Researching Song of the Day: “Into the Light” by Papa Roach
Good Morning, peeps! It’s the start of a new week (we have 5 weeks left in this school year- woo hoo!) and we want to start this week off with some light information.
In the recent issue of The Writer magazine (June 2011) there was an article that caught my eye. There are never many articles on YA in The Writer mag, so when I came across the article “9 Inside Tips On Writing for YA” written by Joyce Doyle, a freelance writer, and young adult writer and librarian, I KNEW some of this info needed to be shared with you all.
As mentioned there are 9 tips, but let’s focus on one shall we?
This tip is something we’ve been hearing a lot from teens and adult readers of YA. The tip is: Have fun with it! Yes teens are emotional and full of anger, sorrow, and dismay–but they also have some good times in those 6 or so years of teenage angst. Therefore, we need to focus on lighter issues and “themes” in novels for teens.
Reference this interview from me and Pam’s oh-so angsty and emo niece, Tee Tee (courtesy of Paper Hangover). Now consider this–this girl can often be found with her head buried in a book and a black hood hanging over her eyes. That tells you something, right?
And reference this post from Pam. She talks about how she’s stepping away from the darker, heavier, dramatic plots for her new WIP. Yes, she has some heavy issues in the novel, but she is focusing on the lighter side of drama. We know that with being a teen comes great dramatics, but even so we as writers can make those dramatics seem a little lighter, don’t ya think?
Here are a few light books that you can read to get those juices flowing for your own light and fun new WIP idea π
Can you think of a book we left off the list? How do you feel about lighter books for teens?