Writing for the Young Adult Market By Krista McGee

Krista McGee

Know your audience.
Young adult writers need to spend time with teens, get to know them. Writers can’t assume their adolescent experiences will translate into comparable experiences for 21st century teens. The reality of life as a teenager today is radically different from what it was twenty – or even ten -- years ago. Though the pressures are similar, the pace at which kids are exposed to those pressures has increased dramatically. The avenues through which those pressures come are far more varied, subtle, and dangerous. Teens today develop friendships over Facebook, Twitter, Instragram, Path…They rarely pick up a home phone and think a PC is an ancient artifact. Their computers are handheld, and much of their self-image can be found within the slim confines of their iPod Touch. The stories that will resonate with them acknowledge all that – and more. Even if the story is set in the past (or future), current realities must be considered.

Write for a specific audience.
No matter what you write, you won’t be able to appeal to all teens everywhere. Teens, like adults, have varied interests, are at different places socially, spiritually, and emotionally. Some writers in the Christian market cover pretty heavy subjects  – drugs, sex, suicide. They address those themes, not because they are seeking to push the envelope, but because their audience faces those issues at school and at home, and those writers want their readers to see those issues handled from a Christian perspective. On the other hand, the audience I write for are predominantly Christian kids who are truly seeking to live the Christ-life. I don’t discuss sex, drugs, and suicide, not because I want to avoid those topics, but because my audience wants to hear more about how to deal with apathy, how to grow in their faith, how to find their self-worth in Christ and not in the opinions of others. My books do not appeal to all audiences, but I never intended them to. I write for a specific audience, and I am overjoyed when I get emails from readers thanking me for speaking to them through my stories.

Keep it moving.
Teens today don’t like to wait. Thanks to DVRs and Youtube, there is little need to watch commercials – at least not for more than 5 seconds. They can complete research for their term papers online in one night – no scouring books after finding them with the card catalogue. Food is fast, and opinions expressed in 120 characters or less. As much as some of us want to spend several pages developing our exposition, we just can’t. Descriptions have to come between dialogue, a sentence at a time. And dialogue has to be fast, moving the plot along.  Less summary, more action. Cliffhangers at the end of each chapter. Keep the kids turning pages or you lose them – after all, they have a group chat and an Instagram daily challenge they could be doing right now.

Dora here. Do you write for the YA market?

What are some of the challenges you've faced and how did you overcome them?

About Krista McGee

When Krista McGee isn't living in fictional worlds of her own creation, she lives in Tampa and spends her days as a wife, mom, teacher, and coffee snob. 

Right Where I Belong
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Natalia’s about to discover her place in the world . . . and it’s not following in her father’s footsteps.

After watching her father jump from one marriage to the next, Natalia has completely written off love. And when her father divorces his third wife—the only one who has been a mother to her—Natalia is ready to write him off too.

Needing a change of scenery, Natalia leaves her home in Spain and relocates with her stepmother to sun-soaked Florida. But she didn’t realize just how far a new school, a new culture, and a new lifestyle would push her out of her comfort zone.

One of her biggest surprises comes from Brian, a pastor’s son with an adorable smile, who loves God with a sincerity that astounds Natalia. She doesn’t want to fall for him, but she can’t seem to avoid him long enough to get him out of her mind.

Love is the last thing Natalia wants. Even so, God has her right where she belongs.

Because Jesus’ Love is Better Than a Vampire’s…

by Krista McGee
How did I get started writing? It was 2008 and my high school English students were so engrossed in the popular vampire novels that they were completely ignoring my lectures on dangling participles and misplaced modifiers (shocking, I know!). So I read the books, and I immediately recognized why these students – the females especially – loved them so much: This was what we all crave. We want to be loved, cherished, treasured so much that someone is willing to give up everything for us, sacrifice himself for us, tell us and show us every day in many ways that we are his beloved. But these books – and the romance within their pages – fell short. No man will ever meet all our needs. No earthly romance will ever fully satisfy us. We are the Bride of Christ, and until we fully embrace that relationship, we will never be truly fulfilled.

So I thought to myself, “Someone ought to write books for teens where Jesus is the main character, wooing the girl to Himself…” That thought got stuck in my mind, wouldn’t leave. And from that thought, the idea for my first novel, First Date, was born.

First Date, loosely based on the book of Esther, is the story of a teenage girl thrown into a situation she doesn’t want to be in, surrounded by people very different from those she is used to because God wants to use her in ways she never expected to be used.

I wrote the book in the summer of 2009 with no assurance it would ever get published, and no confidence that I could even finish it. I left home with my laptop in the mornings, going to the public library, Panera, or anywhere I could find some quiet space to write. God gave me just what I needed each day. I’d wake up to repeat that process again the next day. And the day after that. And the day after that. By the end of the summer, the book was written.

God directed the next steps in ways only He could. He opened up the door for me to get an agent and, with her help, to find a publisher willing to take a chance on me. In the fall of 2010, I signed a three-book contract with Thomas Nelson.

Each of the three books in that series is loosely based on a biblical woman, and each of them has Jesus as the main character, wooing the girls to himself – in different ways, to different girls, in different circumstances. Starring Me is based on the story of Isaac and Rebekah, and Right Where I Belong is based on the book of Ruth.

Last spring, I signed another contract with Thomas Nelson for a young adult dystopian trilogy. The first book in that series, Anomaly, will be out in July. For more information on that or any of my other books, please visit me at www.kristamcgeebooks.com on Facebook at Krista Abney McGee or Twitter @KristaMcGeeYA

When Krista McGee isn't living in fictional worlds of her own creation, she lives in Tampa and spends her days as a wife, mom, teacher, and coffee snob. 

Dora here. What about you?

What inspired you to write in your chosen genre?

Right Where I Belong
by Krista McGee

Natalia’s about to discover her place in the world . . . and it’s not following in her father’s footsteps.

After watching her father jump from one marriage to the next, Natalia has completely written off love. And when her father divorces his third wife—the only one who has been a mother to her—Natalia is ready to write him off too.

Needing a change of scenery, Natalia leaves her home in Spain and relocates with her stepmother to sun-soaked Florida. But she didn’t realize just how far a new school, a new culture, and a new lifestyle would push her out of her comfort zone.

One of her biggest surprises comes from Brian, a pastor’s son with an adorable smile, who loves God with a sincerity that astounds Natalia. She doesn’t want to fall for him, but she can’t seem to avoid him long enough to get him out of her mind.

Love is the last thing Natalia wants. Even so, God has her right where she belongs.