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Starting your Middle Grade or Young Adult Novel
by M. Rachel Plummer
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Whether you’re writing for young adults (age 13-16) or middle grade students (age 9-12), one of the hardest parts of writing a novel for the tween or teen crowd is deciding what to write about. Where do ideas come from, and what do you do with them when they strike?
The brain, like other parts of the body, functions more efficiently the more it is used. Once you start writing on a regular basis, you’ll discover that ideas will begin pouring in. Write them down, or if you read something in a magazine or newspaper or online that interests you, clip it or print it and save it in a file. At first these blobs of ideas and printed material may seem random and useless, but store them anyway. You’ll be amazed at how your subconscious will work on these seemingly disparate groups of thoughts to create a cohesive whole.
For example, in my latest manuscript—a middle grade sci-fi adventure—I created an alien bug. Normally, I would have housed this bug on a planet far away in the cosmos—he is, after all, an alien. But a year or so before I started writing the book, I had read something that intrigued me in the New York Times science section. According to the article, a ball of iron rotates independently in the very center of the earth; hence, it is considered a separate planet. Because I’d clipped the article and filed it in my idea folder, I now had a perfect and unusual place for my alien bug to reside. And it’s entirely possible that reading about the internal planet had subconsciously spurred the creation of the bug in the first place!
Once planted, ideas have strong roots that are best left to grow on their own with only minor attention from their caretaker. Never try to impose logic on your ideas, but rather let the logic come of its own accord. If you try to force a plot upon an idea, you more often than not end up with a stiff, non-organic storyline, not to mention the writing won’t be nearly as much fun as when you allow your subconscious to take over and lead you through the adventure.
What to write about? Anything that intrigues you is a good place to start. Decide who your main character is and what that character wants. Once you have that in mind, you’re ready to begin. Any idea can be turned into a novel, whether it’s fantasy, reality, or somewhere in between. The trick is learning to structure a book, so that you can write consistently and well every time. This requires practice, just as learning to play an instrument requires practice. So take classes and read lots of books about writing. And remember, it’s imperative that, especially in the learning stages, you write every day.
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