Writing YA - Themes

Wait, weren’t we just talking about series writing? Welcome to my right brain.  (Hey, I never said I did these posts in order!  If you want order, order the workbooks.)

No, actually, this post today is because I am teaching a Screenwriting Tricks workshop at the RWA National Conference on Wednesday, and the focus is YA, so this is a good way to get my thoughts in order while letting you all benefit from the conference by osmosis. Plus, switching topics mid-stream is an excellent way for me to demonstrate that writing series, or writing YA, or writing YA series, or writing anything, will all benefit from exactly the same starting point: your personal Top Ten List. 

Now first, YA isn’t a genre.  It’s an umbrella for ALL genres. So the structure patterns for whatever genre you’re writing in apply just as completely to a YA book in that genre (or subgenre, or cross-genre) as they do to any adult book in the genre. 

So when you’re sitting down with your new YA project to brainstorm, and making your Top Ten movie list (a list of movies and books that are similar in genre and storyline to your own project), it is often more useful to look at adult movies (I mean, not ADULT adult, but you know, adult) and books in the genre than it is to look at teen movies, simply because there are more, and usually better, adult movies out there with the structural patterns you’re likely to want to study and learn from.  (If you need more clarification about what I'm talking about: What KIND of Story is It?)

The only real difference in a YA book is the age of the hero/ine and main characters, although there are some specific themes, elements and techniques that are very popular in YA, and themes are what I wanted to start off with today.

-- YA is very often written in first person – or a very close third.  You are in the thoughts and skin of your protagonist.

-- There is very often a love triangle.  Of course this is a popular trope in adult fiction, too – it creates conflict and provides a fantasy sexual or romantic experience that a lot of readers are looking for. But it’s especially prevalent in YA, not just because people are copying Twilight and The Hunger Games, but because adolescence is hopefully a time for experimenting, including trying out who to love.

-- There is often a rebellion against entrenched adult values and political systems.  The Hunger Games is a prime example, of course.  It’s the teenagers who have to make moral choices and take moral actions against a corrupt or broken or even horrific adult system.  This is nothing new AT ALL, it was the spirit that defined the sixties and is pretty much is the major theme of adolescence.  And this is why, I think, dystopian fiction is so popular with YA readers.  The genre by its very nature says that the system is broken and challenges the characters  - and the readers – to fix it.  I love that about dystopian!  Makes my Berkeley heart proud.

-- The characters often have special powers, or superpowers.  This is another theme of the teen age.  Because it is the absolute truth – we all DO have superpowers.  We are all infinitely powerful, we just need to remember we are.  As Marianne Williamson wrote in A Return to Love (a quote often attributed to Nelson Mandela, who used it in his 1994 inauguration speech):

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Deepak Chopra says more succinctly, in a way that sums up the exhilaration of the Harry Potter series: “We are all wizards and witches.”  Kids KNOW that. Adults all too often forget it and spend a lifetime trying to remember.

-- There is commonly a theme of the changeling child.   A classic childhood fantasy:  “These aren’t my REAL parents.  I’m actually a princ/ess in disguise!”  Again, Harry Potter!


-- The changeling child is also an outsider, and the outsider theme is hugely popular in YA. Kids ALWAYS feel like freaks, and can easily relate to being vampires, shapeshifters, space aliens. New powers manifesting in embarrassing ways? You don't have to be Freud to get where that's coming from.

-- The King Arthur theme: that a seemingly ordinary person is destined for greatness.  The Hunger Games, How to Train Your Dragon, Harry Potter.  Cinterella is another one of these, of course.

So yes,  YA themes tend to be extravagantly idealistic and empowering.  YA is also often paranormal and girl-driven. Now, this could be attributed to the influence of Buffy, and Twilight, and you may have theories of your own about it, which I’d love to hear. Personally I think that the paranormal wave was in great part a reaction to the militaristic focus of the post-9/11 government — the psychic, intuitive, feminine paranormal was a reaction to and rebellion against the patriarchal domination of those war years.  

- There’s another very common formula to YA: stories that are revisionings of classic literature or fairy tales or fiction or plays,  only with teenage leads.


- And - maybe it's not exactly a theme, but school is almost always a setting, either a physical school or some kind of training that's the equivalent of school, and the issues of school and learning are always present.

But I know there are a lot of YA writers out there, so I’d like to hear some of the common themes YOU see in YA. And also as always, I’m very interested in hearing people’s Top Ten lists. I need some good examples!


- Alex 

Related posts:

The Dark Side of YA

=====================================================

Screenwriting Tricks for Authors and Writing Love, Screenwriting Tricks for Authors, II, are now available in all e formats and as pdf files. Either book, any format, just $2.99.

- Smashwords (includes pdf and online viewing)

- Kindle

- Barnes &Noble/Nook

- Amazon UK

- Amaxon DE (Eur. 2.40)




- Smashwords (includes online viewing and pdf file)

- Amazon/Kindle

- Barnes & Noble/Nook

- Amazon UK

- Amazon DE

-------------------------------------------------------------------