, middle-aged person, sad git, kid
• the protagonist is usually a bit older than the intended readership (this applies to writing for younger children too)
  
• no message, remember - or at least not an in your face one. You're a writer not a teacher.
  
• the pace is likely to be faster and tighter than in adult writing
• a teenager (see my book Blame My Brain for a defence and explanation of the details of this, and for an entertaining read, and to save your sanity if you happen to share your living quarters with a teenage specimen) may be 11 years old, but by the age of 15/16 is off your readership radar
  
• the writer must be aware that the level of literary criticism of plot, structure, language, themes to which the book will be subjected by the young reader will be intense - if you think you're writing for kids and that kids don't know how to tell you what's wrong with your book, you're in for a big shock!

So, Amy-Jane, I don't know if this answers your questions, and the others who contacted me off-blog! In my opinion, yes, you do need to know whether your book is for teenagers or not, but you could be lucky and have pitched it perfectly anyway ...

Daniel and Jane - re the 70s series the Children of the Stones, it's worth remembering too that teenage fiction really had only just got going at this time, all in the US - with SE Hinton's The Outsiders and Paul Zindell's The Pigman (God, that's brilliant and devastating in a simple way that only teenage writing can be) both in the late 60s, and then the fabulously dark Robert Cormier - OMG I am The Cheese* - from the 70s. He, incidentally, was edited by my main editor. (Main? See, I'm so rubbish I need more than one ...). Anyway, I guess the rules and possibilities of teenage / YA fiction were so new by that time that adults still very much ruled the roost. Whereas now, we know who's in charge, don't we?

*title of book, not an existential statement

One other point - teenage or YA? YA is more a US term, though we often use it in the UK too. To be honest, no difference is usually implied between the two terms, though sometimes YA refers to a slightly older teenager, but I think this distinction makes it too complicated and unnecessarily pigeon-holey. Outside the book world, young adult refers to 18-25s (eg in medical terminology) so it can be confusing for people outside when we talk about YA.

In the last post I said you had to be able to reel off at least ten favourite teenage authors or books and some of you enthusiastically came up with your own lists (full marks to you). Well, of course, I have a few more because you can't keep a keen reader down:

• John Marsden's Letters from the Inside
• Alice Kuipers' Life on the Refrigerator Door (though you'll need a lot of chocolate to get your life back on track after either of those)
• Adele Geras' Ithaka - nothing to do with the fact that she reads this blog; I'd just forgotten how much I'd liked it and it's very different from the dark cold ones on my previous list. Adele writes books for many different ages but Troy and Ithaka, which fit my criteria for teenage novels, are my favourite.
  

And now I'd probably better stop talking about teenage books before the rest of you disappear. Next, we'll have How To Be a Lovely Publishable Author. Or something. And relatively soon I'll be able to tell you what topics and dates I'm doing talks on in the Edinburgh Book Festival. You never know, I might just be doing one on teenage writing, so then I'll be able to rabbit on for a whole hour. And there'll certainly be one on How To Make a Publisher Say Yes ... Just think, you could actually come and see my boots in real life.

Have a lovely weekend. I had a near death (not exaggerating) incident on the motorway yesterday and made my first ever 999 call, from a stationary and exceptionally vulnerable position in the middle of an intersection between the UK's two biggest motorways (yes, I know, nothing compared with US motorways but they are Big To Us), having been hit by a lorry which didn't stop to see that it had knocked us off the road. So I am planning to count my blessings for being alive. I think wine and chocolate may well be necessary in extra quantities to get me back to a normal mental place.

By the way, if you ever see a car stopped in an incredibly stupid place, risking being smashed to pieces by speeding cars from six lanes of two motorways, I would ask you to consider that it might not be there on purpose. Some of the drivers that passed us clearly had not worked this out, judging from the way they hooted their horns at us and shook their fists.

Pah! Give me teenagers any day.

COMMON MISTAKES WHEN WRITING FOR TEENAGERS

Quality teenage fiction is my passion - it's what I largely choose to read and what I try to write. If you haven't read any of the best teenage fiction of the last ten years or so, you haven't experienced some of the most cutting edge, dynamic, and well-crafted stories around. Oh, and by the way, if you haven't read and admired any modern teenage fiction, please don't try writing any of it.

Because that's the first mistake: not reading it, a lot, and greedily. You should be able to reel off your ten favourite teenage authors. Which I will now do: David Almond, Laurie Anderson, Julie Bertagna, Ian Bone, Tim Bowler, Kevin Brooks, Robert Cormier, Sarah Dessen, Catherine Forde, Keith Gray, Julie Hearn, Ali Kennen, Rachel Klein ... Yes, sorry, that's twelve but you don't expect me to STOP, do you? And I'd not even got halfway through the alphabet. And the list might be different tomorrow, but the point is that I read teenage fiction, I respect it and I know how it works. All of which need to be the case if you're going to write it, as with any other genre.

Teenage fiction is as broad as adult fiction - there's every style and genre within it, and a book for every reader, whether that reader wants something light or deep. Oh yes, there's badly written teenage fiction too - adults don't get all the dross. But of course, if you want to write teenage fiction, you want to write the good stuff, otherwise you wouldn't be reading this blog, which is for serious writers wanting to get seriously published.

Anyway, you want to know the common mistakes. Or at least, I want to tell you, and it's my blog so I'll tell you if I want to.

Define teenager. Yes, certainly: a teenager in reading terms is not a 13-19 year-old. Your market starts at 11 and finishes not much past 15, though lots of older than 15 year-olds continue to read and love this stuff. I, after all, am a tad more than 15. But by 16, your teenager has either largely stopped reading (perhaps temporarily, until school and exams and peer pressure and all sorts of other pressures have died down a bit) or else has moved onto non-teenage books.


So, remember, your teenager may be 11 or 12, and this is perfectly valid, because in fact their brains have started to become teenage by then. I regret to say that at this point I need to draw your attention to my book on the teenage brain, as I do honestly believe that understanding teenagers is the second thing you need to do (after reading their novels). So, here it is, without even any shame:


So, having pried into their brains and raided their bookshelves, how do you avoid the mistakes which (trust me) most writers make when they think they can write a teenage novel?

DON'TS:

1. Dont think you can teach them anything. Teenagers have an inbuilt early message warning system. You even suggest that your book hopes to teach them not to drink, smoke, take drugs, have sex, be mean to their parents, be loud on buses or hang about on street corners, and you ain't got a reader. Just tell the story; forget the message. They're most definitely not stupid (though, like adults, they may do stupid things) and they will take their own message from it. If they want to.
   
2. Don't get down with the kids. If you overdo the teenage language, a) you'll just look like a sad git and b) by the time your book comes out it will be out of date. I mean like totally out of date. On the other hand, of course you can't sound like a BBC TV presenter from the 1940s or someone who would rather be writing a grammar book. Just tell the story and create an authentic voice that is not you the middle-aged (sad git) author, but just a normal voice that they can be happy to listen to and that won't get in the way.
   
3. Don't start with an "issue". OK, so maybe your book is going to be about death, or drugs, or bullying, but forget that it is: it's a story, with real characters and emotions. The story is king.
4. Don't talk down to them or simplify the language. Although your prose should be pure and crystalline, it can be as deep and symbolic as you like, as long as the story is ... yep, you got it: king. Lots of teenage readers, like lots of adult readers, want beautiful and clever use of language. What most readers don't want is an author who is unpleasantly far up his/her own posterior, and teenage readers are less forgiving than adults - so don't over-write (except the gory bits, which you are welcome to over-write). They want you to get to the point, which brings me to the next one ...
   
5. ... don't hang about. Most adult readers don't really want an author to waffle on interminably or become inebriated by the beauteousness of his/her prose style. Well, teenagers certainly don't. You go off on one for even two sentences too long and they're away, off to do something way more interesting, like watching Lord of the Rings for the 99th time (which my daughter has apparently actually done, but she is studying film. Nice excuse, Rebecca.) No seriously, my personal rule is that I treat each sentence as though my teenage reader really wants to go and do something else, and my task is to prevent him/her.
6. Don't allow an adult to sort any problem out. Adults in teenage novels should be rarely seen, even more rarely heard, and never listened to. They need to be absent, feckless or otherwise useless. They can occasionally offer advice but this advice should be either ignored or wrong. Dead parents are very useful but if your character's parents are not dead, please remove them by some other means. Parents may return at the end to say well done and be proud but that's all they're good for, though parental stupidity can be a very useful plot device earlier on.
7. Don't forget the gate-keepers. The gate-keepers are the adults who have a major part to play in whether your teenage book gets a) published and b) read. So, the fact that your friend's teenage son down the road wants you to write a book in which a mass murderer comes to town and chops random adults' heads off and cooks them on a barbeque before destroying all the nearby schools in a fire is not a reason for writing such a book. It won't get published. It's a fact that most books for teenagers are bought by adults who want their teenagers (pupils or offspring) to read them. So, you have to tread a razor-thin line between what the teenager wants to read and what the adult thinks the teenager should want to read. Shock value can also work well though, because if you get a "parental warning" sticker on your book, this has the rather wonderful effect of making parents say no and then teenagers actually going to find it.
   

Two other things to remember:

Safety nets - in modern books for small children, the child usually knows (or learns to know) that nothing too bad will happen: they don't need a safety net because there's no real danger. In books for older children, the safety net becomes progressively further away: the child worries that something bad might happen but trusts that it will be all right in the end, even if something bad does happen first. In a teenage novel the trick is for the author to make it seem as though there is NO safety net: the worst possible thing could happen. However, secretly, there is a saety net: you will not allow the very worst thing (loss of hope) to happen because you care for your reader. It is my personal belief that you must care about your reader if you write for young people.

Strawberries and spinach - stay with me. Strawberries and spinach are both very good for you. In fact, pretty much the main reason most people eat spinach is because they know it's good for them. Actually, I love spinach but don't mind me - and besides, even when I'm eating spinach a part of me is thinking how incredibly good it is for me. Strawberries are, arguably, equally good for us. I read recently that scientists discovered a chemical in the seeds of strawberries which makes them spectacularly beneficial. But when we eat strawberries we do so for one reason: pleasure. We don't sit there thinking, "Omigod, I haven't had my strawberry quota for the week, now my hair's going to fall out and I'm going to get some disease and it will be all my fault."

My point is that books are like strawberries: we consume them for pleasure, even though they also happen to be good for us. When adults choose to read one book as opposed to another we usually do so because we think we'll enjoy it more, not because we think it will be better for us. (OK, there are times when we have to read a book for another reason, but I'm talking about when we choose a book.) And when I talk to parents or teachers about getting kids reading, I always make this point really strongly: that we must not use the "books are good for you" line, but the "books are for pleasure" line.

It's essential for the writer of teenage books to remember this. So, quit with the teaching and the messages and the wishing that teenagers wouldn't drink and smoke and be scary on buses. Just tell them a wonderful gripping story, of whatever sort you want, in the most beautiful and apt language you can find, with the most interesting and real characters you can dream up.

That's pretty much it. Doesn't sound much different from adult writing, does it? Nope, and it's not. It's usually faster, and often tighter, and frequently incredibly interesting. But most of all it's just great stories, well told, to an audience who give the most fabulously perceptive feedback.

Sometimes, of course, their feedback is less than perceptive ... I recently had a comment from a boy who said that my novel Fleshmarket "started off a bit boring". This is a book which opens with a woman having a breast tumour removed without anaesthetic, in front of an audience and by the end of the chapter she's dead of blood poisoning. Honestly, there's no pleasing some people.