Writing Entertaining Teen Novels
Use Your Emotions To Form A Link With Young Adult Readers
Readers want to engage with you, the author. The secret to doing this is to get caught up emotionally as you write. Tips on how to write unforgettable stories.
When you write you are forming a partnership with your reader. Not just a financial partnership – you write a story, they pay to read it, - but something far deeper than this. It’s more like an exchange of energy. The best writers engage their emotions when they write, and their readers pick up these feelings.
How Can You Know If You a Good Writer?
Any writer, either established or beginner can know for certain if they are as good as they hope to be, says Professor Leon de Kock, of the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. Simply ask yourself how much you are enjoying yourself as you write. This is a sure way of telling whether a fiction writer, or any kind of writer for that matter is really good.
The Biggest Secret in the Writing Game
“It’s also the biggest secret in the whole writing game," he says. A writer who is entertaining herself as she puts pen to paper is going to entertain the reader. On the other hand, if you are writing, and you’re "labouring, groaning inwardly under the sheer weight and unwieldiness, the difficulty of your own creation, you can be quite, quite sure that’s exactly how it will read. Badly. Heavily.”
Keep Company with your Reader
“To write is to keep company with a reader,” De Kock says.
The teenager who chooses your novel from the shelves of the bookstore has decided to begin a conversation with you, the author. They are looking for intelligent, funny, argumentative, entertaining writing, – but most of all they are looking to engage with you.
An Exchange of Energy
Let’s say you are writing a thriller. The heroine, a fifteen year old girl has had a fight with her boyfriend. He was thrown her out of the car and driven away. To get to the nearest payphone she must enter a dark alley. As the writer you should allow yourself to experience the full range of emotions your heroine does. As you write the sweat will build up on the back of your neck, just as it does on her's. You jump internally, just as she does physically, when a rat knocks over a trashcan.
The fear you feel as you write this scene translates into the words and their rhythm on the page.
The reader picks up your fear along with the words, and Wham! An exchange of emotional energy has taken place.
Blocking the Energy
But if you can’t allow yourself to feel the frightening place in your imagination as you write this scene, your will block the exchange of energy. The readers will feel that something is lacking. They are unlikely to really engage with your story.
Let Your Feelings Flow Freely
As a writer you need to laugh, worry, fear, grieve, wonder, gaze in awe, fall in love, hate, be jealous and dote along with your characters.
The secret to spontaneous, energy-rich writing, is to allow your emotions to flow freely during the writing process. For more on writing energy rich stories read 'Be a disciplined writer' , and 'Writing books that Kids relate to' .
