Writing for Teenagers vs Writing About Teenagers

As an adult, writing for teenagers can feel somewhat daunting. The vernacular seems to evolve constantly and rapidly, and before you know it, a common phrase is now unforgivably cringe. Don’t fret, however, because many of the challenges of writing YA can be simplified by understanding the difference between writing for teenagers versus writing about them.

In this article, YA author and writing coach Ella McLeod underlines the distinction between writing for teenagers and writing about teenagers. Ella is the bestselling author of two novels for young adults, including the Branford Boase-nominated Rapunzella, or, Don’t Touch My Hair, and The Map That Led To You, a Guardian Best Books Pick. At The Novelry, Ella coaches YA and romantasy and has featured on The Novelry on Writing podcast, where she and fellow writing coach Bea Fitzgerald shared five tips to turn up the heat in romantasy. If you’re working on a YA novel, Ella McLeod is a wonderful coach to help steer your story toward its greatest potential.

Ella provides this thorough and illuminating guide to writing for teenagers and considers essential ingredients like voice, perspective, world-building, and romance in Young Adult fiction. If you’re struggling to decide on your novel’s point of view, its setting, or how to write romance between teenagers with care and consideration as well as authenticity, you’ll find clarity from the helpful tips shared in this article. So, over to Ella!

The five keys to writing for teenagers

No one wants to be cringe, particularly not where teenagers are concerned.

Why? Because they will tell you. Trust me—over the years that I’ve been writing Young Adult fiction, I’ve spent a lot of time calling my adolescent cousins and sister and asking them to read sections of dialogue or passages of internal first-person monologue in the hopes that my writing passes the ‘Gen Z’ test. Spoiler alert: it often didn’t.

Despite my own relative youth (I am young; very young; very, very young—in fact, I’m basically a teen myself), things have changed a lot since my school days, and whether it’s references to cultural moments that have long since stopped being relevant, or even turns of phrase, the adolescent zeitgeist is a swiftly moving thing, particularly in this very digital age. It’s so important to be aware of what matters to the young adults that you’re writing for and why. Even if you’re writing a story set in a different time or a different world entirely, it’s important to think carefully about the common threads between the young protagonists of your story and your readers.

As a writer of both Young Adult and adult fiction, I spend a lot of time considering the following five key things when writing:

1. Voice
2. Perspective
3. World-building
4. Romance
5. Responsibility

And it is these five things that we’re going to dive into.

Another very important thing to consider (so important that I’ve titled this article in its honor) is the distinction between writing for teenagers and writing about the teenage experience. We’ll dig into this a little more later, but for now, I’ll share that my Young Adult novels meet our protagonists at 16. My adult novel meets our protagonist at age 16 and leaves her at age 30—and it is not just the aging that takes place on the page that sets these two stories apart. I have a wildly different set of expectations, aims, and intentions for both readerships, and it is this that I cater to when writing.

1. Voice

Let’s start here. So much of what makes Young Adult fiction distinct from adult fiction is the narrative voice of the novel. This is where we really see that for and about distinction.

It’s crucial to think about what matters to a modern adolescent reader and to tap into how they think and feel.

• What are their priorities?
• Their fears?
• Their hopes and insecurities?
• How do they talk to each other?
• And more importantly still—how do they talk to themselves?

Remember that if you are writing with the aim of publication, you are writing for the teens of today, not your own teen self. This doesn’t mean that teenage-you needs to be entirely banished from the room and placed in a corner. They can absolutely have a say and remind you of what was at the fore of your mind all those years ago, but it’s essential that you distill those memories down to their essence—what is the universal truth?

For example, when I was a teenager, I had a fairly horrible experience with a boy. We met at a party and spent a couple of weeks texting. I later found out that it wasn’t him texting me at all, but a rather cruel friend, and it was all a big joke. Awful at the time... But excellent material now! How would I rewrite this for a modern teenage audience? How would the technology change? The language? There probably wouldn’t be an alert that your protagonist had run out of credit, and they would probably FaceTime—not phone call—their best friend!

I tell this tale not to elicit sympathy but to demonstrate my wider point—this sad little story contains a poignant and timeless truth. It epitomizes adolescent thoughtlessness, strained and complicated social dynamics, and the horror of humiliation. Don’t be afraid of not only consuming media about teenagers but media for teenagers as well. What are they raving about? What are the big fandoms? Books, films, music—treat it as an exercise in time travel, but instead of journeying back to your teenage self, you’re inviting the past version of you to step into the modern day and feel their way around.

While we’re on the subject of voice, I also want you to really take a beat and ask yourself if yours is the right voice to tell this story. If you worry that it’s not—why? And is this something that can be changed or worked on as you build your craft?

I’ve never been a proponent of ‘write what you know’—I certainly have never been a witch (not publicly anyway...) or a mermaid or a pirate, and no one wants to stifle your limitless imagination. But if you are writing about an experience that is not your own, then—just as you would when tackling anything unknown—you have to make sure that you’re diligent in your research and thorough in your characterizations.

There is nothing more frustrating, for example, as a black woman reader than reading a black character who is written badly and whose mannerisms and behaviors rely heavily on stereotypes. It comes back to this idea of universal truth: what is the truth of who this character is? How do you relate to that? How does their identity intersect with what they want?

Writing is an act of radical empathy, and the aim as a writer is always to be developing characters who feel real and realized.

2. Perspective

It seems natural at this time to segue into talking about narrative perspective and how this orients itself around your protagonist.

Firstly, ask yourself where your book sits within the YA spectrum. Most 11-year-olds will be reading differently from most 17-year-olds; they’re experiencing life differently, and while it is of vital importance to never patronize your reader, there will be certain stylistic choices you will have to make that will heavily depend on whether you’re intending to write a book that skews into younger or older YA.

Secondly, consider whether you’ll be writing in first or third person (or second—it can work!), or past or present tense (or future—again, it can work under the right circumstances). A lot of YA is written in first person. The adolescent experience is so full of newness, firsts, and big feelings that our young protagonists will often fall afoul of the kind of behavior that adult protagonists might be emotionally mature enough or experienced enough to avoid. The lack of perspective that first person allows—that close-up, zoomed-in look at a life—not only heightens the chaos and tension of those turbulent teenage years but also allows the kind of intense empathy that best communicates those big feelings.

If you’re writing a first-person YA, really familiarize yourself with adolescent speech. Success lies in the cadences and rhythms of the language—particularly within the snark and sarcasm that makes teenagehood so delicious. I have read some of the wittiest banter in the Young Adult space because goodness knows no one will come up with a faster, saltier one-liner than a teenager provoked!

A good example of a text that is about teenagers, without being necessarily for them, is Normal People by Sally Rooney. An adult book that meets its protagonists in their teenage years, the tone is observational and the third-person perspective slips into free indirect discourse. While this allows the reader a close look into the souls of Marianne and Connell, there is something almost David Attenborough-ish about the writing style. It is sophisticated enough to be sympathetic but also observes Marianne and Connell’s strange and mysterious nuances and mistakes from a distance.

Third person can absolutely work in YA; it just works slightly differently. Third person can really lend itself to fantasy in YA, as the slightly wider lens allows a real depth of world-building as well as facilitating shifts in perspective or head-hopping. It can also serve multiple timelines for the same reason. If you opt for third person, try to keep your own adult voice to the side and allow your narrator to really empathize with your protagonist. This should keep you away from anything tending toward the kinds of judgmental moralizing that might not appeal to contemporary adolescent readers.

My books both feature elements of second-person prose—risky, but I’m a big fan of the results. Second person is a real lesson in radical empathy. Both of my books, Rapunzella, Or, Don’t Touch My Hair and The Map That Led To You, are books that explore themes of identity and coming-of-age and focus on underrepresented voices, specifically black and queer characters. By forcing a reader into the position of you, you are placed in the protagonist’s shoes, allowing for a visceral and emotional experience. I really want to encourage readers to think of what it’s like to inhabit their perspective. I’ve heard from readers who have very different lived experiences to my protagonists that, at times, the ‘you’ was powerfully othering—and this, really, was the point. The second-person perspective called them to consider what it must be like to live in a world where you are seen as separate from the norm, and the General You is rarely referring to You as a specific individual. It’s not to everyone’s tastes, but I think it works well in a genre that prides itself on heightened emotions.

3. World-building

Schools dominate Young Adult literature for a reason. Not only are they a place with significantly fewer adults than young people, allowing space for drama, chaos, and general shenanigans (ever wondered why the parents are always dead, absent, or terrible in YA? Good, involved parents would absolutely notice their children sneaking out to fight the forces of evil!), but they’re also the place where our teenage protagonists spend most of their time.

Between the ages of 11 and 17, school was my whole world. Every drama, every heartbreak, every scheme or joke or political machination happened within the walls of my school. As a result, the school environment will not only contribute heavily to your characters’ development, but it’s also a crucible for the kinds of tension that can only boil over when hundreds of hormonal people with reduced impulse control and limited life experience are confined together for at least 32 hours a week.

As a writer, though, a ‘school’ doesn’t actually have to be a school. It’s absolutely fine, more than fine, to set your YA elsewhere. But this elsewhere will have to have the same function as a school; that is to say, it must be a place where young people can come together to grow and transition through the thorniness into adulthood. This place will need to be relatively adult-free and have systems built into its architecture that allow for drama to arise fairly organically. Recent examples of this being done excellently are Lex Croucher’s YA books Gwen and Art Are Not in Love and Not For the Faint of Heart. The former takes place in a medieval-inspired court, where the adolescent heir to the throne and his spiky younger sister navigate their burgeoning responsibilities as those on a path to rule the kingdom. This works beautifully, as a medieval court, with its many maids, knights, and young nobles, presents plenty of opportunities for kissing, dueling, and rebellion. The latter takes place in a reimagined Sherwood Forest, with the Merry Men forming the ideal microcosm of society to allow for found family, romance, and tricky interpersonal dynamics—as well as more kissing, more dueling, and more rebellion.

Where can you set your YA? What kind of environment would throw all these characters together in a way that catalyzes chaos? And when you’re building your character’s world, what elements will you focus on?

The phrase ‘world-building’ tends to be associated exclusively with fantasy and sci-fi, but even if your characters exist in a real city in a familiar time, it’s important to bring their world to life around them. How do they affect their environment, and how does their environment affect them? Often, there will be a shift in the character’s wider world that sets off the chain of events that your story will be centered on. This can be anything from starting a new school to an intergalactic conflict, but whatever it is, remember that your adolescent protagonists will probably be experiencing it for the first time.

This is another key distinction between writing for and about teenagers; in YA, the world is viewed through their lens. They are the nexus around which the story develops. Even if they’re not the story’s ‘chosen one,’ they have to be your chosen one. Imagine them almost like a reverse prism; the separate narrative strands are beamed through the teenagers at the center of your story and formed into one solid ray of light.

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4. Romance

Let’s talk about YA romance. I have already written a blog post for The Novelry, discussing some of my feelings on this subject, but the long and the short of it is me trying to get to grips with the question of what is and is not appropriate for teen readers—and why.

Again, this is where we have first to ask ourselves where our book sits in the YA spectrum. The kind of romance that is targeted at younger YA readers will likely be less explicit and very focused on the newness of the experience. Think Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging by Louise Rennison (despite the title, it’s pretty PG!), whereas older YA might focus on characters with a little bit more experience romantically. While there would still be a sense of burgeoning sexuality here, with upper YA I find it helpful to think about the point at which we begin to see ourselves as creatures to be watched as opposed to creatures that do things. As we get older and gain self-consciousness, we inhabit our bodies less, thinking less about what our limbs are doing and becoming more preoccupied with how they look while they’re doing it. Romance, however, is a very bodily experience, and there’s something about being jolted back into your body that is an experience specific to the upper YA age bracket. Younger YA, in my opinion, is almost the inverse. There will be less interiority, less internal monologue about what something means, and more confusion or obliviousness, contrasted with a more constant hum of bodily awareness.

In Rapunzella, which probably skews slightly younger, my protagonist is aware of the way her stomach swoops when the boy she likes looks at her; she feels everything and finds herself behaving in strange new ways to get his attention—but she rarely reflects on why this might be. I’m currently working on a first draft of an older, upper YA manuscript, and I’m aware of the ways in which my protagonist turns over every physical reaction that isn’t quite within her control, denying her feelings and fighting to seem nonchalant and indifferent.

I think it’s really important not to shy away from sexuality in Young Adult fiction as, with all of those raging hormones, it’s a very real and present part of the adolescent experience. But I also think this is where the for not about thing we’ve talked so much about rears its head again. How is the romance serving the narrative? In most Young Adult fiction, a romantic plotline develops concurrently with the protagonist(s), allowing the reader to better understand their growth. How do those nascent feelings shape us as we become adults, and how can you bring that to life within your writing? It’s often so all-consuming that you can really play with the vivid and the present, whereas a story written about young adults might not lean into the yearning (my favorite thing) quite as much.

5. Responsibility

In my blog on YA romance, I spoke a lot about yearning (another excellent segue) and how I feel a responsibility to YA readers not to present them with too much too soon. This does not mean avoiding certain subjects or self-censoring, but rather, really thinking about what actually resonates with your readers.

There’s no need to be prudish—I would encourage all YA writers to craft stories in a way that encourages open conversations around sexuality, gender, and identity. These are, in many ways, linchpins of our teenage years, and feeling shame can lead to the kinds of painful repressions that can have long-lasting consequences. Beyond conversations about romance and sexuality, we, as YA authors, also have to think about our presentations of orientation, gender, and race. Our readers will find our work at such a formative time, and the worldview that we communicate has the power to perpetuate or reinforce harm or hope. A lot of this will be rooted in really good research, enabling you to keep away from any negative or reductive stereotypes. It’s also important to really try to have a dialogue with your characters.

Imagine they’re in the room with you.

• What music do they listen to?
• Who do they watch on YouTube and follow on TikTok?
• Are they part of any fandoms? Any subcultures?

Even if you’re writing sci-fi and fantasy, being able to place your characters in a context that’s very real to you will bring them to life even more and ensure that your readers can relate to them.

While adult literature might be grittier and more explicit than Young Adult literature, good YA should be no less sophisticated. Using slightly more accessible language does not mean you have to compromise style or finesse, and YA writers have to work really hard to hone the nuances of their characters so that they are appealing to their readers. This is a space full of high emotional intensity and high stakes, which often crystallizes that drama into a hothouse-like environment full of play, romance, and self-discovery. Remember that you’re writing for teenagers when you’re writing about them, and, most importantly, don’t patronize your readers! They are sharp, savvy, and value authenticity.

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