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The Ultimate Guide To Writing YA Fiction [2022]

September 28, 2020 12 min read Character Fiction Guide Mackenzie Belcastro Publishing Tips YA Young Adult 5 Comments

This is a comprehensive guide to writing young adult (YA) fiction, designed to help you form your thoughts into a shape that will hook your readers and keep them flipping the page!

In today’s guide you’ll learn:

What YA fiction is
How to make your readers care about your story.
The role of character progression and growth.
How to write authentically for young adults, even if you aren’t one.
The 1 ingredient your story’s ending MUST have.

In short: if you have a story that’s bursting to get out into the world, you’ll love this guide.

Unlike other guides to writing YA, we’ll be using detailed examples at each step.

About the Author

Mackenzie Belcastro is a freelance writer and the author of the low-fantasy, YA novel The Play House.

About So You Want to Write

Affectionately acronym’d SYWW, we are a member-led, professional development community of writers established in January 2017.

We partner with literary agents, editors, and published authors to create great content & workshops, and offer coaching that helps writers improve their craft and publish.

Chapter 1: The basics

While many of you may be seasoned writers, well-versed in the publishing world’s lingo, we also know that some of you are bound to be brand new to this world. If you’re part of the first camp, feel free to skip ahead.

If you’re in the second group—you’ve stumbled on this guide because you have a stellar story bouncing around in your head, but no idea if you’re even writing YA—don’t fret. You’re not alone. So many writers started where you are, in total darkness when it comes to industry terminology. Stick with us here as we pull you out, and get you crystal clear on what YA fiction means.

What The Heck Is Young Adult Fiction?

YA fiction is a category of fiction written for and about teens between the ages of 12 and 17. When compared to adult fiction, it’s quicker-paced and more plot-driven.

Young readers tend to have a short attention span. They crave immediacy. Keep this in mind with every word you lay down on the page. There’s no room for lofty contemplation here. Save any waxing and waning for your adult, literary novel.

Tip : writing in the present tense will feed that sense of urgency teens are hungry for.

As a rule of thumb, a YA book excludes any insight that a typical teen would not yet have. This is to maintain the integrity of the character.

Imagine if Leigh Bardugo wrote in Shadow And Bone that Alina Starkov had the wisdom of a senior citizen. It wouldn't make sense, given Alina is a teenager. (Unless, of course, this was a part of her story, and she was, for example, aging backward, à la Benjamin Button .)

So, what about those novels written from the perspective of an adult protagonist reflecting back on his/her youth? Those are considered adult fiction.

Take Stephen King’s novella The Body , for example. This is a story about a group of 12-year-old boys that set out to find a dead body. It is told through the lens of Gordie, one of the central characters, all grown up. Reflecting back on this adventure, Gordie breaks the storyline here and there to insert thoughts from his adult perspective.

While this is appreciated by an older reader, it wouldn’t fly with a teen. Think about it. Teens do not read novels to be verbally slapped on the wrist by a “wise narrator.” They read to understand their friends, their frenemies, and, most of all, themselves. They’re looking to become empowered in their personal stories through story.

YA writers take note: your goal should be to empower teen readers, not patronize them.

Now that we know what YA fiction is, let’s get clear on…

Why The Label Matters

In a nutshell: sales.

When your book goes to market, your publisher will need to be able to define your audience clearly. This is so they can go on to target it effectively, and sell your books!

Many writers say they "don't care" about sales, that they're only concerned with the art, and that if their books are meant to find an audience, they will.

And while that may be the case for you (how could I say otherwise?), most writers, when they face the music, do care about sales. If not because they want to be the next Victoria Aveyard, then because they want their stories to reach as many readers as possible.

This can be scary to admit, because as long as you put it out there that you want your book to sell well, therein lies the possibility of failing to accomplish said goal.

But fear should never prevent you from going after what you want.

Plus, who says you'll fail?

Labelling your book appropriately will help ensure the opposite effect: your book's success.

Yes, there are adults that read YA, and teens that read adult fiction. But those will be the outliers—the readers that are coming to your book through recommendation, not targeted marketing.

In order to get your book into the hands of the readers that will most appreciate your story, it needs to be labelled appropriately.

A Note On Word Count

On average, YA fiction lies somewhere between 47,000 and 80,000 words. The only genres where it’s considered “acceptable” by most to write past 80K are science fiction and fantasy, because of the world-building required.

Writing above 100K is a risk, especially for debut authors. Unless you have a large platform that can be leveraged to help you sell your book, or social proof through Wattpad that your story is a page-turner, prospective publishers are going to be weary of investing in your book.

This isn’t because they’re bad people. It’s because publishers are the ones shelling out for each page printed. The lower your page count, the less of an upfront investment it is for them. Remember, you want to make your book an easy sell. So, steer clear of whoppers.

At least, until you build your cult following.

And on that note…

Chapter 2: How to make your readers care about your story

For readers to be invested in your story, they need to be able to see themselves in your characters. Books with characters that are too perfect or too flat are usually abandoned.

They don’t resonate. Teens are experiencing all sorts of difficulties in their day to day lives—from bullying, to gossip, to drugs, to assault, to deep depression, isolation, and so on. They don’t want overly polished plots and people. They want the messy, real deal.

Think of A Court of Thorns and Roses . Sarah J. Maas's main character Feyre is far from the polished, prototypical female lead. She is tough. And not just tough in the heroic sense. Tough, too, in the I-have-a-dark-side-so-you-better-not-mess-with-me kind of way. Us readers are exposed to her underbelly. And we are drawn to it, because we see ourselves reflected in it. We're not perfect, and neither is Feyre. We love her for this.

Avoid Stereotypes

The first step in creating characters that your readers can relate to is in the details. Dig well past stereotypes until you find traits and backstories that take your characters into the grey zone.

Here’s what that means.

Rather than paint your antagonist into a two-dimensional black hole (think: an out-and-out psychopath), give your antagonist some redeeming, even likeable qualities.

Like, for example, as Sarah J. Maas did with her character Manon Blackbeak in her novel Throne of Glass . Manon is, at the outset, ruthless, killing men to drink their blood. But, over time, readers come to see she has a rather tender heart—exposed when she risks everything to save Elide, Asterin, the Thirteen, and Dorian .

On the flip side, when it comes to your protagonist, you'll want to give him or her deeper flaws. These will have your reader questioning their own support for your protagonist.

Look to Caroline Kepnes. She does this well in the book You . Readers are at once sympathetic to Joe Goldberg and disgusted by his behaviour. They can't figure out if they're on his side, or not. Confusion aside, it's virtually guaranteed, when you do this, your readers will be intrigued. And glued to the page.

Quit Protecting Your Characters

If your characters still aren’t connecting to your readers, you may be “protecting” them. That is, you may be keeping them from getting too hurt. This is a problem because what that translates to is you are creating lives too shiny for readers and their gritty reality to identify with. This causes a disconnect, which leads to a lack of interest for readers.

Guilty of this? Don’t kick yourself. You’re in good company. Early drafts of Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian were, well, boring. Characters were indifferent when they should’ve been angry, and overly generous when they should’ve been selfish.

So, how did McCarthy write the lean nightmare that we know and love today? He stopped steering his characters away from the dark alley. He let them stumble and feel pain.

Follow his lead. Take your characters to a place that scares you. You probably already have something coming to mind right now as you read this. Don’t you?

Focus On Emotional Truth

Teens want to read stories that show them they aren’t alone, but this doesn’t mean they need to lead the exact same lives as the characters in your story. They just need to see their struggles in the characters.

Look at Mateo Torrez in Adam Silvera's They Both Die At The End , for example . Many of us can relate to his having anxiety, and his resultant decision to spend the majority of his time in the blogosphere.

And, I'd venture to bet, we can all , especially in the day and age of the Pandemic, relate to Mateo's parallel feeling: that the online world isn't enough, and that he needs to socialize in the real world, in spite of his anxiety.

So, while we may not all receive calls from Death-Cast telling us we're going to die today (let's keep our fingers crossed on that one, anyway), we can relate to Mateo's feelings, his emotional truth.

Or, look at Harry Potter . Most of us can relate to Harry. Even if we’ll never be involved in a duel with Lord Voldemort, we can still understand his pain. We’ve all lost people we’ve loved and have, at some point or another, felt like a misfit.

Take note: most teens struggle with identity. They’re asking, either consciously or subconsciously, all the time, “Who am I?” “Who should I be?” “How should I behave?”

If this doesn’t resonate with you, think about what does. What are some pain points you’re familiar with? You’ll be powerful when you can zero in on these.

Don’t be afraid if they’re “heavy.” Embrace challenging subject matter. As long as you’re not trying to be “edgy” or create cheap shock value, you should be well received. Come from a place of honesty. If your mind is drawing a blank on your past struggles, stay tuned for a number of techniques you can use.

In sum, the key to making sure your readers care about your story lies in exposing the full spectrum of your characters’ emotional truth, and allowing them, like any good parent, to fall down, get hurt, and then get back up again.

Authors come off as authentic and likeable to YA readers when they accurately capture their readers’ range of thoughts, feelings, and experiences in their day to day lives.

Chapter 3: The role of character progression & growth

Personal growth is a big part of what differentiates YA and adult stories. Why? Think back to when you were a teen. For most, this was a period of exponential growth because life was a minefield of firsts.

Throughout your book, your protagonist should be growing up, actively transforming in front of the reader. As he or she learns, grows and changes, because of the events experienced in your book, your reader should be gaining insight, too.

How do you highlight this growth in your plot? Create complications and then use these as opportunities to facilitate your protagonist’s learning. If you need ideas, think about where tension came from when you were young. Common culprits are identity, but also relationships and change.

A fight with a friend, for example, can be insightful for your character—especially if it’s caused because your character blew a comment out of proportion, and is forced to reflect on why he or she did that. This can unroot a suppressed pain point your protagonist now has to confront.

Or, you could have a character that meets another character that mirrors back what they've been unwilling to look at in themselves. For instance, maybe your main character is queer but has been hiding from this truth. Having said character meet an out and proud queer character will encourage your character to, perhaps unconsciously at first, begin to discover this hidden aspect of self.

Another example is your character being forced to change schools. Moving away from friends is a trigger for many teens who tend to use this as an opportunity to “start fresh”— to consider how they want to show up in their “new life” and reflect on who they want to be.

Scenes like these are powerful for your readers. They show how a collection of moments like those plotted in your storyline make an impact, shape us into the people we become.

With that eye opening, readers are encouraged to look inwards, at themselves, at what the plot points of their unique lives look like, and who they’ve become as a result. This is a large part of the power of story.

Don’t forget to be concise with your character’s reflections. Remember that YA is meant to be plot-driven. To ensure you’re keeping your story from getting too fatty, ask yourself of every scene:

What does this bring to the overall story?
Is this conversation/reflection necessary for the development of my characters?
How can my characters develop here? What are they learning?

Chapter 4: How to write authentically for young adults (even if you aren’t one)

As mentioned earlier, a YA novel cannot be told from the point of view of a wise, full blown adult. It has to be told from the point of view of a teen(s) to maintain integrity.

If it's been a long time since you've been a teenager yourself, read on. The following is what the authors of the best YA books nail, which keeps their fanbase intrigued, loyal, and growing.

Embrace Your Inner Drama Queen

Most teens exaggerate. A lot. Like, one thousand times a day. Teens live in a heightened state of emotion, and exaggeration showcases that, compounded by their tendency to blurt things out before first thinking and putting them into perspective.

Say Adios To The Grammar Police

Dialogue not only can run, be cut short prematurely, or repeat senselessly in YA—they actually should . Teens aren’t precious with their grammar. Reflect that.

Be mindful of adjusting to your target. If you’re writing for younger teens, shorter, more declarative sentences work best, split up into many small paragraphs. For the older set, complex sentences and longer paragraphs are fair game.

Embrace Immaturity

We mentioned it once, but we’ll say it again. Avoid infusing any adult wisdom/analysis into your YA novel. Though typically self-absorbed, teens aren’t often too self-aware, nor do they consider why others may be acting the way they are. Portray them honestly.

For example, your character would likely have an emotional reaction to her friend ignoring her. She’d get angry or feel hurt. She would not thoughtfully ponder what may be wrong in her friend’s life causing her to behave this way.

If you’re feeling unsure of your portrayal of your characters, get in touch with your young, awkward, vulnerable self. The one that felt unsure, insecure, and/or naively invincible. If you can find a memory that cracked you open and made you see the world in a new light, dig into it. Write from this place. Let this experience show up in your work.

If you have them, unearth old diaries and read your entries. If you don’t, try people-watching. Studying teens out and about can help you remember what it’s like to be one of them. At the very least, take notes and put them to use.

Choose Simple Words

Lots of authors resort to slang to connect with their readers. Don’t. Slang dates books. Instead, use simple words. Ask yourself if a person the age of your characters would really talk in the way you’ve just written, and if a reader who’s your protagonist’s age would be able to understand.

Chapter 5: The 1 ingredient your story’s ending MUST have

Ah, the kernel of hope .

While no teen today wants to read a book with a boring, fairytale ending, optimism must exist in your book’s close. For instance, while your main character may not sky rocket from an anti-social leper to being the most popular kid in school, you’ll want to give him/her a friend or two by the end.

Consider the popular School For Good And Evil series. It opens portraying Agatha as grumpy, friendless, and insecure. Over time though, we see the humour in her grumpiness. We see her find a friend in Sophie. And, slowly, we witness her gain self-confidence, too.

Another example is found in Thirteen Reasons Why . The story ends with Clay being unable to save the protagonist from ending her life. Although we feel his intense regret for not having tried harder to help her, there is a silver lining.

On the novel’s final page, Clay encounters another classmate that he is worried about. Unlike before, he doesn’t let the chance to help slip by. Motivated by Hannah’s story and his hope for a better outcome, he seizes the moment, and saves a life.

This optimism is crucial because your readers are impressionable. As an author, you’re a figure of indirect authority in their lives. It is your duty to give them a reason to wake up tomorrow, to know that although things get difficult, there is always light at the end of the tunnel.

Chapter 6: Final Words

We hope you found this guide insightful and actionable. Now, it’s time to gather your notes and take a well-deserved break.

After that, don’t hesitate. Take what you’ve learned here and apply it to your story. If you need more direct help with your particular book, we’re here to support you.

Here’s how we at So You Want to Write? can assist:

Enrol yourself in one of our intensive coaching programs
Take a workshop , or
Arrange a 1-on-1 meeting with one of our literary experts

Or, if you’re just in need of regular motivation and helpful tips, you can start simply by joining our email list .

Either way, we hope to hear from you soon.

5 Responses

May 09, 2022

I’m new. Very new. I’ve only begun to write what I hope will become a shed out YA series. I am writing from several characters points of view and want to use one of the main characters father as one of them. He isn’t very well spoken or a genius or anything and I wanted kids read something from an adults perspective and learn why we may do the things we do. Is this wrong?

January 19, 2022

Can an entire chapter of 6.5 pages have only narrative or should there be dialogue in each and every chapter of a YA novel? There’s lots of action, it’s just described in narrative. There’s a tiny scene of dialogue at the very end. Is that okay or should I rewrite it to have way more dialogue? Thanks.

So You Want To Write

January 06, 2021

Thanks for your questions. In response…

1. The reason people say 1st person, present tense is “best” comes down to the fact that most of the time this creates greater immediacy, which young readers (esp. these days with the shortening of attention span) typically prefer.

That said, some prefer third person, past tense for the richness this style can lend. We see this more in the European markets, especially with readers who grew up on classics.

So, it isn’t cut and dry. It does depend ultimately on your market. Go with your gut, and with your editor/beta readers/agent’s feedback.

2. Yes, this is acceptable. There are lots of YA books that do multiple POVs, including the School For Good And Evil series, Six of Crows, Eleanor and Park, A Step Toward Falling, An Ember In The Ashes, etc.

Some things to ask yourself: Why am I writing in multiple POV? Does the story necessitate this? If so, all good.

If not, ask: Why have I structured my story in this way? Am I too scared to dive into the one character’s POV? Why?

January 05, 2021

Thank you for the helpful advice. I have two published novels and one finished but not yet published novel, all in different genres. I am working on the third draft of my first YA novel. I have two questions: (1) I have been told that typically a YA novel is first person and present tense. Does that mean my MS with third person and past tense is less marketable? (2) My YA protagonist is a fifteen-year-old girl with the dominant point of view, but the story is told from several points of view. Is this acceptable in the YA marketplace? Jim Lee

Laurayne Bryon

October 26, 2020

I was on the fence about whether my trilogy was YA fiction. After reading this wonderful guide, I know I’m closer to the mark of YA fiction than I thought. Thanks so much for this. It is a light in dark places.

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25 YA Writing Prompts to Spark Terrific Stories for Teens

by Sue Weems | 0 comments

Free Book Planning Course! Sign up for our 3-part book planning course and make your book writing easy . It expires soon, though, so don’t wait. Sign up here before the deadline!

Some of the books that make the biggest impact on us as readers are the books we read as children and teens. If you want to write for teens, today we have some young adult YA writing prompts to get your creative juices flowing. Use one of these story ideas to write your own YA story!

Young adult fiction, often shortened to YA, is a market for literature that focuses on teenage protagonists and their coming-of-age experiences. The stories in this market range from fantasy and science fiction to contemporary realist tales. There are young adult books across every genre.

YA novels typically explore topics such as identity, self-discovery, romantic relationships, mental health, and the struggles of growing up.

See our complete guide on How to Write a YA Novel here. You can also review the six elements of plot here . Or just choose a prompt and jump in!

25 YA Writing Prompts

A teen wakes up with no memory, only to realize they're a crucial part of a hidden rebellion.
Two strangers with clashing personalities are chosen as partners for a life-or-death competition.
A girl discovers a magical object that grants her one extraordinary wish, but it will cost her dearly.
In a dystopian world, a group of teens forms an underground society fighting against oppression.
A teenager finds a secret portal that leads to parallel universes, each with a different danger.
A high school outcast uncovers a dark secret that threatens the safety of their entire town.
A young artist's paintings come to life, blurring the line between fantasy and reality.
A teenager with the ability to control dreams discovers a sinister plot targeting dreamers.
A group of teens trapped in a haunted house must uncover its dark history to escape.
A girl receives anonymous messages predicting future events, but some foretell tragedy.
In a world where emotions are forbidden, a rebellious teen discovers the power of love.
A young musician finds an enchanted instrument that brings both fame and danger.
A young witch struggles to control her powers while attending a prestigious magical academy.
Two teens accidentally switch bodies and must navigate each other's lives to find a way back.
A girl with the ability to heal others discovers she can also absorb their pain.
In a post-apocalyptic world, a group of teens forms a band of scavengers searching for hope.
A teenager uncovers a secret society of time travelers and becomes entangled in their mission.
A young hacker stumbles upon a conspiracy that threatens to control people's thoughts and actions.
A teenager inherits a house from a distant relative, but it comes with some peculiar conditions.
Two best friends uncover a hidden treasure map, leading them on a thrilling adventure to unlock a long-lost secret.
An aspiring athlete must overcome a career-threatening injury and find the strength to pursue their dreams.
A teenager with the ability to see ghosts must help a restless spirit find peace and solve their unfinished business.
In a world where dreams can be manipulated, a teenager with vivid nightmares must confront their deepest fears.
A teen's everyday life at their parents' coffee shop is disrupted by an unruly customer who claims to know the truth of the parents' identities.

Whether you write contemporary stories for young adults or fantasy stories set in a fantastical world, try one of these fiction writing prompts to write teenage protagonists pursuing a worthy goal today.

Set your timer for 15 minutes . Choose one of the prompts above and start your story (or jump into the middle of a scene!). When time's up, post your practice in the Pro Practice Workshop here and share feedback with a few other writers.

Not a member yet? Join us here !

Sue Weems is a writer, teacher, and traveler with an advanced degree in (mostly fictional) revenge. When she’s not rationalizing her love for parentheses (and dramatic asides), she follows a sailor around the globe with their four children, two dogs, and an impossibly tall stack of books to read. You can read more of her writing tips on her website .

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55 Of The Best Young Adult Creative Writing Prompts

You’re looking for some creative story ideas for teenagers, maybe because you want to write YA fiction, or maybe because you know someone else who does.

Welcome to our inspired collection of 55 writing prompts for young adults.

You’ll find a variety of characters and scenarios to play with. Choose from different themed groups to find your next story idea more quickly.

Start with one that feels personal to you. Then make it familiar to your reader.

YA Fantasy Writing Prompts

Prompts for teenage love story ideas, prompts for coming of age story ideas, contemporary ya writing prompts, ready to write your ya novel, 55 of the best ya writing prompts.

We’ve done our research to give you 55 of the best teen fiction ideas .

As the writer, you’re free to change any details as you see fit, to make the story more personal to you and more believable to your ideal reader.

1. While learning the true identities of the nursing home residents, a teen volunteer discovers something unexpected about her own and meets an unusual mentor.

2. A teen shifter who was told her twin sister died in childbirth discovers the truth when she escapes her house at night to shift and go for a run.

3. Two teens secretly crushing on each other create a fantasy world for a school writing project and suddenly find themselves lost in it.

teens talking with each other Young Adult Creative Writing Prompts

4. Anonymous notes in a teen’s locker lead them to a rendezvous with someone who knows their secret identity and wants their help exposing some of the faculty.

5. At her 16th birthday, Maeve accepts her aunt’s gift of a chance to see some of her past lives. She learns why the face of one of her classmates feels so familiar.

6. A teen girl learns the true meaning behind the mark she was born with. Now, she must choose between two teachers with very different ideas about magic’s uses.

7. A teen mage turns heads when it becomes obvious she’s even more powerful than her well-known parents (RIP). Her BFF warns her about rumors going around.

8. Lucia never learned how to swim and is nervous around pools, so when someone shoves her into one at a friend’s birthday party, she’s not prepared for her own transformation. Someone else at the party is.

9. A college freshman finds refuge on the dormitory roof until another student starts hanging out there to practice magic. They agree to keep each other’s secrets.

10. It’s not easy being a shapeshifter whose human form is a teen paralyzed from the waist down. Only in her other, terrifying form is she able to move freely.

11. A teen takes in a stray cat who follows her home. The same cat leads her to an abandoned house where she learns a secret about her past — and her identity.

12. Petra decides to go to the prom in a tux as her cousin’s “date,” and, manifesting abilities she didn’t know she had, she stops a guy from committing date rape.

13. Isa died and came back to life ten years ago. Now, she learns that a tree was involved in her coming back, and recent strange experiences begin to make sense.

14. Whenever she’s under duress, a strange song plays in her mind. When she says the words aloud, strange things happen. And this time, she’s the only survivor.

15. A teen switches bodies with her 50-year-old neighbor and learns disturbing truths when looking through the woman’s possessions. Meanwhile her teen body is up to nothing good.

16. At your first job, you witness strange phenomena, but your boss tells you to keep your head down and check things off the list . Too curious, you find a hiding spot.

17. Soraya, a withdrawn sophomore, turns 16 and starts seeing an unfamiliar face in her dreams. A new “exchange student” comes to class, and she meets the face..

18. She wants to meet her birth mother, and he’s willing to drive her there in secrecy. They end up stranded together when his car breaks down 100 miles from home.

19. A teen glrl develops a flair for cosplay and takes on the personalities of the characters she becomes. One of these character’s fans pursues her.

20. A teen growing up in a devout Christian home falls for an outspoken atheist and grapples with her religious beliefs and sexual orientation.

21. She sees his face in her head and doesn’t know why he’s so important to her. They’ll never meet. Only when she writes about him does he come alive and speak to her.

22. Two young athletes on competing teams develop romantic feelings for each other. Their coaches are bitter rivals.

23. A quiet, hardworking student by day, Dax takes on a different identity at night. And that’s when he meets the only person who can help him find balance.

24. Sixteen-year-old Tess is the butt of cruel “fat” jokes until a boy humiliates the jokers and walks her home. They see each other and become more than friends.

25. Declan McGregor never thought he’d take in a stray , but when “Boss” follows him home, he decides to help the mutt, whose human turns out to be his nemesis.

26. A reclusive junior develops a crush on a flirt , who befriends her, only to find out he was acting on a dare. Then she finds out who dared him and why.

27. She gives good advice through an anonymous advice column in the school paper, but when she meets one of the students she “helped,” she realizes her mistake and tries to fix it.

28. A quiet girl who keeps her home life secret takes up boxing and becomes more confident and outspoken, drawing the attention of someone who knows her family.

29. An asexual teen starts questioning her identity when she responds in surprising ways to a face that keeps showing up in her dreams. Then she meets the face.

30. Working her first night shift, an 18-year-old discovers a secret passageway in her employer’s office — and ends up encountering his socially awkward son.

Fiction Writing Prompts for the Young Adult (YA) Genre

by Melissa Donovan | Aug 24, 2021 | Fiction Writing Prompts | 8 comments

Fiction writing prompts: young adult.

Young adult literature is one of the most exciting genres in fiction. Young people are bright, bold, and open-minded. More importantly, they’re going to shape the future. What they read matters.

Classic young adult books like To Kill a Mockingbird , The Outsiders , and Lord of the Flies tell entertaining stories populated with compelling characters, but these stories also highlight important social questions and issues.

Stories like Catcher in the Rye inspire introspection, and contemporary stories like The Hunger Games force readers to consider the future of humanity.

And who can forget what is possibly the oldest and most famous young adult story in Western culture: Romeo and Juliet , the classic tale of two star-crossed lovers who are destined for tragedy?

When I was a teenager, my favorite movie was The Breakfast Club . To this day, I think it’s one of the most brilliant films ever made. People often mock me when I say that. How could a movie about a bunch of teenagers spending the day in detention be brilliant, or even important, for that matter?

But the film is not just about a bunch of teenagers. It’s about what it means to be human. It’s about how we are more alike than we are different. And it’s about how we treat each other. It’s about class and culture, the haves and the have-nots, and at its heart, it’s about personal growth and how our interactions with others shape whom we become. And it’s a story for and about young adults.

Fiction Writing Prompts for Writers of YA Fiction

You can use these fiction writing prompts to inspire a short story, novel, or screenplay. Mix and match them, change them, adapt them in any way that feels right to you.

On the first day of school, two best friends discover a frightening secret about one of their new teachers.
Four friends on a nature hike discover a deep cave, complete with running water. As they go deeper and deeper into the cave, they find strange objects—human skeletons, an old computer from the early eighties, a gas mask, and strange mango-sized orbs that emit a glowing blue light.
A youngster on a first hunting trip has a deer in sight and suddenly remembers the day their dad took them to see Bambi .
Write a satirical story about an orphanage that is managed as if it were an animal shelter, or write about an animal shelter that is managed as if it were an orphanage.
Two best friends make a pact. When they get to junior high, they grow apart, but the pact haunts them. Will they fulfill the pact they made as children?
After a car accident and a minor head injury, a teenager starts having precognitive dreams. Initially, family and friends insist the dreams are coincidences, but the proof becomes undeniable when a government agency steps in.
Write a story set in juvenile hall.
A teenager’s beliefs are not in line with his or her parents’ religious system. Can we control what we believe? Can we control what others believe?
In the midst of a natural disaster, a classroom is locked down and everyone inside is trapped until they are rescued three days later.
The story starts when a kid comes out of the school bathroom with toilet paper dangling from his or her waistband. Does someone step forward and whisper a polite word, or do the other kids make fun? What happens in this pivotal moment will drive the story and have a deep impact on the main character.

Have you ever tried writing fiction for young adults? Where do you get your story ideas? Did any of these prompts inspire you? Share your thoughts by leaving a comment, and keep writing.

These are great prompts for writers of any age! As a writing teacher, I also think they are good for prompting students’ critical thinking skills. 🙂

Thanks, Kat! I’ve heard from a few teachers who are using prompts and exercises from my books and blog, and it’s an honor!

These were really well written and will help a lot of people. You did a really good job writing this.

Thanks, Coffee. I’m glad you found this helpful.

Love love love that your favorite movie is/was The Breakfast Club!!! My favorite 80s movie of all times and I love that you shared this, it gives me some good ideas to start with. This genre is the one I’m currently focusing on.

Thanks for your comment, Sydney. Yes, The Breakfast Club remains my all-time favorite. Such a great, underrated film.

I love these! Will hopefully cure my writer’s block 😄🥰

Thanks, Aimee. I’m so glad you love them!

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50 Young Adult Plot Ideas and Writing Prompts

50 young adult novel writing prompts | a group of friends in blue jeans sitting on a wall

I love thinking about plot ideas and idea starters for novels, short stories, and other fiction. I’ve already done lists of master plots and writing prompts for fantasy writing prompts , romance writing prompts , horror writing prompts , and many more! In the past couple of months, a few of my newsletter subscribers have requested YA plot ideas.

While many of my other writing prompts could be used for young adult novels, I created this list specifically with pre-teen and teen main characters in mind, but many of them would work for mainstream fiction or “women’s fiction,” too. Some of these are master plots, and some of them are ideas for plot points within a story. I’ve included a few love stories, ideas for YA dystopian novels, and ideas for thrillers.

If you write a short story, screenplay, or even a novel based on a plot idea from this list, it’s not cheating. You’ll make the story your own, anyway. Remember that you can change the genders or other details as you like.

Pin or bookmark the list now for future inspiration!

"50 WRITING PROMPTS FOR YOUNG ADULT NOVELS" teenagers at sunset

1. A boy pursues his list of wildly ambitious New Year’s resolutions, with hilarious and touching results.

2. A girl on the swim team transforms into a part-time mermaid.

3. A group of “outsiders” become a clique that eventually excludes others.

4. A girl’s favorite author plagiarizes her fanfiction.

5. A boy learns who believed his sister died finds out she’s very much alive.

6. A teenager’s best friend goes missing—and is widely believed to be the murderer of a family member.

7. Two teens begin to write a fantasy novel together and then cross over into the world they’ve created.

8. In a dystopian future, college admissions boards have access to video footage of students’ entire lives.

9. A girl always hangs out at a particular little nook at the library. Then the same boy starts taking the space every day.

10. A boy learns something terrible about his parents.

11. In a modern-day Ferris Bueller’s Day Off , three girls ditch class for a day filled with adventures.

12. A girl who loves cosplay begins taking on the personality of whatever character she’s dressed up as.

13. A college student desperate for tuition money secretly works at two different full-time summer internships at once, two city blocks away from one another.

14. Anonymous notes in her locker lead her into a mystery.

15. Two teens from different social groups strike up a clandestine romance.

16. An adopted girl finds out she’s one of four quadruplets and finds her other sisters.

17. A teen’s private diary is shared without his consent on social media, and it goes viral.

18. A boy pretends he can foretell the future…and discovers he actually can.

19. A teen forms a unique connection with an animal.

20. A girl escapes a fundamentalist cult that’s living off the grid.

21. In a world where all creative work is illegal unless commissioned by the government, teens meet to write and share poetry in secret.

22. A high school coach or teacher convinces his favorite students to cheat.

23. When a nerdy girl transfers to a new school, she completely changes her image.

24. The captain of the high school debate team does his best arguing outside of tournaments—and it gets him in trouble.

25. A teen makes a friend with someone who may or may not be an actual angel.

26. A girl tries to keep up with her schoolwork while adjusting to her newly discovered responsibilities as Queen of the Fairies.

27. A boy growing up in rough circumstances falls in love with cooking and dreams of becoming a chef.

28. A teen gives excellent advice in an anonymous advice column in the school newspaper, but is completely unable to follow the advice herself.

29. Two boys on rival basketball teams develop romantic feelings for one another.

30. A girl takes boxing lessons and gets the confidence to stand up for herself verbally, as well.

31. A quiet, studious boy has a secret, rebellious life at night.

32. Two girls carry out an elaborate act of revenge against two other girls.

33. In order to avoid his abusive father, a boy finds ways to avoid spending time at his own house.

34. A teenager is pressured to shoot a buck on his first deer hunt with an older relative, but he can’t bring himself to do it.

35. A girl who wants to be a virgin until she gets married faces social pressure about her decision.

36. A teen gains the ability to take the form of any other person she chooses.

37. A girl’s science fair project yields results that attract the government’s attention.

38. A teen’s suspicions about a teacher lead him to conduct a private investigation.

39. A girl struggles with the decision to tell authorities about what the star quarterback did.

40. Soon after a boy was born, his father went missing. Now, a skeleton has been discovered in the basement of their former home.

41. A teen attempts to make his whole fractious extended family get along and have a nice Christmas for once in their lives.

42. A girl discovers a secret passageway in one of the office buildings she cleans at night, but nobody else seems to be able to access it.

43. A teen copes with both a hopeless crush on his best friend’s older sister and a younger girl’s crush on him.

44. A city kid deals with a move to a tiny farming community.

45. A boy’s random acts of kindness prove contagious and lead to surprising results.

46. A girl whose mother is a hoarder attempts to have a normal life.

47. Two boys discover treasure in a local cave.

48. Two families hiding from a repressive government live in a submarine.

49. A boy tries to escape the shadow of his more accomplished and more handsome older brother.

50. A girl dreads spending the summer with her grandparents…but it turns out to be the best summer of her life so far.

50 young adult novel writing prompts | pink converse sneakers in the grass

Would you like some more young adult plot ideas? Check out my book 5,000 Writing Prompts ! It has 100 more young adult writing prompts in addition to the ones on this list, plus hundreds of other master plots by genre, dialogue and character prompts, and much more.

Have anything to say about the list? Want to chat about what you’re working on or planning? Go ahead and share in the comments section! Thanks for reading, and happy writing!

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43 YA Writing Prompts with Best-Seller Potential

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Disclosure: The content on this site is free. Some of the links below are affiliate links from companies like Amazon.com and if you click the links and make a purchase we will receive a small commission at no additional cost to you. Thank you in advance if you decide to support our site by using our affiliate links!

This is the fifth article in our writing prompt series . In this article, we’re going to focus on young adult fiction novel ideas.

If you’re interested in seeing more story ideas in different genres, check out our main writing prompt page.

YA fiction has become increasingly popular, especially after smash hits like “Twilight”, “Divergent”, and the “Hunger Games.”

Young adult fiction often appeals to readers who fall in that same age range for obvious reasons.

Sometimes, the young adult fiction novel transcends contemporary readers and becomes mainstream, when that happens you have a smash global phenomenon.

As we said many times, during this writing prompt series, writing prompts are only the seeds to a potentially great idea. What you do with this seed will determine how successful a potential novel ultimately is.

Here are some great YA Writing Prompt Resources on Amazon

Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on [relevant Amazon Site(s), as applicable] at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.

With that being said, let’s take a look at some YA specific writing prompts that might just get your creative juices flowing enough to write the next global young adult smash hit…

So Here Are Your 43 Young Adult Story Ideas.

A high school age student loses both their parents in a car accident and is forced to move across the country with their eccentric aunt and uncle.

A young Muslim boy from a strict family falls in love with the Christian girl in his high school, and must now balance the expectations of his family with that of his heart.
An 18-year-old boy who left home to pursue a career in music with his band is close to hitting the big time when he gets a call from home saying his father passed away.
A student being raised by very strict parents who want them to become a doctor loses a friend during her freshman year of college giving her a new perspective on life, pay renewed ambition to pursue her true passion, art.
A young girl has her boyfriend overdosed while at a high school party and falls into a deep depression. She realizes she’s spiraling out of control, however, she feels she deserves it.
A young male had dedicated his life to studying the Torah to become a rabbi, but recently his faith is being tested like never before. He must now decide if he is to continue in his family’s footsteps or abandon his life’s work.
A Young college freshman is told they have less than a year to live. They decide against having any more treatments against her family’s wishes to pursue their bucket list.
Young teen gets in trouble with the law, and it cost them their college scholarship. They are now left to pick up the shattered pieces of a previously charmed future.
A teen dealing with Asperger’s struggles to get through high school. When the pressure gets too much they contemplate giving up and ending the struggle forever, if not for the friendship of one of the most popular kids in school.
A High school senior volunteers their time in a nursing home. When one of the residents passes away, the student is shocked to find out the patient had left him a mysterious key and an address in a foreign country thousands of miles away.
When an only child’s dog and best friend is lost he sets off on an adventure to find him despite his family’s warnings.
When a young college student learns his girlfriend’s rare disease and possibly cured by experimental medication in Mexico, he takes it upon himself to try and get some for her.
The star football player is the pride of a Christian Texan town, during all the recruitment fanfare he decides to risk it all by coming out of the closet for himself and others like him.
A Young college freshman is raped on campus and goes into severe depression after it happens causing her to drop out of school. Now her best friend in the world takes it upon themselves to find out who’s responsible.
A young teen is forced to grow up way too fast when his father passes away and he takes over the family ranch. When he receives an acceptance letter from his dream school Juilliard he must decide between forsaking his family when they need it most or his dream.
A teen serves two years in a juvenile detention center after being an accessory to a gang-related murder. When he gets out he seeks out the family of the person that was killed to make amends, but instead of forgiveness, he is met with threats that could land him back in prison or dead.
A young chemistry student falls in love with her college professor, when she finds out that he has been hiding a secret life that includes a wife and child her passion goes too far and turns deadly.
A foreign exchange student comes to America for his senior year. What his host family doesn’t know is that he’s hiding a terrible secret that could put them all at risk.
A quiet and brilliant student has a tremendous future ahead of her, having received a full scholarship to every Ivy school in the country. Despite her academic success, she feels an emptiness due to the lack of true friendships she has had throughout high school. When a guy from a notoriously bad crowd takes a liking to her, she risks throwing everything away with a series of bad decisions.
A young computer genius hacks into a government computer to try and find the truth about his birth parents. What he finds out goes well beyond his adoption history and forces him to go on the run.

Young teens from neighboring towns meet online, both having issues with their social statuses at their current schools, they decide to run away together. What they don’t realize is that one of them is a proven killer with a new target in their sites.
A young girl battles early signs of schizophrenia. She struggles to hide her symptoms while fighting to keep her sanity.
A group of friends decides to go backpacking across Europe during their senior year summer break. When one of them disappears, the others must try to find out what happened and who is responsible.
A young girl loses her mom and heads down to the lake to be alone. During a brief interlude from her uncontrollable sobbing, an old woman seemingly appears out of nowhere and sits down next to her. She places her hand on the girl’s forehead says: “I wish your pain away child”, almost instantaneously a sense of calm comes over the girl. When she turns around to say thank you, there is no one there.
A young writer befriends a retired English professor. They spend the summer writing together until the first time author publishes their first novel. Shortly after publishing the novel, police knock on the door asking questions of the author as it seems the book he published described to great specificity an unsolved murder. When the boy takes the police officers to the professor, the apartment is empty and he is gone without a trace.
A socially awkward advanced student has a hard time adjusting during their internship as he struggles to fit in at the office, despite having advanced technical skills, he is missing basic communication skills. A custodian sees the student struggling and takes him under his wing to help him through the social phobia.
A mathematical genius focuses his skills on counting cards and partying. One day he gets caught counting cards in the wrong underground casino, and now he will need to figure a way to pay back over 40000 dollars before vengeance is taking out on him and his family.
A student wakes up in a tremendous sweat after having a dream of a disaster at his school. When he returns to school the next day, many of the events that led up to the tragedy seem to be taking place in real life, what does he do?
A young man is born with the ability to feel and take away the pain of others, the catch is that each time he does it, he takes the pain onto himself. He must now decide between his own self-preservation and helping others.
A young boy who looks up to his father, accidentally finds out that he is having an affair. When his dad confronts him and asks him to keep it a secret, he needs to decide who to look out for, his hero or his selfless yet overbearing mother.
A young Indian boy comes to America to pursue his studies and make money for his family back home. When the cost of living becomes too much, he must decide between staying in school to complete his studies or find a way to provide for his family as promised.
A young boy obsessed with mermaids has long been criticized for his childish obsession. But one day when he meets one for real, he needs to hide his new love from friends and family for fear of being ostracized or deemed insane.
A teen obsessed with becoming a youtube star starts to gain some fame from their channel. But when one fan’s following crosses the line from fandom to obsession the stakes get raised way higher than they ever imagined.
A girl goes to her first concert when she gets invited backstage to meet her idol she has her world thrown up-side-down when she assaulted by the lead singer. Now she needs to decide should she tell her story and take down the band or keep the secret to herself.

A girl can see her own future, and more specifically how each of her current actions directly affects her life in the future. The weight of this knowledge threatens to paralyze her into a perpetual state of fear and inaction.
When an activist student decides to take on bullying with a social media campaign that goes viral, they become the target of a national game phenomenon centered around bullying him.
A group of high school friends heads down the shore for prom weekend. When they are there events bring unlikely students together in a way that they have never been before.
A student finds out her best friend is having an affair with one of their teachers. She must now decide to blow the whistle and deal with the consequences or turn a blind eye to something she clearly knows is wrong.
A series of mysterious happenings lead an awkward group of teens to a treasure map that promises to reveal a secret that will change their lives forever.
A scary old woman befriends a neighborhood teen. What she shares will forever change their lives.
A mixed race teen couple is inexplicably sent back in time and into the middle of heated racial tension during segregation.
A teen is left to care for their younger siblings while their addict mother slowly kills herself. But they must do while keeping it a secret or risk being separated from each other by the state.

I hope you’ve found these young adults themed writing prompts helpful. Feel free to take any of them and turn them into something great.

I would suggest taking the story ideas that interest you the most and put them through your normal plotting and outlining paces to see which one captivates you long enough to become a full-fledged novel.

Don’t be afraid of committing to one of these YA story ideas, like I said earlier, in their present state they are nothing more than unfertilized seeds that need tending before they become a best selling young adult novel.

How you tend to them is up to you, but hopefully, you found one of the ideas on this list of 43 writing prompts you can use as inspiration.

Click the link to access additional adult writing prompts in other genres .

67 Terrific Mystery Writing Prompts and Story Ideas

August 14, 2018

49 Amazing Dystopian Writing Prompts

August 24, 2018

100 FREE 5th Grade Writing Prompts

November 25, 2020

100 creative 6th Grade Writing Prompts

December 7, 2020

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Ultimate Guide for Writing Fiction for Young Adults (With 10 Tips)

Last Updated on September 24, 2022 by Dr Sharon Baisil MD

Introduction

Books written for readers aged 12 to 18 are commonly referred to as young adult fiction. It softens the shift to adult fiction by being the next level of reading material after middle-grade imagination. It provides tales that are more emotionally and intellectually sophisticated in general.

The genre of YA isn’t a genre at all but a label for books targeted toward teenagers. It comes in various genres, such as Fantasy, mystery, and science fiction, representing a certain demographic’s reading level, worldview, and maturity.

The majority of teenage books focus on youngsters in their struggle to become adults. They discover hidden characteristics about themselves, resolve personal issues, and gain control of their behaviors. As a result, coming-of-age tales are another name for YA tales.

You’ll find out what makes a successful YA book here and the components of young adult fiction (also known as YA fiction).

Top 10 Tips for Writing an Excellent Young Adult Fiction

Good YA literature is often found in nearly any genre that would make for a good adult novel. YA books are distinguished by the qualities that elevate all great works:

Powerful viewpoint
Emotional authenticity
A relatable primary character
Entertaining secondary characters
Efficient language usage
A plot worth investing in

Generally, a reimagined version would resonate as a young adult novel if a book succeeded as adult literature. Horror, thrillers, and dystopian sci-fi are prevalent among teenage readers because they respond to a certain level of edginess.

There are several distinct YA subgenres available:

· Science fiction

· Sports novels

· Thrillers

· Coming of age stories

Top 10 Tips for Writing a Compelling Fiction for Young Adults

1 – write for 3d characters.

Just because you’re writing adolescent characters, don’t stereotype your characters ; give them depth and dimension. Multi-faceted characters are the most fascinating. Reading (and writing ) about protagonists who are too good or antagonists with no redeeming qualities is dull. Ultimately, how can a person who isn’t well-rounded and relatable connect with a reader?

2 – Focus on genuine moments in the story

Remember that a teen perspective is almost always present in YA literature. Rather than using the knowledge and practiced vocabulary of an adult looking back on her teenage years, we should be experiencing your adolescent protagonist’s environment as she experiences it at the moment. Authenticity goes beyond a character’s unique voice. It’s also worth noting that story development must include a convincing ring of truth.

3 – Take insights from real teenagers

Rainbow Rowell had no intention of becoming a YA novelist. However, in Eleanor & Park, a teenage love tale set in 1986, she used the same technique to write younger characters. Attachments were her first book, and it was written for adults.

She only found out it would be YA after the book was finished, and even then, she disagreed with the choice. Several readers and commentators questioned if the YA designation was appropriate since Rowell encouraged her to begin writing for adults, and the tale’s realism challenged many adult notions of a “teen novel.”

Yet, according to a fellow novelist, the fact that the central characters were teenagers was just one of what made Eleanor & Park a YA novel. That was because the story allowed them to see things through their eyes.

4 – Take references from pop-culture

Hazel is a sucker for America’s Next Top Model marathons, which makes her seem relatable to YA readers. In addition, the references to Hazel’s long-running reality program, Tyra Bank, provide insight into her as a person and a teenager that Green did not pretend for.

Rowell isn’t afraid to use pop culture to anchor her tales in reality, but she understands that references may not age well and may not behave as one would anticipate.

5 – Consider the right age for characters

Your YA novel’s protagonist should be between 14 and 18. So, about high school age, think about it. In reality, there are numerous adult books featuring adolescent protagonists. The fact that the novels are published with an adult readership makes these publications most often viewed as adult literature.

Two prominent examples are Curtis Sittenfeld’s Prep and Jeffrey Eugenides’ The Virgin Suicides, both of which feature adolescent protagonists reflecting on their teenage lives from an adult’s perspective.

6 – There’s no harm in writing about a heavy subject

When creating a YA book that is accurate and relatable, it’s vital to write with purpose rather than just being edgy. It is necessary to approach serious subject matter (or at least avoid it). Remember that your target audience is exposed to sex, drugs, terrible language, and any other Big Bads you can imagine throughout their everyday lives. The teenage experience is the focus of writing young adult fiction.

7 – Show some emotional honesty without being too quick

Some describe it as teaching, while others describe it as didacticism. Please don’t patronize your YA reader by whatever name you choose. We’re referring to the fact that you should never make your main character fall to teach them a lesson. Your YA book will be in trouble if your teenager reader can smell the study a mile away.

Writing YA is about the experience of writing a book, not about how it ends. An actual, relatable human being in flux and figuring things out is the subject of this journey to emotional truth. ARA readers appreciate your heartfelt honesty. They deserve real characters whose emotions connect with the audience, rather than people whose sole purpose is to convey moral high ground or life lessons.

8 – Write something robust and firey

Avoiding the opportunity to choose your topic material based on a recent Publishers Marketplace transaction that went for a “significant deal” might be challenging. Trends in young adult literature, on the other hand, are fickle. The movement may have passed you by the time you buy your book.

Writing about something that ignites you on fire is the most proper technique to make an agent, editor, or reader fall head over heels in adore your book . Regardless of the trend status of the topic, you are ecstatic to write about it every day. There’s nothing more infectious than your passion and creativity, and they’ll come through.

9 – Give readers at least a little for hopeful endings

Endings should be written creatively. Notwithstanding whatever dark events may have occurred before, most young-adult novelists instill optimism in their readers. While dealing with the same concerns, adult novels may leave readers downright melancholy, even bereft. However, there appears to be a responsibility in writing for young adults to allow for the possibility rather than drill in lessons and give warnings. Let your audience believe that they have an ultimate say in the matter.

10 – Always look for the ideal protagonist’s voice

The personality of your principal character, which emerges via the words they use to convey their tale, is best characterized as voice. Unfortunately, many new writers believe that voice is solely determined by how your character speaks in their literal conversation, which seems to be valid — but when we talk about voice, we mean every word on the page.

The belief that adolescent voice automatically equates to snide and sarcastic is one of the most significant errors we see YA authors make. Of course, such characteristics are viable options, but don’t confine yourself to just one voice; there are a limitless number of representatives worldwide.

In the novel “The Perks of Being a Wallflower,” author Stephen Chbosky uses first-person narrator Charlie as a representation of all teenagers. They are rapidly growing, developing, and changing individuals who have to find their way in life through mistakes and lessons learned from trial & error while going through high school.

The narrator’s point-of-view is unique because it shows how awkward he is but depicts his growth by sharing his thoughts with an adult reader throughout the book.

Final Words

Over the years, the popularity of young adult fiction has increased. It’s a perfect genre for anyone who wants to explore different worlds and experience life from a new perspective. To help you write a captivating young adult novel, we’ve put together ten tips to help you create stories that will indeed engage your readers! So, what are you waiting for? Start writing today and see just how great your imagination can be! Thanks for reading!

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Hi, I am a doctor by profession, but I love writing and publishing ebooks. I have self-published 3 ebooks which have sold over 100,000 copies. I am featured in Healthline, Entrepreneur, and in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology blog.

Whether you’re a busy professional or an aspiring author with a day job, there’s no time like now to start publishing your ebook! If you are new to this world or if you are seeking help because your book isn’t selling as well as it should be – don’t worry! You can find here resources, tips, and tricks on what works best and what doesn’t work at all.

In this blog, I will help you to pick up the right tools and resources to make your ebook a best seller.

The 8 Habits of Highly Successful Young-Adult Fiction Authors

Best-selling writers including John Green and Veronica Roth share their strategies for crafting authentic, relatable teen characters—even in fantasy worlds.

Young-adult fiction, commonly called "YA fiction," has exploded over the past decade or so: The number of YA titles published grew more than 120 percent between 2002 and 2012, and other estimates say that between 1997 and 2009, that figure was closer to 900 percent . Ask a handful of young-adult fiction writers what exactly makes a YA novel, though, and you’ll get a handful of conflicting answers.

At their core, YA books are for and about teenagers and pre-teens, usually between 12 and 18 years old, but sometimes as young as 10. Yet more than half of all YA novels sold are bought by older adults 18 or older, and certain titles published in the U.S. as YA are considered mainstream fiction for adults in other countries. Some authors believe the intent to write for young readers is a prerequisite of YA fiction; others don’t even realize their books will be labeled as YA until after they finish writing.

Many successful authors say there’s no secret to writing for teenagers. Good writing is good writing; believable characters and compelling plots are crucial regardless of who’s picking up the book. But many YA authors will also tell you there’s something particularly fulfilling and rewarding about writing for teenagers, who often respond to stories they identify with more intensely and gratefully than adult readers do. I asked eight writers and editors how they create characters and stories that feel real to teenagers, even when their world—and the world of the YA books they read—can feel like another planet. Below are eight of their most successful strategies.

Think Like a Teen Rainbow Rowell never set out to be a YA author. Her first book, Attachments , was for and about adults, and though Eleanor & Park is a teenage love story set in 1986, her approach to writing younger characters was the same. It was only after the novel was finished that she learned it would be YA, and even then, the decision was debated. Because Rowell got her start writing for adults—and because the story’s relatability defied many adults’ expectations of what a “book for teens” was—some readers and reviewers questioned whether the YA label was applicable.

But what clearly makes Eleanor & Park a YA book, a fellow author told Rowell, wasn’t just that the main characters were teens. It was that the novel actually saw the world through their eyes. “The perspective was so firmly rooted inside of these teenagers,” Rowell says. “You’re not looking back or looking down. The narrator is not observing things the people themselves are not.” It’s the same quality—a lack of narrative distance —that’s led many writers to call J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye the seminal YA text: Readers experience Holden Caulfield’s version of events solely through his jaded, smart-alecky point of view.

“I think everyone’s got a little teenager inside of them still, and you just have to work to help yourself access that teenager,” says Veronica Roth, the author of the Divergent trilogy, whose final installment, Allegiant , is out now. “Every now and then I find myself having a character make a decision that feels very adult without having them earn it, and I have to go back and make sure I’m letting the characters make mistakes they would in real life at that age, like a parent.”

When the adult perspective creeps its way into a YA book, readers notice, too. “It’s a huge red flag,” says Rachel Cohn, the author of the acclaimed Gingerbread series, who says she’s vigilant about editing out the grown-up voice in early drafts of her writing. Cohn, who is often asked to review other YA books, calls this distance one of her biggest pet peeves.

“The books I turn away are when the dialogue reads false to me,” Cohn says. “It’s not that the words are wrong, because that’s subjective, but the feelings are wrong to me. It’s like an adult observing something.”

Find the “Emotional Truth” of the Teenage Experience John Green’s hilarious and heartbreaking The Fault in Our Stars is not a post-apocalyptic, dystopian novel like Divergent or The Hunger Games . But the lives of its protagonists, Hazel and Gus, hardly mirror the lives of their readers, who probably don’t have cancer and generally don’t fly to Amsterdam to track down reclusive, alcoholic authors. And yet, the book has been a New York Times bestseller for 46 weeks . “I get emails every day from people who are like, ‘I’m just like Hazel, except I don’t have cancer, I’m not 16, I’m not white, and I’m not female,’” Green says. “I’m like, ‘Well, you’re not just like Hazel.’”

Readers also probably don’t directly identify with A, the main character of David Levithan’s Every Day , who wakes up each morning in someone else’s body and is defined only by the thoughts in his head.

But they don’t need to. “The defining characteristic of YA literature is emotional truth,” Levithan writes in an email. “Even if we’re not the same as the characters we read, they are all dealing with things—issues of who they are, who they should be, what they should and shouldn’t do—that we all deal with, in their own ways. With The Hunger Games , even if we will never be in Katniss’s shoes, the decisions she makes make emotional sense to us—even when she makes the wrong ones.”

That might be why readers find themselves so drawn to Hazel and Gus, whose relationship and health struggles offer avenues for teenagers to examine the bigger ideas they’re grappling with in their own lives. “Maybe some of what’s universal is the intensity of the experience, the intensity of falling in love for the first time, the intensity of asking questions about mortality and meaning for the first time,” Green says.

But even if YA books aren’t tackling issues of life and death, the best among them still capture the gravity of the teenage and pre-teen experience, whether it’s the sparks of a first crush or lunchroom gossip and bullying. “When you’re in that time in your life, the trials and tribulations of friendships, romantic relationships, it's all very crucial and vital,” says Kristen Pettit, an executive editor at HarperCollins. “That is one way the author presents themselves as authentic to the YA community, by nailing that keenness of feeling and emotion and high-stakes nature of the interactions they have with people every day.”

A Good Pop-Culture Reference Goes a Long Way One reason The Fault in Our Stars ’ Hazel feels so familiar to YA readers is the fact that she, like so many of her peers, is a sucker for America’s Next Top Model marathons. But Green didn’t include multiple mentions of Tyra Bank’s long-running reality show just for fun—the references teach us a lot about Hazel as a character and as a teenager. In the book, she’s obsessed with An Imperial Affliction , a made-up, highbrow novel very loosely based on David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest , yet her taste in TV shows is anything but sophisticated.

“One of the things I love about teenagers is they don’t make those distinctions between high culture and low culture like we do as adults,” Green says. “It’s not uncommon for teenagers to list their two favorite books as Gossip Girl and The Great Gatsby . They don’t think its weird to say, ‘I love Toni Morrison, and I also love Justin Bieber.’”

Rowell uses pop culture to ground her stories in reality, too, but she also knows the references don’t always age gracefully, or in ways that can be predicted. Attachments came out in 2011, but it takes place in the 1990s, where a Tom Cruise reference means Tom Cruise the movie star, not Tom Cruise the Scientologist divorcé of tabloids. Rowell’s latest book, Fangirl , about a prolific fanfiction writer who goes off to college, includes references to Taylor Swift, the Twilight series, and Kanye West, whose public perception, though she only wrote the book in 2012, has already changed significantly: He’s engaged to Kim Kardashian , his music took a dark turn, and his select interviews are more colorful than ever.

“I try to pick things people will recognize four to five years from now,” Rowell says. “I don’t think it hurts to add those. It adds to our cultural literacy. It adds to what we know about ourselves.” Technology and Internet culture, however, change even quicker than our pop-culture lexicons, so Rowell says she avoided references to Tumblr, Fanfiction.net, and some of the fanfiction community’s terminology—like shipping and slash fiction —out of concern that too many brand names or esoteric details would trip up unfamiliar readers.

Green, on the other hand, is confident America’s Next Top Model will be a timeless reference: “Even if you haven’t heard of the show in some beautiful utopia 30 years from now, the entire show is encapsulated in its title,” he says. “You know everything you need to know from the four words used to describe the show.”

Get Input From Real Teenagers New York Times bestselling author Jodi Picoult has written close to two dozen novels, many of which—like My Sister’s Keeper and Nineteen Minutes —focus on memorable teenage characters. But it wasn’t until last year that she wrote a book specifically for young-adult readers, Between the Lines , which she co-wrote with her teenage daughter, Samantha van Leer.

“Having a co-writer who was a teenager was like having a built-in B.S. meter sitting next to me,” Picoult says. “Every now and then, Sammy would say something out loud that was such an apt metaphor. It wasn’t something I would have thought of, but it was something she was living every day because she was in high school when she was writing this book. The example I always think about is a group of popular girls in the book who are described as being like a bunch of grapes because, honestly, do you ever see just one of them alone? I thought it was hilarious because it was so true.”

It’s not the first time Picoult used a real-life teenager to make her writing more accurate. When she was writing The Pact , a 1998 novel about a teenage suicide pact, she picked up some pizza and soda, called up her babysitter, and interviewed her and her friends. “I just listened to them talk to each other and tried to hone in on where their minds were about that topic,” Picoult says. “I think if you’re a writer, you do your research and do your due diligence. It sounds funny to listen to teenagers as research.”

Not every writer takes this approach—Rowell didn’t need to investigate online fan communities when crafting the characters of Fangirl . “I’m addicted to Tumblr, so when I was writing, I had read so much fan fiction and spend so much time in fandom places on the Internet, a lot of it I had internalized,” says Rowell, a former newspaper columnist. ( Fangirl , unsurprisingly, was the first pick for Tumblr’s official book club ).

But Rowell did draw on those communities when she needed feedback. “I had friends in fandom who I would say to, every once in awhile, ‘Tell me how you feel about this, does this ring true to you, talk to me,’” she says. “I write from what I know, and if I write something I don’t know, I’ll go out and talk to them. It doesn’t feel like an expedition to find out what the teens are doing. Because I was a reporter for so long, it makes sense to me.”

Use Slang Words at Your Own Risk The more authors try to capture the exact idiosyncrasies of how teenagers talk, the more they risk alienating or distracting readers.

“The problem with that is your book has a shelf life of two to three years,” says Kathryn Reiss, a veteran YA author who also teaches young-adult fiction-writing classes at Mills College in Oakland, California. “It won’t be a classic because the coded language of teens changes every four years with every high school generation.” Unless they’re aiming for historical fiction—in which case, bring on the groovy! and the radical! —authors who pepper their YA writing with “modern” vocab can easily seem like they’re out of touch, or, worse, trying too hard.

Some writers can pull off slang successfully: Rachel Cohn’s debut novel, 2002’s Gingerbread , introduced readers to punk-rock protagonist Cyd Charisse, whose youthful vocab brought her to life on the very first page and made her one of the most memorable YA voices in recent years:

My so-called parents hate my boyfriend, Shrimp. I'm not sure they even believe he is my boyfriend. They take one look at his five-foot-five, surfer-shirt-wearin', baggy-jeans-slouchin', Pop Tart-eatin', spiked-hair-head self and you can just see confusion firebombs exploding in their heads, like they are thinking, Oh no, Cyd Charisse, that young man is not your homes. Dig this: He is.

Though the book earned plenty of praise, not every critic was charmed. “I remember at the time being really offended, reading that it had an overuse of slang and made-up words and was just ridiculous, over the top,” Cohn says. “I remember being so offended on behalf of my character. ‘Screw you! You don’t know what you’re talking about! That’s the way I talk!’”

But when she reread the book five years later, Cohn had a slight change of heart. “It was kind over the top! I like it, but I think as I’ve evolved, I wouldn’t write it that way now, for better or for worse. And probably for worse.”

Keep It Moving When Goosebumps author R.L. Stine went to a recent YA reading, he noticed far more 20- and 30-something women in attendance than teenagers. He was puzzled, so he asked Pettit why this might be. “I said it’s because of the way [these books] read, because of plot,” Pettit says. “So much of adult literature has become so precious that sometimes what you just want is the ride. I think YA authors are freer to take you on a ride instead of constructing overwrought sentences and impressing you with their skill.”

One of the enduring misconceptions about YA fiction is that it’s dumbed down, that writing for young readers means writing in a way that’s easy for them to comprehend. Cohn estimates that about 60 to 65 percent of YA fiction is written in the first person and present tense, but not because YA readers can’t handle complexity—take a look at the average high school or AP English reading lists for evidence to the contrary—but because the simplicity and immediacy of that particular style helps writers develop the voices of their characters.

“You settle down in a character’s head and just go,” Cohn says. “I do some teaching, and I always recommend changing the tense, changing the perspective, see what happens. If I’m stuck, and I’m not writing in first person present, I’ll start writing in that because it’s easy to tap into.”

Similarly, Roth describes the process of finding the voice of Divergent ’s heroine, Tris, as a writing exercise. “I had been trying to write in this more poetic, flowy sort of way, and I was noticing I wasn’t doing as well as I wanted to in terms of controlling my language,” says Roth, who was inspired to write Tris after reading a line (“My will is mine, I will not make it soft for you”) from the Greek play Agamemnon . “Tris came [to me] at a really big point in which I needed to work on being more concise, and her voice was concise—a little repetitive, but definitely stark and straight-forward.”

It’s Okay for YA To Get Dark There’s nothing off-limits when it comes to YA fiction, which frequently dives into unsettling territory like death, drugs, and rape across all of its genres and styles. Jay Asher’s Thirteen Reasons Why is about a high school girl who commits suicide and mails cassette tapes to classmates explaining her motives and who drove her to it; Francesca Lia Block’s 2003 novel, Wasteland , features an incestuous relationship, and it’s one of a handful of young-adult books that do so.

For Picoult, who has written about murder, abuse, and school shootings in her books for adults, this was news. “I went into the domain of YA fiction completely unschooled,” she says. “I assumed that if we were going to be gearing it to a younger reader, it should have a feeling almost like a Shrek fairytale. Sammy was the one who said no, it should really be dark so Happily Ever After has much more at stake.”

How authors present that subject matter depends somewhat on which ages they’re aiming for. A number of YA books take place during the Holocaust, for example, and they all take different approaches to the subject matter: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak—marketed for ages 12 and up, but published as an adult book in Zusak's Australia—is narrated by Death; The Devil’s Arithmetic , marketed for ages 10 and up, takes a modern-day teen back to Auschwitz through time-travel as a way of somewhat removing the reader from the horrors of that time period. Depending on the author’s audience, putting some distance between the characters and the issues they examine can be an effective way to address difficult topics.

“ Go Ask Alice [a fictional diary of a drug-addicted teen girl], a book like that, it’s a safe way to have the experiences that are in that book, a way of exploring the darkness out there without being in danger or acting irresponsibly,” Pettit says.

Find the "Kernel of Hope." Not every book has a Happily Ever After. For example, S.E. Hinton’s YA classics, The Outsiders and That Was Then, This Is Now , which deal with drugs, drinking, and gang violence, don’t offer easy answers to the questions they raise in the end. Today, decades after they were first published, they’re still taught in schools. But there's almost always an underlying optimism in YA, an identifiable maturation or development that Reiss calls “the kernel of hope.”

“There’s a sense that it’s worth waking up tomorrow,” Reiss explains. “Things are dark, things are terrible, but tomorrow’s another day. Ninety-nine percent of books for teens have that at least at the end.” This change doesn’t always unfold in ways that are explicit or conventionally heroic. In The Hunger Games , Katniss ends up winning the deadly, titular tournament she enters, but it’s not the victory itself that’s important—it’s more about how she wins on her own terms of integrity and empathy. In realistic YA fiction, a friendless, social outcast may not become the most popular kid in class, but it’s unlikely he or she will stay a total loser for a whole novel.

Including this perspective isn’t sermonizing or making an after-school special of what young readers experience as they grow up, as these authors see it. Rather, it’s just part of presenting an authentic story.

“That's life, isn't it?” Levithan says. “Shit hits the fan. The abyss opens up. But then you get through it. You wrestle it down. You find a way to survive. YA only reflects that. It’s not about being preachy or pragmatic to say that most people find a way out of the maze of adolescence. It’s only being accurate.”

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Your Complete Guide to Young Adult Fiction: What It Is, Examples, How to Write

POSTED ON Jul 7, 2023

Written by Hannah Lee Kidder

Young adult fiction, or YA, is one of the highest-selling types of fiction , worth billions of dollars annually. Much of the success is due to the widespread appeal of these books, being read and enjoyed by people of all ages (even though this genre is targeted at teens) who want to get lost in the fantastical world of the characters. Some of the top YA novels have even been turned into popular movies.

For example, think of these famous YA book titles and series: The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins, The Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer, and The Shadow and Bone Trilogy by Leigh Bardugo.

Many make a full-time income as authors of young adult fiction (you can calculate your book royalties here ).

But getting started can be intimidating. It's important to have a clear vision, align your book correctly within the genre, and develop a story that's both appropriate and entertaining for young readers. To help you do just that, we're going to clearly define what young adult fiction is and share a step-by-step guide to writing a successful book .

Need A Fiction Book Outline?

This guide to young adult fiction includes:

What is young adult fiction.

Young adult fiction, often abbreviated as YA fiction, refers to a genre of literature primarily targeted at teenage readers, typically between the ages of 12 and 18. This genre is meant to act as a buffer to prepare readers for the leap from children’s literature to adult books.

So what makes a book YA?

The protagonists in YA books are typically teenagers dealing with teenage problems. These books include the experiences, emotions, and challenges faced by young adults as they navigate adolescence and transition into adulthood.

It's important to note that young adult fiction covers a broad range of genres, including contemporary, romance, fantasy, science fiction, dystopian, mystery, historical fiction, and more. YA dystopian books and YA romance novels are some of the most common, and some authors may even experiment with mixed-genre books that may blur the lines between genres.

YA books can also be just about any length. Depending on the story you want to write, you could opt to pen it as a YA short story , novella , or full-length novel .

Related: Should You Write a Novel or a Novella?

The controversy around the YA genre

While the original target demographic of YA fiction was teenagers, that age group only makes up about half of the readership of YA. The other half is composed of adults who would like to hang on to the fun and easy world of young adult literature – perhaps feeling a sense of nostalgia from the writing .

This shift in ages has muddied the waters of what exactly constitutes YA.

When YA was exclusively for young adults, the genre's subject matter revolved solely around teenagers' experiences. It appealed to their interests, life experience, and understanding.

With adults moving into (or clinging to) this space developed for children, books classifying themselves as “young adult” are now featuring more mature story arcs and concepts to feed the interests of an older crowd.

The genre was developed to transition readers from children’s books into adult literature, but now it often skews further to adult literature, which was not quite the point. Many adults are now complaining that most young adult fiction books have too many mature themes for children.

As a result of these conflicting views, we’ve seen the rising of a new genre: new adult.

What is the new adult fiction genre?

New Adult, or NA, is a spinoff of the young adult fiction genre, meant for readers between 18 and 29, though it is not formally recognized by most traditional publishers .

While the Young Adult book age range includes pre-teens and teens up to 18, the New Adult book genre typically follows college-aged teens and young adults. Often NA books can also be categorized into YA or the standard adult genres depending on the framing and content.

The genre doesn’t have many strong examples to defend itself right now, but there is certainly a reader market for it, and some editors and publishers are eyeing its potential. Expect New Adult to flourish into its own official genre in the coming years.

The difference between young adult, new adult, and adult fiction

Many authors imagine themselves writing young adult fiction, only to get into the story and realize they actually have a new adult or mature adult book on their hands. That's totally fine!

But, due to the young audience, it's very important to understand the differences and market your book correctly.

The writing style in YA fiction tends to be accessible and engaging, capturing the attention of young readers. While YA fiction is primarily aimed at teenagers, it is not limited to this audience, and many adults also enjoy reading YA novels for their relatable themes, strong character development, endearing romance tropes , and engaging storytelling.

Meanwhile, new adult fiction bridges the gap between young adult and adult fiction. It targets readers in their late teens to early twenties, usually between 18 and 25 years old. NA fiction often delves into the challenges and transitions faced by characters as they navigate the period between adolescence and adulthood. The themes and characters in NA fiction can be more mature and explore topics like college life, career choices, independence, and the complexities of early adulthood.

Finally, adult fiction is intended for anyone 18 years old and above. You are more likely to see more adult-aged protagonists in these novels. And the themes explored in adult fiction can be more complex and deal with a broader range of life experiences, relationships (such as marriage, divorce, having children, etc), societal issues, and mature content, such as what you might encounter in spicy romance or dark romance books (neither of which are suitable for younger readers).

How to write a successful young adult novel in 6 steps

Regardless of which audience you write for, the process will be largely the same.

The first step you must take is actually deciding to write the book.

Then, you'll want to work toward two of the most important milestones of any book journey. You must finish the outline of your book and the first rough draft .

Most of the differences of writing a YA novel comes to the content and tone in the writing . So here are a few steps you can take to write a book young people will love to read.

1. Know your audience

You can’t write for an audience you don’t understand. As with any book, you need to know your ideal reader and write for them.

If you’re writing young adult fiction, you should know what teens are interested in, how they think, and how they communicate. If you’re far removed from your teen years and don’t have young people you frequently socialize with, you might consider finding opportunities to speak with teenagers.

Another method is reading popular young adult fiction (ones that teenagers are actually reading).

Take notes on content, tone, voice, character traits, and tropes that you notice pop up in multiple popular books.

2. Age the characters correctly

As a general rule, characters should be in the age group of your target demographic, so your character cast should mostly consist of teenagers.

There’s also a huge difference between 12-year-olds and 18-year-olds (and what they’re interested in), so it's important that you are precise when aging characters.

A great tip many YA authors incorporate is aging the characters a year or two above the age of their ideal reader because children look up to older kids.

For example, as a 5 and 6-year-old, my favorite reads were in the American Girl series, which featured 9-year-old protagonists. And when I was 10, my favorite books were The Babysitters’ Club , which featured girls 11 to 13 years old.

You can include many types of characters, so don't just think about your protagonist but also the ages and characteristics of the people they will interact with. You can also use a character bio template to help you map out the character development of each person in your story.

3. Be real, and write real characters

Young people can smell the difference between authenticity and fakeness from miles away. If you’re not being genuine, your characters and story will not be likable or relatable.

Teens speak in particular ways that constantly fluctuate. It’s important to find a balance between being modern but not being so trendy that your book will be a complete cringe to read within a couple of years.

There’s a lot of controversy around “dating” a book by including references, but I tend to disagree.

Do people read Jane Austen and think it’s irrelevant because of the times and customs we have very little personal context for? Of course not! They’re good books! And they act as fascinating social time capsules.

So maybe you reference TikTok but avoid referencing specific TikTok trends.

Maybe you do use slang words, but you use ones that are currently being recycled from ten or twenty years ago—those have more cultural context than using slang and references that will obviously be short-lived and likely never return to relevance.

Work to build a realistic world with realistic characters that real teens can relate to.

4. Nail the voice

Writing teenagers might be one of the most difficult writing tones and voices to master.

Some writers of young adult fiction absolutely excel in this—like Meg Cabot, author of The Princess Diaries . She takes a casual and relaxed tone to voice her main character, Mia:

“Like everybody doesn't already think I'm a freak. I'm practically the biggest freak in the entire school. I mean, let's face it: I'm five foot nine, flat-chested, and a freshman. How much more of a freak could I be?” — The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot

Some other YA autors have found wild success, but their writing voice is under constant critique—like John Green, author of Looking for Alaska, Paper Towns, and The Fault in Our Stars . Many readers find Green’s prose to be too elevated for teenagers, but he defends this by saying that teenagers are smarter than most people give them credit for.

“I must talk, and you must listen, for we are engaged here in the most important pursuit in history: the search for meaning. What is the nature of being a person? What is the best way to go about being a person? How did we come to be, and what will become of us when we are no longer? In short: What are the rules of this game, and how might we best play it?” — Looking for Alaska, John Green

As you can see, different authors take wildly different approaches to writing teenagers. Finding a balance that suits your writing style and appeals to teenagers can be difficult, so don’t be afraid to experiment. Seeking opinions from your target demographic can also help.

5. Don’t drive a moral too hard

No one wants to be preached to, especially teenagers. If your heart is in writing young adult fiction, you probably have an affinity for young people. You likely want the best for them.

But turning your YA novel into an opportunity to lecture them about sex, drugs, and rock and roll isn’t going to help young people. It's going to repel them.

If you still want to weave in some wisdom, try to do it naturally. Maybe you include a sexual experience, and instead of having a whole dialogue about safe sex, contraceptives, and abstinence, you have a quick line about condoms from one of the participants.

When instilling morals in teenagers, tread lightly, if you tread at all.

6. Don’t water it down

If you’re writing for young adults, you have to understand their emotional intelligence and general perception of the world. While they usually have less experience than adult readers and are still learning in many ways, they are not stupid.

Every generation is smarter than the last, so there’s a good chance your young audience has equal or greater capacity than you do—try to keep that in mind.

If you belittle your teen readers by watering down your stories because you think they can’t understand it, here is a list of things they will pick up:

And here is a list of things they will not pick up:

Another one of your books (ever again)

Writing young adult fiction isn’t so different from writing for any other genre. They have the same fundamentals of all fiction books. Respect your readership, remember their life experiences, and write good stories!

Examples of some young adult fiction subgenres

Young adult books come in all genres. Mystery, action-adventure, romance, literary, comedy, contemporary, dystopian, sci-fi, fantasy series … Nearly every adult book genre has a corresponding young adult fiction subgenre.

Let’s look at some famous examples of young adult books in some major book genres.

Young adult mystery books

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Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson

A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson

Sadie by Courtney Summers

Young adult action-adventure books

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Beasts of Prey by Ayana Gray

Raybearer by Jordan Ifueko

Young adult contemporary books

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The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven

Looking for Alaska by John Green

Young adult dystopian books

Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard

The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau

Young adult romance books

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Reputation by Lex Croucher

Kiss Her Once for Me by Alison Cochrun

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Writing for Young Adults (YA)

One of the most rewarding but complex areas of writing, the teenage and YA market is as varied as any other but it poses its own challenges. As a category, it includes books for 11-13 year-olds (Clean YA), books for the 14-16 age group and ‘crossover’ books, which appeal to both YA and adult readers.

The subject matter and how this is treated is what diﬀerentiates the books in each age range. Similarly, the diﬀerence between older middle grade books and YA lies almost entirely in content; YA books are not necessarily longer but the ideas and subject matter can be more complex and often deal with aspects of life that would be entirely unsuitable for pre-teens. YA novels frequently feature characters looking within themselves and thinking about identity and life choices as well as all of the other issues that aﬀect the emotions and experiences of emerging adults.

YA novels encompass almost every genre; science ﬁction, fantasy, thrillers, crime, romance, historical and realism. The main focus is the young person and their concerns, so unless it involves their parents and thus directly impacts on their lives, subjects such as mortgages, divorce, old age and associated problems or high ﬁnance are not likely to be of interest. This does not mean that they are narrow in outlook or possibility – quite the reverse, in fact. YA books often feature a deep consideration of many bigger world problems explored in ﬁctional terms, including subjects in as wide a range as ecology, war, refugees, cults, and serious illness, but also consider personal issues such as body image and the full range of interpersonal relationships.

What most YA novels do best, and in my opinion so much better than many adult novels, is grab the reader’s attention and hold it, with little waﬄing or self-indulgent writing in the middle, because the best YA writers know that it would lose them readers.

Many YA novels are written from a ﬁrst-person perspective, because it puts the reader immediately in touch with the main character, hearing their voice. In some ways, it is a natural way to start since often teenagers feel that the whole world does (or should!) revolve around them, and until something bad happens they may have little thought as to the consequences of their actions.

The ﬁrst-person viewpoint gets the reader immediately inside the character’s head, observing the world as they do. This does have a drawback, though, if the character’s narrow interpretation of what is happening is ﬂ awed or if the writer wants to show something happening elsewhere in the story.

To write in any character’s POV, you need to know that character well and their voice must be distinctive. I often begin by letting the character rant at me about whatever they want. I know that sounds a little strange, but try it; it works. I start to write with whatever comes to mind, not stopping to think too hard, and once they talk to me I ‘discover’ all sorts of things about them. It might go something like this:

'I hate my sister, really I do. She is the most irritating person on this earth, greedy and totally self-centred, but if anyone tries to hurt her they’ll have to come through me ﬁrst. And that means Godfrey, my step-dad, especially him. But if she goes through my emails one more time I’ll… ’

Having the character complain and get annoyed helps me get a sense of what matters in his life and also it often gives me ideas about the plot, which is good since I am not a planner. It is even more important to get the ‘sound’ of a character right if you decide to have more than one POV in a story, because if the characters don’t sound diﬀerent enough, the reader will get confused and eventually lose interest in the story.

In Spider, I have three diﬀerent characters speaking in the ﬁrst person: Spider; his friend, Andy; and Deanna, his new girlfriend. Spider has been caught stealing cars and joyriding, but is trying to stop as he has a lot to lose if he gets sent to prison. He is persuaded by Deanna to go on one last ‘ride’, and with Andy they steal a car, ending up in a horrendous crash. I also used the third-person POV for times when I needed to follow the only adult main character, a detective, because I wanted the reader to see him less personally. It can be tricky for a reader to handle all these diﬀerent points of view so I asked the publisher if we could have slightly diﬀerent typefaces for each of the three main characters, as a subconscious hint to the reader.

Architect or gardener, planner or pantser?

Whatever you call it, whether you plan or not is a personal choice and I would suggest you try both and ﬁnd out what works best for you: there is no right or wrong way and each book might be diﬀerent for you.

Despite not being a planner myself, I usually have an idea of what is going to happen at the end of a book; it might not be in detail, but at least I have something to aim for. Sometimes I will even write a scene close to the end, especially if I can ‘see’ it in my head. When this happens, by the time I get to that part of the book it usually ﬁts in, with just a little editing. With Dead Boy Talking, I was not sure whether Josh would live or die, but by the time I got there I knew what felt right; if you read it, you can decide for yourself. Not being a planner does cause problems, sometimes, though, especially when I was writing my third YA novel, a kind of detective story.

If you want to hide something from your readers, be careful not to give away even small clues, inadvertently. As I mentioned above, Don’t Judge Me is about a ﬁre but it is also about the four young people who are suspected of starting it. I wrote the entire book not being sure who or what had caused the ﬁre, and it took me rather a long time to puzzle it out while I was writing because I kept changing my mind. Despite that, it worked out well because many readers have told me they too had not worked out who did it until the very end of the book. For me, too much planning takes the joy out of discovering what the story is, but it doesn’t work like that for everyone. Do what feels right for you and your book.

The W&A Guide to Writing for Children and YA provides informed, practical advice from a successful and experienced writer of children's books across all ages. Its coverage includes picture books through middle grade and young adult; fiction and non-fiction; books for reluctant readers and books for the education market. It is one author's lifetime of experience distilled into an engaging guide on how to manage, kickstart or begin your writing career. You can order your copy now .

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How to Write for Young Adults (Even If You Aren't One)

So, you’re writing a YA novel, but you want to do it without:

A. Embarrassing yourself

B. Wasting the reader’s time

C. Falling prey to stereotypes, misconceptions and flat storylines

D. All of the above

Well, you’ve come to the right place.

When you’re writing for a teenage audience, you have to strike a balance between relatability, emotionalism and universal truth. These are the three most important elements in YA.

That’s because young adults respond best to relatable characters with whom they can identify. And, it’s the emotional journey your characters take that resonate the most with young readers. If you can accomplish the first two elements, it’ll be easy to share a universal truth with your readers without coming across as preachy or condescending.

Sounds like a tall order, doesn’t it? Don’t worry, it’s not as hard as it sounds. Let’s discuss what to focus on when writing for the young adult reader.

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Define Your Target Audience

Defining your target reader is good advice for any author, but it’s essential when you’re writing for the YA crowd. You need to know your YA reader.

Let me take a moment to say that YA is a hopelessly basic term that applies to a wide range of genres (horror, fantasy, dystopia, romance, mystery, etc.). There’s no such thing as “one size fits all” when it comes to YA. Remember this, though: YA is not a genre, it’s an age group. And, lucky you, you get to define both the genre of your story and the age group of your target audience.

So, what’s the age of your ideal reader?

Psst: it’s not enough to say, “Teenager” .

While your YA reader is probably a teenager, there’s a huge difference between 13 years old and 19 years old. Even though YA spans an audience of only six years in age, one end of the spectrum is absolutely dissimilar to the other in terms of maturity, exposure, interests and point of view.

To figure out the age of your ideal reader, look at your protagonist. Your story’s protagonist should be the same age as the reader. This goes back to the element of relatability. One guaranteed way to create a relatable character is to make him or her the same age as your ideal reader.

Also keep in mind that YA readers will read books with protagonists who are older than they are, but not younger.

Get Familiar With What Else is Out There

As a writer, it is important to develop a fanbase-- an audience that sticks around to read your next novel. To do this effectively, you’ll need to create stories that fit into the genre of your choosing. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel and create an wacky story that doesn’t abide by the rules of the genre.

To write a satisfying romance, there needs to be genuine love (even if it’s not a happy ending). To write a nail-biting mystery, there needs to be red herrings.

While the YA reader is young, that doesn’t mean he is unsophisticated. He picks up a novel of a particular genre expecting to check off certain elements, so don’t disappoint.

It’s important to see what other books interest your target reader. Study the best sellers for your intended genre to figure out what they do successfully. Perhaps it’s pacing, plotting, or characterization. These are general elements that you can incorporate into your own writing to create a book that resonates with your audience.

Learn to Censor Yourself

You’re a writer and you hate censorship. I do, too. But, when you’re writing for a YA crowd, get used to it.

Your intended audience may be teenagers, but teenagers have guardians in the form of parents, librarians and teachers-- any of whom can say “no” to your book. Unlike adults, teenagers are not free agents who can decide for themselves what they read. So, your book needs to get approval from one of these guardians before ever reaching a teenager.

Although there are exceptions to every rule, books that describes orgies, gratuitous violence and prolific drug abuse probably won’t make the cut.

But teenagers have sex and do drugs, you say . They use profanity, too .

All of that’s true, but it’s also true that many parents don’t want to expose their children to these things in literature. Or in movies, which is why we having ratings.

If you must write a book that tackles these topics, do so delicately (and probably not in detail), knowing that you’ll need to convince the guardians, too.

Avoid Stereotypes

When you cross over from teenager to adult, something magical happens instantly: all teenagers become whiny, know-it-all brats.

You weren’t that way, of course. Just youngsters today.

Bu,t remember that when we group all teenagers together like that, it’s so easy to condescend. If you’re not extra careful, that lofty attitude can color your narrative and create unsympathetic, unrealistic characters that your reader won’t be able to relate to.

If you write from the posture that “kids today don’t really get it”, you’ll alienate your audience.

Not all teenagers are filled with angst. It would be a mistake to write a novel that way.

Make a list of the qualities your protagonist has that only a true friend would know about. Is your protagonist intuitive, passionate, protective and kind? Don’t just scratch the surface with what a stranger can see, but go beyond to what can’t be seen.

This is how you build characters that your reader can connect to -- remember, your YA reader is likely much more emotional than an adult reader. The reader is able to connect to the protagonist through his or her emotional journey.

Be Careful with Cultural References

OMG, whatever you do, don’t get careless with slang and cultural references. That’s hot, that’s bad, that’s rad -- none of it’s cute.

While an occasional nod to pop culture may be okay, you don’t want to litter your novel with such references. Hopefully, you’re creating a novel that future generations will want to read. Will a reader 50 years in the future understand your relatively obscure slang from today? Or will it distract the reader from your story?

Use slang thoughtfully. Let your book to stand the test of time and be understandable and relatable to teenagers years from now as it is today.

Find Your Inner Child

Don’t roll your eyes just yet. What I mean is that you were a young adult once, maybe not too long ago. Get in touch with that vulnerable side of yourself-- the part where you felt unsure, hopeful, hopeless, open, insecure, invincible, etc.

The most poignant part of growing up is when you crack open and see the world anew-- what you see may not be beautiful, but the experience of maturing certainly is. Make that evident in your novel.

One of the distinctions of YA is that the character grows up during the process. The protagonist isn’t looking back and reminiscing about his life-- he’s actively and continuously participating. The protagonist transforms in front of the reader. The reader is able to gain insight as the protagonist matures.

Instead of writing as an adult looking back, remember yourself as a teenager, access those emotions and write from that perspective. It’s a small but significant shift that will help you connect with your audience.

Don’t write from the perspective of wisdom and adult logic. Remember that you’re writing as a teenager to other teenagers. They’ll be able to tell if you’re not coming from an authentic place.

Don’t Shy Away From the Hard Stuff

Life isn’t rainbows and fairy tales, and your teenage reader (no matter how young) already knows that. It’s okay to tackle the gritty stuff. Just remember that the ending should be thought-provoking with an ultimately hopeful message.

No matter how bleak the subject material, the story should empower the young reader.

Additional Resources

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A Guide for Researching Your Dystopian Novel
Are Your Characters Under-Developed? Here's a Helpful Guide to Find Out
How to Plan a Book Series

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Writing for Young Adults: How to Create Exceptional Literature

“I wrote a few children’s books…not on purpose.”–Steven Wright.

It can feel that way sometimes, when I am writing for young adults. Finding the right voice which speaks to both (Young Adult) YA and adult audiences can prove maddeningly elusive. But conscious effort to understand your chosen genre and audience, and to speak to them accordingly, can make every difference.

Understanding Writing for Young Adults: Genre and Audience

Some insist YA owes its American genesis to Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye; some point back to Twain and Alcott; others have taken to ascribing YA to some works of that Shakespeare fellow. And there are those who take umbrage at the notion that YA even constitutes a legitimate genre.

But Young Adult fiction–fiction geared, let’s say, toward readers 16-25 (give or take) is as legitimate a genre as any other. To suggest otherwise is an insult to an enthusiastic readership numbering in the millions, more than half of which is comprised of adults. As with any genre, there is good YA and bad. The writer who knows the difference is well-served indeed.

What Great YA Does for Us

Great YA makes us feel something. Young adults relate because they are feeling some of those very things. Adults relate too, because at one point in their lives, they felt some of those things too. I think of The Outsiders, which S.E. Hinton penned as a teenager herself, and which I first read as a young teen. It is simple and powerful in its classic YA themes of young love, the perils and pain of socioeconomic divides, and, of course, coming of age.

I concur with Meg Wolitzer who contends that it’s not just a sense of “verisimilitude” in good YA which lures in the adults . The S.E. Hintons of the world aside, most YA is penned by (and, as we’ve already established, consumed by) adults. They are taking a journey back in time (even if a story is futuristic, it is going back in time in the sense that it is told through the eyes of YA protagonists), and hopefully presenting it in a manner that resonates with YA and adult audiences alike.

Great YA is every bit as much about the words in which these characters live—the experiences, milestones, feelings, and conflicts that have them faltering at that precipice between youth and adulthood. Good YA does more than tip its nostalgic cap to those good ‘ol days. The pervasiveness of depression and suicide among teens is a sobering reminder that if something is felt strongly enough, it is a reality, no matter how many well-intended folks assure us it just comes with the territory, or that we’ll outgrow it. Great YA mines this rocky terrain, a place where young adults struggle to find their footing at the nexus of two worlds. There is something powerful in speaking to an audience in a way they understand, in a way that tells them you understand them. Great YA does this. It is a place where hope still lives.

What Role Do the Language Arts Play in Writing for Young Adults?

The Lewises, Alcotts, Riordans, and Rowlings of the world make it look easy but for mere mortals such as myself, it can prove an oh-so-elusive balance: writing for young adults in a way that speaks to—but not above—them, while also speaking to—but not below—adults? Perhaps most of Rowling’s magic is conjured in her richly drawn characters and the dark and exhilarating world in which she placed them. Let’s sample a small bit from chapter one of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows:

The two men took their allotted places. Most of the eyes around the table followed Snape, and it was to him that Voldemort spoke first.

“My Lord, the Order of the Phoenix intends to move Harry Potter from his current place of safety on Saturday next, at nightfall.”

The interest around the table sharpened palpably.

Unremarkable, but that is my point: there are hundreds of thousands of similar passages I could have excerpted from the series, any one of which flows seamlessly, any one of which simply works.

The two men took their allotted places.

Allotted . No big thing, and yet, everything. Word choice matters.

Rowling might have gone with: designated , assigned , given . And each of those would have been fine. But allotted catches my eye because I have seen words like that questioned in YA work. As in, do teens really talk like that?

I push back just a little against such litmus tests, commonly tendered though they are. I do not always subscribe to the notion that the voice of a third-person narrator must always equate identically with that of the protagonist. It best not deviate wildly, but what is important in this consideration is a narrative voice that reconciles ably with the age, voice and world of the protag. I have faith in young readers, and also do not wish to alienate adults with oversimplified language.

As with anything, the pendulum can swing to an extreme, and must be re-centered. Those who tend toward the other extreme—who in their justifiable fear of losing young readers by sending them scrambling endlessly to the (probably online) dictionary–risk reducing things to painfully rudimentary levels.

Balance, my friends. Balance.

Let’s briefly revisit the Potter passage.

Palpably. Let’s try this again: do most teens speak in this manner? Not many. Rowling could have perhaps opted for noticeably, or visibly. But palpably sticks a little better, singes the meaning a bit more hotly onto the page. If some young readers need to look it up, so be it.

When all’s said and done…

If you love YA then keep on reading it (here is but one of many YA lists you could consult ), and if you love writing for young adults, keep on doing that too.

Stay focused on your target: target genre, target audience.

Your weapons of choice are: story, character, language, voice.

And if you are guided by a commitment to speak authentically to your readership, your aim shall be true

Tell me your opinion: Do you enjoy YA, or do you agree with some of its critics? What additional traits should be stressed in writing for young adults? What are some of your favorite works?

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Daryl Rothman’s novel The Awakening of David Rose , will be released September 9, 2019, by EvolvedPublishing. He has written for a variety of esteemed publications, and recognitions include Flash Fiction winner for Cactus Moon Press, Flash Fiction second place winner for Amid the Imaginary, and Honorable Mention for Glimmer Train’s prestigious New Writer’s Award Contest. Daryl is on Twitter , LinkedIn , and Facebook . He’d love you to drop in for a visit at his website .

I think you’ve over complicated things here. Just treat it like any other story! Teens don’t mind reading adult book, what they don’t like is being talked down to. Teens are not that much different than adults when it comes to books. If the characters are enjoyable and the plot is intriguing than it doesn’t matter whether you use big words or not!

I agree with you, Sunny! I guess my story is YA, because the main characters are in their late teens and twenties, but I’m not really that concerned about what teens generally will like. I know it’s a story I would have liked as a teenager (and now), and I’m sure there are many others like myself–odd as I was (and still am).

But if someone is trying to create a big YA hit, it does make sense to think about the language and themes that will connect with a larger audience.

Thanks Sunny I concur–but I can’t tell you the number of posts I’ve read and comments from readers and editors cautioning that teens don’t talk that way, teens don’t want to use a dictionary…but I’m with you–if you have those other strong elements, that’s what matters most. That’s why I reference erring on side of NOT talking down to them. Thanks and best wishes!

Yeah, I think that the only place where it matter whether its some thing a teen would say is in dialog. As for possibly having to look up a word in the dictionary, often it’s easy to tell what the author meant by context. If the story is good and happen to see a word I don’t know, I often skip over with out a second thought.

Thanks so much for sharing with us today, Daryl!

Evelyn thanks for those perspectives and KM, thank YOU: always an honor!

Daryl, thank you! Your post was so helpful! I especially enjoyed this sentence: “Great YA mines this rocky terrain, a place where young adults struggle to find their footing at the nexus of two worlds.” — I think this explains a lot about why good YA speaks to adults. Don’t we all feel like we are “at the nexus of two worlds”?

Thank you Evelyn, and yes, I think we can all feel that way…:)

Thank you for your excellent insights and examples. 😀 I will need to reread this a couple of times.

The Representative isn’t YA (naturally, of course); writing it, however, the “four youths” had felt like a nod to the genre. Just as so much else in it felt like some nod to something.

The way I feel towards YA is the same as all other genre fiction: it’s genre, thereby in some context insincere – entertaining, and even humane perhaps, but still insincere.

Thanks Steve!

I appreciate the thoughts, Thomas…I hear you…I think it’s still possible to write something genuinely and passionately without being beholden to audience/genre to such extent as to forfeit the heart of what you’re writing about…I.e, become palpably formulaic. Every story may be send to have a primary audience and be classified in some way by someone…so long as tail doesn’t wag the dog, I think there’s hope. 🙂

Thanks for an awesome post, Daryl. I agree with you balance is everything. I have wondered about this, about word choice when writing for the YA market, but then I remembered the books I read in my youth. You don’t have to throw a dictionary into your writing stew and you don’t have to oversimplify things. Words carry the tone and atmosphere in a story. No matter the market you write for, you use the words that is appropriate to your narrative. In that sense when writing for YA I assume ones story intention is paramount.

Woelf thanks, I very much agree with you!

The coming of age story is as old as human culture itself. Perhaps that’s because we rely so heavily on stories to pass down the ways of surviving on to the next generation. And what more important lesson can there be than how to become an adult? How to take hold of the reins of the world, as all those before you have.

The great thing about books is that they give us a sense of shared experience, allowing us to tap into our innate desire to connect with the world around us. And when a book speaks to something so universal as the struggle to find one’s place in the world, well then it has the chance to become something truly beautiful.

Thanks for the great, though provoking post.

Thanks for the kind words and great insights Jake! Very eloquently stated! Take care-

This might sound a little unorthodox but the occasional swear word will definitely attract the attention of a young adult reader. I’m not saying that the entire story should be rife with foul language but a few correctly placed and congruent to the story does seem to work in my experience.

I am sixty-six years old and I read YA novels almost exclusively. As a child, I read the classics (Gulliver’s Travels, Treasure Island, Swiss Family Robinson) because that’s what my Dad would buy me. I also read The Famous Five and the Adventure series (Ship, Castle, River, Circus, Valley) by Enid Blyton. These days, it’s Garth Nix, Sharon Hink, Michael J Sullivan, Peter R Stone. Michael S. Federson. Some of the authors are well established and others are fairly new.

If I’m going to write YA, I feel the need to immerse myself in that genre. If you’re going to be a doctor, you don’t study horticulture. One reason I think I love reading YA so much is that I’ve never really grown up 🙂

80smetalman I concur regarding occasional expletives–if they fit and ring true which they very often can. And Lyn, thanks for the perspectives and I’m abundantly with you in stubbornly refusing to acquiesce to maturity…:)

Thanks Daryl

C.S. Lewis said that a book written only for children is not good even for children. Lewis took great pleasure in reading George MacDonald’s books, many of which were written for young adults. For myself, I first read Lewis’s classic Narinia series when I was in my sixties, and I remember it as one of the great experiences of my life. To put an age limit on books by people such as MacDonald, Lewis, or Rider Haggard seems not only foolish, but borders on being abusive.

Well . . . first, I think that even children are capable of understanding more than most adults believe they can. So, don’t sell them short. Yes, there’s a great deal that they don’t have the knowledge or experience with. So the language you use and the pacing you use has to be at a level they can understand. NOT talk down to, but explain in simple terms that even an adult can understand.

Second, the concepts can be adult, even if the language is kept to what the age level can handle — with some exceptions. Where a more advanced word fits better than a simplier word does, I tend to go for the more advanced. I faced this when I was reading in the ’50’s and ’60’s without the Internet and Google to help me define words, and it still worked. Today’s kids have the advantage over me in that respect.

Third, consistency, continuity and logic. That might seem like three things right there. Actually they’re not. Others might call it ‘plotting’. Me, I just let the characters figure out what was going on for themselves, but kept it consistent forward and backward — foreshadowing sometimes even a book ahead (I wrote 9 books, for fun. Three trilogies based on the same characters and universes). That consistency both ways helped keep what in movies is called ‘continuity’ alive and well. It also played into the logical progression of how the characters developed over time.

Fourth, have fun with your characters. ” ‘What do kids do?’, Muriel asked. And twelve voices responded, ‘Kids kid!’ ” How do kids of the age group that you’re writing about behave. Notice that I said, ‘that you’re writing about’. Not the age group that will be reading it. Your characters have to be believable. They each talk in slightly different ways, and with slightly different attitudes. That’s real. That’s the hook. So, have fun writing, and play the parts in your head.

My view on vocabulary in YA is that anything an adult can understand, a teenager likely will as well. I learned a lot of words from reading Harry Potter in my early teens, many of which I figured out through context clues rather than a dictionary. Variety in vocab is important in order to service the wide variety of literacy and interest levels, but again that’s not so different from what you’ll find in adult readers.

Thanks Ann, I concur. 🙂

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Most in the U.S. say young adults today face more challenges than their parents’ generation in some key areas

About seven-in-ten Americans think young adults today have a harder time than their parents’ generation when it comes to saving for the future (72%), paying for college (71%) and buying a home (70%), according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in October 2021. These findings come at a time when younger Americans are more likely than previous generations to have taken on student debt with tuition costs steadily rising, and to face an affordable housing crisis as rent and housing prices have grown markedly faster than incomes in the last decade.

To learn more about how Americans view the circumstances young adults face across various life measures compared with their parents’ generation, Pew Research Center surveyed 9,676 U.S. adults between Oct. 18-24, 2021. Everyone who took part is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way, nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the ATP’s methodology .

Here are the questions used for this analysis , along with responses, and its methodology .

Bar chart showing that when it comes to savings, paying for college and home-buying, most say young adults today have it harder than their parents' generation

There’s less consensus when it comes to assessing labor market outcomes for young people today compared with their parents’ generation. Similar shares say finding a job is easier (40%) as say it is harder (39%) for young adults today. A smaller share of U.S. adults (21%) say it’s about the same.

When it comes to finding a spouse or partner, Americans are more than twice as likely to say younger adults today have it harder than their parents’ generation (46%) than to say they have it easier (21%). Around a third (32%) say it’s about the same.

On some other measures, Americans are more positive in their assessments of young adults’ circumstances. A significant majority of U.S. adults (74%) say it is easier for younger generations today to stay in touch with family and friends. Only 14% say this is harder for young adults compared with their parents’ generation. A plurality (41%) says getting into college is easier for young adults today compared with their parents’ generation; 33% say it’s harder for young adults today and 26% say it’s about the same.

There are notable age differences when it comes to assessing the circumstances of young adults today.

While majorities across all age groups say young adults have it harder when it comes to buying a home, saving for the future and paying for college, Americans ages 18 to 29 are more likely than older age groups to say this. More than eight-in-ten adults younger than 30 (84%) say buying a home is harder for young adults today, while 80% say the same about saving for the future and paying for college. Among those ages 30 to 49, 72% say buying a home and paying for college is harder for young adults today, and 74% say this about saving for the future. Those 50 and older are the least likely to say these measures are harder for younger generations to reach, with 63% saying this about buying a home, 67% saying this about saving for the future, and 66% saying this about paying for college.

Dot plot chart showing that views about whether young adults have it harder today differ significantly by age, especially when it comes to buying a home and finding a job

When it comes to finding a job, younger Americans are again the most likely to say this is harder for young adults today. Overall, 55% of 18- to 29-year-olds say finding a job is harder for young adults today than it was for their parents’ generation. About four-in-ten or less of those ages 30 to 49 and those 50 and older say this about young adults (39% and 33%, respectively). There are also double-digit differences between the views of adults younger than 30 and those ages 50 or older when it comes to finding a spouse or partner (52% of 18- to 29-year-olds say this is harder for young adults today vs. 42% in the older group) and getting into college (45% vs. 27%, respectively). In fact, a plurality of adults 50 and older say getting into college is easier today (44%). There are no large differences by age on the measure of staying in touch with family and friends.

Generally, these views differ only modestly by gender, with one exception. On finding a spouse or partner, about half of women (51%) – compared with 40% of men – say this is harder for young adults today than it was for their parents’ generation. This gap is only present among those ages 30 and older; roughly equal shares of women (53%) and men (52%) younger than 30 say this is harder for young adults today. Notably, women in older age groups give similar answers as younger women, while older men are less likely than their younger counterparts to say finding a spouse or partner is harder for young adults today (42% of men 30 to 49 and 34% of men 50 and older say this).

Finally, on most of these measures, there are no significant differences between adults who are parents of children ages 18 to 29 and those who are not. On a few items where such differences exist, they tend to disappear when looking at adults 50 and older. The only item where such differences persist among older adults is on assessments of finding a job. Interestingly, those 50 and older who are parents of adult children ages 18 to 29 are more likely than those in the same age group who do not have young adult children to say young adults today have it easier when it comes to finding a job (47% vs. 42%, respectively).

Note: Here are the questions used for this analysis , along with responses, and its methodology .

Homeownership & Renting
Personal Finances
Unemployment
Younger Adults

Stella Sechopoulos is a former research assistant focusing on social and demographic trends research at Pew Research Center .

Methodology: 2023 focus groups of Asian Americans

1 in 10: redefining the asian american dream (short film), the hardships and dreams of asian americans living in poverty, majority of americans prefer a community with big houses, even if local amenities are farther away, single women own more homes than single men in the u.s., but that edge is narrowing, most popular.

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For immediate release | December 14, 2023

YALSA Announces 2024 Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults Award finalists

Chicago - The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), a division of the American Library Association (ALA), selected five books as finalists for the 2024 Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults Award , which awards the best in nonfiction published for young adults ranging in age from 12 through 18 years, highlighting excellence in writing, research, presentation, and readability for young adults.

YALSA will name the 2024 award winner at the Youth Media Awards on January 22, 2024, during the ALA’s LibLearnX : The Library Learning Experience conference in Baltimore, MD.

The 2024 Excellence in Nonfiction finalists are:

“Accountable: The True Story of a Racist Social Media Account and the Teenagers Whose Lives It Changed,” by Dashka Slater. Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group. 9780374314347.

“America Redux: Visual Stories from Our Dynamic History,” written and illustrated by Ariel Aberg-Riger. Balzer + Bray, an imprint of HarperCollins. 9780063057531.

“Family Style: Memories of an American from Vietnam,” written by Thien Pham. First Second, an imprint of Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group. Paperback 9781250809711/Hardcover 9781250809728.

“From Here,” by Luma Mufleh. Nancy Paulsen Books, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers, a division of Penguin Random House. 9780593354452.

“Nearer My Freedom: The Interesting Life of Olaudah Equiano by Himself,” by Monica Edinger and Lesley Younge. Zest Books, an imprint of Lerner Publishing Group. 9781728450988.

The YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults honors the best nonfiction book published for young adults (ages 12-18) during a November 1 – October 31 publishing year. Award winners are announced annually during the ALA Youth Media Awards presentation.

“The choice of the five finalists this year was exciting and reflects some of the best in books about social justice, history and memoir in multiple formats,” said committee chair Janet Hilbun. “The wide array of quality nonfiction published and ranging from topics of social justice, history, civil rights, science and memoir made for an interesting and challenging year.”

The full list of annotations and more information on the finalists and the award can be found on the Nonfiction Award page . Finalist seals are available for purchase by publishers and library staff to place on the finalist titles.

Members of the 2024 YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults committee are: Chair Janet Hilbun, Garland, Texas; Anne Dame, Seattle; Candace Fox, Parma, Ohio; Cyndi Hamann, Arlington Heights, Illinois; Thea Hashagen, San Francisco; Amy Ojserkis, Media Center, Atlantic County Institute of Technology, Mays Landing, New Jersey; Kali Olson, Minneapolis; Celeste Swanson, Richmond, Indiana; and Monica Toomer, Homestead, Florida.

The mission of the Young Adult Services Association (YALSA) is networking, advocacy and professional development. The Young Adult Services Association empowers all those involved in the profession to provide equitable, diverse and inclusive teen services. For more information about YALSA or to access national guidelines and other resources, drive to www.ala.org/yalsa .

Camille Alcazar

Communications Specialist

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Pairing Young Adult Books With Classic Literature

Reading contemporary books alongside classics can help high school students better grasp the nuances and themes embedded in literature.

One of the most rewarding elements of teaching reading is when students come rushing into the class wanting to talk about the reading from the night before. I relish these moments. It took me a while to realize that these moments are few and far between when I assign classic literature on its own. But when I started asking students to read young adult (YA) literature independently while we worked through classical texts in class, the energy and excitement became palpable.

Pairing novels does not mean “doubling up” on the amount of reading students are required to do. Pairing essentially provides carefully selected reading materials that support the skills and lessons that the teacher is emphasizing in the classroom. In the classroom, this may look like reading a classical text, listening to an audiobook and following along, or selecting key passages to work through. Teachers and students use these to work through specific standards and skills in reading and writing. Then, students can apply those skills to a young adult novel or a more contemporary work to see how the skills play out in real-world, independent reading.

Using YA Novels as an introduction to the Classics

Light summer reading can provide an opportunity for teachers to give material that previews themes or genres that students will embark on in class by assigning enjoyable “beach reads” for summer reading. When I taught middle school, we started the year with The Odyssey , by Homer. I assigned Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief , by Rick Riordan, as a summer read to preview the Olympians and give a basic introduction and understanding of the Greek mythology characters that students encounter in The Odyssey.

Another way to approach this is to give a selection of options about a character’s odyssey to provide a preview of the narrative structure of the ” hero’s journey .“ For instance, I could ask my students to select between J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit ; Hatchet , by Gary Paulsen; Into the Wild , by Jon Kraukauer; and The Maze Runner , by James Dashner. Teachers can consider creating a list of young adult titles that may work well with their first unit’s reading and give students some options of light summer reading to preview the themes or lessons they’ll encounter in the new year. The goal here is to allow the enjoyment of reading to be at the forefront without any major work attached to it and let the organic enjoyment of reading come through.

Complementing, Not Complicating, classic texts

When we set out to teach a text in the classroom, we understand that there is an element of rigor: We want to push our students to think deeply and stretch their cognitive abilities. However, the process of reading does not always have to include such cognitive stretches. The goal of pairing books is to teach with rigor and allow those skills to filter into more digestible texts. For this activity, I give students “note catchers,” graphic organizers that have specific tasks or questions to look for as they do a close reading. They complete it or “catch notes” as they go.

For instance, we read Lord of the Flies , by William Golding, and I pair it with The Hunger Games , by Suzanne Collins, which students read on their own. We listen to Lord of the Flies on audiobook, follow along in the text, and catch notes with a variety of activities that teach skills from the standards, then link it to the paired text.

We study the symbolism of the conch shell, glasses, and knife/spear in Lord of the Flies . I then ask my students to consider the symbols they encounter in The Hunger Games as they read independently. Often, they come back with things like the cornucopia, the Mockingjay, and fire, with some interpretations of what those symbols represent. The Divergent series also works well here. So while we are doing the heavy lifting of learning about and exploring symbolism in class, students can apply those rigorous lessons about survival, alliances, and power to a dystopian young adult novel on their own.

Connecting Themes in Classical literature

For many students, the plot lines in the classics are unrelatable. The characters in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet are a bit unrealistic as they swoon over each other; Gus and Hazel in John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars move at a pace that is more in line with the subtle flirting that today’s youth can relate to. However, the theme of tragic love is timeless and can be explored in different ways between the classic and the contemporary.

In this unit, we work through the language and the depth of Shakespeare and the poetry of love and passion with in-class analysis and close-reading activities. Then, for individual reading, students compare and contrast the expressions of love, passion, and being a teenager in Green’s love story. When we pair these, we can explore how the expression of love has perhaps changed over time, but the theme of young love and tragedy remains timeless.

Teachers can consider other timeless themes through the pairing of literature. For instance, you could explore oppression and how a character’s voice can be silenced in The Scarlet Letter , by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and the young adult novel Speak , by Laurie Halse Anderson. It‘s easy for younger students to write off the oppressive voice of religion in The Scarlet Letter , but society still has a long way to go with acknowledging women’s voices around trauma and assault, a concept made more relatable with the teenage character in Speak .

You could also explore racial injustice by teaching To Kill a Mockingbird , by Harper Lee, in class and Monster , by Walter Dean Myers, as independent reading. The setting of Maycomb during Jim Crow and the Depression is a bit unrelatable to many students, despite previewing with research and activities; the setting of Monster in Harlem in the 1990s is closer.

When classics are paired with contemporary works of literature that are perhaps more engaging and easier to read or connect with, students may connect more with the material on their own, and the teacher can leave the heavy lifting of the classics in the classroom lessons.

Now it’s your chance to share: What’s been your experience with teaching contemporary novels and classic texts side by side? If the idea is new to you, what pairing are you most excited about and why? Reply in the comments below.

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Five things teens wish you knew about them, to allow teens to become the best adults they can be, family researcher ellen galinsky says we must reframe the way we view the teenage years..

When Ellen Galinsky was trying to come up with a title for her massive research project and book about adolescence, The Breakthrough Years seemed fitting. After all, adolescence is a true “breakthrough” time when the brain is developing rapidly and is particularly sensitive to environmental influences. It’s when we seek new experiences, build and strengthen connections, and form essential life skills we will use in the future.

Since the founding of the field of adolescent development in 1904, researchers have viewed adolescence as a time of “storm and stress.” But our expectations—negative or positive—affect how teens behave. That’s why Galinsky believes it’s important to reframe our understanding of adolescence from negative to positive—from dread to celebration.

Across more than nine years, Galinsky surveyed more than 1,600 tweens and teens between the ages of 9 and 19 and their parents, asking them what they want to tell adults about people their age. She hopes parents and caring adults will take their messages seriously.

Eden Pontz: You’ve curated a series of five main messages from young people that they feel are key for adults to understand about them. What are they?

Ellen Galinksy: The first message from young people is “Understand our development.” In our nationally representative survey, we asked parents, “If you had one word or phrase to describe the teen brain, what would that be?” Only 14% of the parents used positive words about the teen brain. The most frequently used word by 11% of the parents was “immature,” and another 8% used similar words. Far too many of us are seeing adolescents as deficit adults. We wouldn’t say a toddler is a deficit preschooler. But we see adolescents as “not adults.”

Adolescents need to be explorative and have adventures. You need to be able to react quickly and know if a situation is safe or not. That’s what they need to do to survive. Much of adolescent research has been on negative risks, like taking drugs, drinking, and making what are often called “stupid decisions.” People wonder, “Do adolescents make these decisions because they feel they’re immune from danger?” That’s not true. Research by Ron Dahl from the University of California at Berkeley has found that when young people are doing scary things, they’re more attuned to danger. They’re learning to go out into the world—to move out and be more on their own. He describes it as “learning to be brave,” a characteristic that’s admired around the world.

The second message is “Talk with us, not at us.” Adolescents need to have some agency—to learn how to make decisions for themselves. I don’t mean to turn everything over to them—but to find an appropriate level of autonomy. They’re right in saying, “Don’t just tell us what to do.” As one young person said, “If we’re the problem, then we need to be part of the solution.” The best parenting, the best interventions, and the best teaching involve adolescents in learning to solve problems for themselves, not having problems solved for them.

The third message is “Don’t stereotype us.” Thirty-eight percent of adolescents wrote sentiments like we’re not dumb, we’re smarter than you think, we’re not all addicted to our phones and social media. Don’t put us all in a big group and say we’re the “anxious or depressed generation” or the “entitled generation,” or the “COVID generation.” Let us be the individuals that we are. Research shows if we expect the worst, we sometimes get the worst. When parents’ views of the teen years were negative—59% of parents had negative words to use about teens’ brains—their own children weren’t doing as well. They were more likely to be sad, lonely, angry, or moody.

The fourth message from adolescents is “Understand our needs.” There’s a stream of research in psychology called the “self-determination theory.” This theory suggests we don’t just have physical needs for food, water, and shelter; we also have basic psychological needs. These needs include having important relationships or caring connections, feeling supported and respected, having some autonomy, and finding ways to give back. I found the kids who had those basic needs met by the relationships in their lives before the pandemic did well during the pandemic.

The fifth message is “We want to learn stuff that’s useful.” That speaks to the importance of executive function skills. People who have these skills are more likely to do well academically, in health, wealth, and life satisfaction, than people who don’t. These are skills like understanding others’ perspectives, goal-setting, communicating, collaborating, or taking on challenges. They’re skills that build on core brain processes that help us thrive.

EP: In the second message, you say adolescents don’t want to be “talked at.” What does that look like, and why does it cause conflict?

EG: We’re likely to talk “at” adolescents versus “with” them for several reasons. The first is that we forget what it’s like to be an adolescent. It’s called “the curse of knowledge.” It’s like a doctor talking to you about a medical condition. The doctor assumes you know what they’re talking about, but you haven’t a clue. It’s because it’s hard for us to not know what we already know.

The second reason is they can look like adults so we can see them like adults.

There’s still another reason why adolescents don’t like to be talked “at.” Teens need some autonomy. Autonomy doesn’t mean complete control. It means being choiceful and feeling you are in charge of your life to some degree. We all need that, but adolescents particularly need it because they know their parents will not always be there.

EP: Instead, adolescents want to be talked “with.” What does that look like?

EG: The research on autonomy support is very useful here. I call it a “skill-building approach.” It includes the following: 1) Checking in on ourselves because our feelings can spill over into how we handle challenges. 2) Taking the child’s view and understanding why they might be behaving how they’re behaving. 3) Recognizing that we’re the adults so we need to set limits. Everybody needs expectations and guidance in their lives. Nobody wants to be without guardrails. 4) Helping adolescents problem-solve solutions.

What does problem-solving look like? Here’s an example—“shared solutions.” I’ve used this approach as a teacher and as a parent. If there’s a problem—for example, kids aren’t keeping their curfew, homework isn’t getting done, they’re on their devices, or they’re disruptive in class—you state the problem and what your goals are. Then, you ask the young people to suggest as many solutions as possible. They can be silly ideas, they can be wonderful ideas, you can even get jokey about it.

Then you go through each idea and ask, “What would work for you in that idea? What would work for me?” You are helping adolescents to take your perspective. Next, you come up with a solution to try together. Now you both own that solution. If you need consequences, that’s when you establish them—not in the heat of the moment. Finally, you say, “This is a change experiment. We’re going to see if it works.” You try it out. And if it does work, great. It probably will for a while, but when it needs changing, you go through the shared solutions process again.

EP: What are some things we do that may send unintended messages to adolescents, that leave them feeling unseen or unheard? And what can we do instead?

EG: The late child psychiatrist Dan Stern once said, “Every human being wants to feel known and understood.” It isn’t just our children or younger people. It’s all of us.

I asked some open-ended questions in my study. One of them was, “If you had one wish to improve the lives of people your age, what would it be?” A number of young people wrote about the things that made them feel unseen, unheard, and not understood—statements like “Get over it,” “You’ll grow out of it,” “Stop being such a teen,” or “It’ll get better.” To them, statements like those made them feel that the adults in their lives weren’t understanding, weren’t taking their problems seriously. We’re better off if we try to understand what our kids are trying to achieve with communication before we respond to it.

EP: What are things parents can do to ensure their child knows they are supported and a priority?

EG: Here’s an example from my own life. My daughter was upset at my grandson for loving technology as much as he does. And she told him so in no uncertain terms. He said, quietly under his breath, “But you’re on it all the time, too.” And he was absolutely right.

We had a family meeting where he told his mom how he felt, with her acting one way to him and living another way. And she listened to him and was more mindful of how she used technology. That made a big difference in their relationship. So many young people wrote in, “We see you,” or “You think we don’t understand, but we’re watching you,” or “We’re learning from what you’re doing, not just what you’re saying.” At our best, we need to live the way we want them to live.

Discover more from our conversation with Ellen Galinsky at parentandteen.com .

About the Author

Eden Pontz is an award-winning journalist, writer, and blogger. She is executive producer and director of digital content at the Center for Parent and Teen Communication at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Eden brings more than a decade of experience as former executive producer of News Gathering at CNN and has field produced, reported, and written content from around the world.

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Guest Essay

A Huge Gender Gap Is Emerging Among Young Voters

Two young women sit on top of a car at a drive-in event, for which large Biden-Harris billboards have been erected.

By Thomas B. Edsall

Mr. Edsall contributes a weekly column from Washington, D.C., on politics, demographics and inequality.

It has become clear that one constituency — young voters, 18 to 29 years old — will play a key, if not pivotal, role in determining who will win the Biden-Trump rematch.

Four years ago, according to exit polls, voters in this age group kept Trump from winning re-election. They cast ballots decisively supporting Biden, 60 to 36, helping to give him a 4.46-point victory among all voters, 51.31 percent to 46.85 percent.

This year, Biden cannot count on winning Gen Z by such a large margin. There is substantial variance in poll data reported for the youth vote, but to take one example, the NBC News national survey from April found Trump leading 43 to 42.

Young voters’ loyalty to the Democratic Party has been frayed by two distinct factors: opposition to the intensity of the Israeli attack on Hamas in Gaza and frustration with an economy many see as stacked against them.

Equally important, a large gender gap has emerged, with young men far less likely to support Biden than young women.

Bill McInturff , a co-founder of the Republican polling firm Public Opinion Strategies — which conducts surveys for NBC along with the Democratic firm Hart Research — provided The Times with data covering a broad range of recent political and demographic trends.

Tracking the partisan identification and ideology of 18-to-34-year-olds, the McInturff analyses show that from 2012 to 2023, women became increasingly Democratic, going from 55 percent identifying as Democratic and 29 percent Republican in 2012 to 60 and 22 in 2023. The shift was even more striking in the case of ideology, going from 32 percent liberal and 29 percent conservative to 51 percent liberal and 17 percent conservative in 2023.

Among young men, the Democratic advantage in partisan identification fell from nine points in 2012 to five points in 2023.

What gives?

I asked the Democratic pollster Celinda Lake , who recently joined the Biden campaign’s polling team, a job she also held in 2020. She sent a detailed reply by email:

Three reasons. First and foremost is the abortion issue and all the aspects of reproductive health, including medication abortion, I.V.F., birth control and criminalizing abortion. Young men are very pro-abortion and birth control, but young women really vote the issue. Second is style and respect. Young men are not as troubled by the chaotic and divisive style of Trump, while young women want people to be respected, including themselves, want stability and are very concerned about division and the potential for violence. Young women think Trump’s style is an embarrassment abroad, a poor role model for their children and dangerous for the country. Younger men, especially blue-collar, have a grudging respect for his strength and “tell it like it is” attitude. Third is the economy. Young men, especially blue-collar and people of color, feel left behind in this economy. They do not feel things have been delivered to them. They do not know anything about what this administration has done. Younger women are much more committed to a role for government to help people like themselves as a foundational view. They don’t know much more about the economic programs than young men, but they tend to respond more favorably to Democrats in general on the economy. Younger men also feel more left behind on the economy and more sense of grievance than young women do who are also increasingly dominating college and higher education.

The Times/Siena poll conducted April 7 to 11 asked voters “How much do you think Donald Trump respects women?” A majority of men, 54 percent, replied that Trump does respect women (23 percent “a lot” and 31 percent “some”), while 42 percent said he does not (14 percent “not much” and 28 percent “not at all”).

Women replied quite differently, with 68 percent saying Trump does not respect women (24 percent “not much,” 44 percent “not at all”) and 31 percent saying Trump does respect women (15 percent “a lot” and 16 percent “some”).

Jean Twenge , a professor of psychology at San Diego State University and the author of “ Generations : The Real Differences Between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers and Silents and What They Mean for America’s Future,” wrote by email that the question of why there is such a gender divide “is tough to answer,” but she made some suggestions: “It could be that the changes on the left have driven young men away from the Democratic Party. For example, the idea that identities can be divided into ‘oppressor’ and ‘oppressed’ may have alienated some young men.”

Another likely factor, according to Twenge, is:

Fewer young men get college degrees than young women, and in the last 10 to 15 years the parties have split by education, with more of those without a college degree conservative and Republican. This appears even among high school seniors, where young men who do not plan to attend a four-year college are 30 percent more likely to identify as conservative than young men who are planning to get a college degree.

Richard Reeves , who wrote the book “ Of Boys and Men : Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters and What to Do about It,” argued in a January essay posted on his Substack :

In the centrifugal dynamic of culture-war politics, the more the right goes to one extreme, the more the left must go to the other, and vice versa. The left dismisses biology; the right leans too heavily on it. The left see a war on girls and women; the right see a war on boys and men. The left pathologizes masculinity; the right pathologizes feminism.

In this context, Reeves wrote, “Young men see feminism as having metastasized from a movement for equality for women into a movement against men, or at least against masculinity.”

In an article published in January on the Business Insider website, “ The War Within Gen Z ,” Daniel A. Cox, the director of the Survey Center on American Life at the American Enterprise Institute , wrote:

Something strange is happening between Gen Z men and women. Over the past decade, poll after poll has found that young people are growing more and more divided by gender on a host of political issues. Since 2014, women between the ages of 18 and 29 have steadily become more liberal each year, while young men have not. Today, female Gen Zers are more likely than their male counterparts to vote, care more about political issues and participate in social movements and protests.

Cox noted that “at no time in the past quarter-century has there been such a rapid divergence between the views of young men and women,” suggesting that “something more significant is going on than just new demographic patterns, such as rising rates of education or declining adherence to a religion — the change points to some kind of cataclysmal event.”

After interviewing young voters, Cox and his colleagues at the A.E.I. survey center concluded:

Among women, no event was more influential to their political development than the #MeToo movement. In 2017, women around the world began speaking out about their experiences with sexual assault and harassment. Gen Zers were then in high school and college, and for them, the movement came at a formative moment.

But, Cox continued:

while women were rallying together, many Gen Z men began to feel like society was turning against them. As recently as 2019, less than one-third of young men said that they faced discrimination, according to Pew, but today, close to half of young men believe they face at least some discrimination. In a 2020 survey by the research organization P.R.R.I., half of men agreed with the statement: “These days society seems to punish men just for acting like men.”

For a growing percentage of young men, Cox wrote:

Feminism has less to do with promoting gender equality and more to do with simply attacking men. A 2022 survey by the Southern Poverty Law Center found that 46 percent of Democratic men under 50 agreed that feminism has done more harm than good, and even more Republican men agreed.

More young men, he added, “are adopting a zero-sum view of gender equality — if women gain, men will inevitably lose.”

How does this translate into politics?

According to Cox:

While women have turned to the left for answers to their problems, men are finding support on the right. Trump helped redefine conservatism as a distinctly masculine ideology, stoking grievances and directing young men’s frustration toward liberals and feminists. There are signs the message is resonating: Republican affiliation among white men aged 18 to 24 jumped from 28 percent in 2019 to 41 percent in 2023, according to a Harvard Youth Poll .

On April 8, McInturff published a report, “ Key Data by Generation ,” on his firm’s website:

“We are witnessing a profound generational break,” he wrote, “between Generation Z versus the baby boomers that is already reshaping our country, its values, media habits and its politics.”

At the outset, McInturff compared the values of Gen Z respondents ages 18 to 26 with those of the baby boomers, now 59 to 77.

Some 76 percent of baby boomers placed a high value on patriotism; for Gen Z, it was 32 percent. Nearly two-thirds of baby boomers, 65 percent, highly valued religion and their belief in God; Gen Z, 26 percent. Having kids: baby boomers, 52 percent; Gen Z, 23 percent. Asked if they agreed that “America is the best place to live,” 66 percent of boomers said yes, double the 33 percent of 18-to-26-year-olds.

In other words, the youngest voters are, at least for the moment, disaffected from traditional notions of family, country and religion.

Even so, young voters as a whole are decidedly more liberal on specific policies and issues than their elders.

On gay marriage, according to McInturff’s data, 84 percent of voters 18 to 34 were in favor, compared with 51 percent of voters 65 and over. Ending transgender discrimination: young, 55 percent; old, 24 percent. Climate change: 64 to 39. Cutting the defense budget, 48 to 24.

One particular issue is currently working against Biden and Democrats among young voters.

“The Israel/Hamas war in Gaza reflects one of the sharpest policy differences by age we have seen over a 40-year period,” McInturff wrote. “President Biden’s support for Israel has collapsed his standing with one of his key and previously most supportive subgroups, 18-to-29-year-old voters.”

McInturff compared data on voters 18 to 34 in two categories: surveys conducted from January to September 2023, before the war began, and surveys conducted after it started, from November 2023 to January 2024.

The shift among these young voters is terrible news for the Biden campaign. In the pre-Gaza polling, young voters backed Biden by 29 points, 61 to 32. In the post-Gaza surveys, Biden’s advantage over Trump fell to four points, 45 to 41.

If the decline in young people’s support for Democrats holds through Election Day, it will be a major setback for Democratic strategists who, before the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, were banking on what appeared to be a secure partisan commitment by Gen Zers and millennials to the Democratic Party.

One of the key findings in the Harvard Youth Poll of 2,010 18-to-29-year-olds, conducted March 14 to 21, is that support for Biden among young voters fell far short of his support four years ago:

If the presidential election were held today, President Biden would outperform former President Trump among both registered (50 percent Biden, 37 percent Trump) and likely young voters under 30 (56 percent Biden, 37 percent Trump). When there is no voter screen (i.e., all young adults 18 to 29), the race narrows to single digits, 45 percent for President Biden, 37 percent for Trump, with 16 percent undecided.

At the same point in 2020, the Harvard Youth Poll “showed Biden leading Trump by 23 points among all young adults (51 percent to 28 percent),” compared with an eight-point lead in 2024. Among “likely” young voters in 2020, Biden led Trump by 33 points (60 percent to 27 percent), compared with 19 points in the current survey.

Young men account for virtually all the drop in support for Biden.

Joe Biden leads among both men (+6) and women (+33). Compared with this stage in the 2020 campaign, Biden’s lead among women is nearly identical (was +35 in 2020), but his lead among likely male voters has been dramatically reduced from +26 in 2020 to +6 today.

The same pattern emerged in partisan identification:

In 2020, 42 percent of young men in our poll identified as Democrats, and 20 percent were Republicans (+22 Democratic advantage); in this wave, 32 percent are Democrats, and 29 percent are Republicans (+3 Democratic advantage). Over the same period, the Democratic advantage among women expanded by six points. In 2020, 43 percent of young women in our poll identified as Democrats, and 23 percent were Republicans (+20 Democratic advantage); in this wave, 44 percent are Democrats, and 18 percent are Republicans (+26 Democratic advantage).

The Harvard survey corroborates McInturff’s analysis of the damage inflicted on the Biden campaign by the Israel-Hamas war. The Harvard study found that anger over the conflict has produced a substantial bloc of young voters — although not a majority — opposed to Israel’s attacks in Gaza.

The Harvard Youth Survey found that when asked if the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas justified Israel’s continuing response, “a plurality indicates that they don’t know (45 percent). About a fifth (21 percent) report that Israel’s response was justified, with 32 percent believing it was not justified.”

According to the Harvard survey, “Young Americans support a permanent cease-fire in Gaza by a five-to-one margin (51 percent support, 10 percent oppose). No major subgroup of young voters opposes such action.”

If Biden is struggling to restore his majorities among young voters, how is it that he remains competitive with Trump, running behind by 1.4 percentage points , according to the RealClearPolitics average of recent polls?

One reason is that the share of the electorate made up of the white working class, the core of Trump’s support, is steadily declining, while the number of college-educated white people, an increasingly strong source of Democratic support, is growing.

A second factor is that defections to the Republican Party that had been emerging among a small percentage of Black and Hispanic voters appear to have stopped, if not reversed. Matthew Blackwell , a political scientist at Harvard who tracks polling trends, posted graphics on X last month, noting, “Biden mildly trending better among Black and Hispanic subgroups in the last few weeks of polling.”

In an email, Blackwell expanded on his post: “The big takeaways are that Biden has been polling worse with Black and Latino voters compared to 2016 and 2020, but over the course of April, we did see some movement of these groups back to the 2020 levels, even if they haven’t quite gotten there yet.”

Blackwell predicted that “we can probably expect many prior Biden voters to ‘return to the fold’ as the campaign goes on,” before adding that many surveys may underestimate support for Biden:

Most of the polls are of registered voters without likely- voter screens . Many pollsters have found that regular voters are more supportive of Biden than nonregular voters. As we get closer to Election Day, we will probably see more likely-voter polls that may be more accurate.

Biden has improved on his 2020 margins with several very large blocs of voters: white people with college degrees (plus 1.3 points), white people without degrees (plus 0.6 points), 50-to-64-year-olds (plus 4 points) and voters 65 and older (plus 1.8 points). While the percentages are small, the groups are huge, making even a half a percentage point shift significant.

The closeness of the contest between Trump and Biden puts especially heavy pressure on Biden to negotiate a cease-fire, if not a conclusion to hostilities in Gaza. Nothing would do more to restore at least some of the crucial support he received from young men and women four years ago.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here's our email: [email protected] .

Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook , Instagram , TikTok , WhatsApp , X and Threads .

Thomas B. Edsall has been a contributor to the Times Opinion section since 2011. His column on strategic and demographic trends in American politics appears every Wednesday. He previously covered politics for The Washington Post. @ edsall

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The Ultimate Guide To Writing YA Fiction [2022]

About the Author

About So You Want to Write

Chapter 1: The basics

What The Heck Is Young Adult Fiction?

Why The Label Matters

A Note On Word Count

Chapter 2: How to make your readers care about your story

Avoid Stereotypes

Quit Protecting Your Characters

Focus On Emotional Truth

Chapter 3: The role of character progression & growth

Chapter 4: How to write authentically for young adults (even if you aren’t one)

Embrace Your Inner Drama Queen

Say Adios To The Grammar Police

Embrace Immaturity

Choose Simple Words

Chapter 5: The 1 ingredient your story’s ending MUST have

Chapter 6: Final Words

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Ultimate Guide for Writing Fiction for Young Adults (With 10 Tips)

Introduction

Top 10 Tips for Writing an Excellent Young Adult Fiction

Top 10 Tips for Writing a Compelling Fiction for Young Adults

2 – Focus on genuine moments in the story

3 – Take insights from real teenagers

4 – Take references from pop-culture

5 – Consider the right age for characters

6 – There’s no harm in writing about a heavy subject

7 – Show some emotional honesty without being too quick

8 – Write something robust and firey

9 – Give readers at least a little for hopeful endings

10 – Always look for the ideal protagonist’s voice

Final Words

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