Tapping Into Your YA Voice

by Alexandra Alessandri

If you’re like me and you write across age categories, you might sometimes find yourself muddling up the different voices in your head—even if your characters come in loud and clear. It’s only natural, I suppose. Spend enough time with one age group and you start sounding like them even if you’ve officially moved on to another. (This happens to me in real life, too, by the way!) And even if you don’t write across age categories, sometimes the voice just. Isn’t. working.

So what’s an author to do when they need to get back in touch with their YA voice?

Here are some things I do (not necessarily in this order and definitely not exclusively):

I remember my teen years

I might start with tapping into my memories. Most of us probably have pretty strong reminiscences of our teenage years. After all, it’s a time when we’re really figuring out who we are and what our place in this crazy, hectic world is. For me, those years play in the background like an old black and white film, sputtering at times, and at others, complemented by photographs and stories.

Sometimes these memories need some help getting dislodged from my brain, so I journal. I do simple prompt exercises, geared at remembering that specific time period. One of my fave memoir writing books is Natalie Goldberg’s Old Friend From Far Away. I skim through it, choosing prompts that might target memories and experiences from this specific time. Then, I write for about 10 minutes per prompt, trying to really embody my teen self. The first exercise might feel like adult me remembering the past, but the more I write about those years, the more my teen voice becomes discernable.

If you don’t have the book (or you’re struggling finding some prompts online), here are some good and useful ones:

• I remember and/or I don’t remember
• Where is home?
• The first time you fell in love
• First kiss
• First heartbreak
• Who was your best friend?
• Your best and/or worst teacher in high school
• A moment you thought you were beautiful
• A moment you thought you were ugly
• A moment you were in trouble in class
• Write about a time you lied
• Write about your biggest mistake in high school
• Write about a relative during your teen years

The idea is to let your brain focus on a memory specifically during the teen years that fits the prompt and to write for at least ten continuous minutes without worrying about spelling, grammar, cohesiveness, etc. Just write the memory down, trying to be as detailed as you can in the voice you remember.

That wasn’t so painful--er hard, was it?

I also look at old journals

When I was a kid and all through my adolescent years, I was an avid journaler. I wrote everything down in general spiral notebooks, and when I ran out of space in one, I’d move on to another. I’m lucky I still have those spiral notebooks with my scribbles, secrets, and poems, and if I’m particularly stuck, I revisit those memories.  

I might also revisit old photo albums or yearbooks, triggering memories of my high school years.

I observe and record

Tapping into my memories is great, but it’s been (!&^*%$&#%@*^#%@) years since I was a teen.

While experiences and themes can be universal and span generations, if I’m writing about teens today, I need to be familiar with teens today. If you’re a teacher or a librarian, or if you work with teens in any capacity, then you have a golden opportunity to observe and record things teens might do or say and what technology they might use (though not actual names and specifics because laws!). You can get a sense of what rings true with today’s teen that might be different from when you were that age, or on the flip side, what holds universally true. You’ll get phrases and slang and attitudes that might escape you. And in doing so, you embrace the teen voice.

Even if you don’t work with teens, there are plenty of places you can go to observe and record. Head to the mall or the park or the movie theater or anywhere in your town/city where teens meet regularly.

Another place you might be able to observe teens (albeit in written form) is online. Social media sites like Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, and Snapchat are great. Public online forums also work, especially if you’re looking for testimonies of teens going through specific experiences, like illnesses.

Finally, I read a lot and watch movies

As Stephen King has said, “If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write.” This is just as important to your craft as it is to your genre and age category. Read YA. Lots and lots of YA. Don’t just stick to the classics; read newly released YA and read a variety of it. If you have teens within your circle of family and friends (or within your workplace), ask them what books they’ve read recently they loved—and then go study those.

Similarly, watch movies or TV shoes that feature teen characters and read magazines tailored specifically toward teens. Study these. Compare and contrast them to the novels you’ve read and the teens you’ve observed or know.

The thing to keep in mind is that there is no one right way to tap into your teen voice and most often, I do all of the above until I feel the voice coming to me easily. I might start with remembering and journaling, but I’ll also read and observe the teens around me. I’ll also talk with teens in my life and I’ve found that they are almost always happy to answer my questions. They want us to get it right!

Happy writing!

Wielding Words like a Warrior

Words are gorgeous, glorious things. They have the power to convert, uplift, tear down, and shatter. They have the ability to evoke strong images and emotions that leave us blubbering messes for days. They also have the gift of hope, nestled between the folds of their robes.  

As wielders of words, we have amazing power at our fingertips!

When I’m writing my first drafts, I try to focus on the characters and the story. I’m still careful with word choice, but I don’t let my inner editor take over. If I can’t find the right word immediately, I use a stand-in.

But when it’s time to revise? That’s where the real magic happens.

Here are some tips to help you shine those words until they are the best, most powerful words they can be.

Choose active verbs

As you read through your manuscript, pay attention to verbs you’re using. Weak verbs can water down your fabulous characters and plot, while strong, active ones can create powerful images with fewer words.  

Consider variations of the verb to walk: gait, pace, tread, amble, stroll, hike, march, saunter. Each of these offers a different visual. Someone who is marching has a very different aim than someone who is strolling.

On a similar note, to be and to have verbs (e.g. is, was, were, has, had, have) tend to water down the images. They’re not wrong and at times they can be perfectly good and necessary. But if you’ve got a page full of these, you’re cheating your reader from a visceral experience.

And verbs like see, feel, and hear process sensory descriptions for your reader, also telling instead of showing. Again, a handful throughout the manuscript is fine, but too many close together can be problematic. Consider the following:

Maria saw an endless ocean in front of her and cool water pooling at her feet. She smelled the saltiness in the air. She heard the waves crashing against the shore. (31 words)

Now consider this revision:

Maria ambled to where the cool water pooled around her feet. The salty ocean spray lingered in the air and the waves crashed against the shore. (26 words)

If Maria is at the scene and we’re in her POV, then we know she’s the one seeing, smelling, hearing. We don’t need to be told as well.

Avoid wordiness…

As shown in the above examples, weak verbs and verbs that process sensory descriptions lend themselves to wordiness. The more concise you can be, the better! Using two or more words for something that could be said in one adds mileage to your word count and zaps power from your writing. You want every single word to count.

Some ways to combat wordiness is to comb through your manuscript for places where you’re being redundant or where there are too many words strung together to say something simple. Read it aloud, too. This helps catch wordiness your might miss when reading silently.

Consider the following:

Maria fell onto the bed exhausted, having stayed up until three in the morning. “I’m so tired,” she moaned. “I’m never going to wake up tomorrow.” (26 words)

And then consider a more concise version:

It was three in the morning when Maria collapsed on her bed. “I’m never going to wake up tomorrow.” (19 words)

“Three in the morning” and “collapsed” show exhausted. There’s no need for her to also say “I’m so tired” and by cutting out some of the words, we’ve reduced the word count by 7. Sometimes, we fall into a trap of redundancy without even realizing it. Consider for example, the following:

She nodded her head.

You can only nod your head, so “her head” is redundant and wordy. Removing these takes two words off your word count!

Passive voice can also lend itself to wordiness. Passive voice is when the subject is receiving the action instead of doing the action. It will make use of a past participle verb form and will often have “by” introducing the noun or noun phrase doing the action. For example, consider this sentence:

Maria was driven to the doctor by her mother. (9 words)

Here, Maria is receiving the action (she’s being driven) and “by” introduces what should be the subject (her mother). And we see the past participle “was driven.” Changing this to Her mother drove Maria to the doctor removes 2 words from that phrase. It doesn’t seem a lot, but if you’re counting, we’ve eliminated 16 words in the examples here. Do this page after page and you’ll have a tighter manuscript.

…and excess adverbs

Stephen King has famously said, “The road to hell is paved with adverbs.” Adverbs are not inherently bad. They serve a function: to describe a verb. The problem with adverbs, however, is that they tend to tell what can be better shown and they tend to be overused. Too many adverbs too close together becomes wordy. Instead of relying on an adverb to tell the reader, aim for stronger verbs and more vivid nouns.

Consider the following:

Albert walked nervously.                                VS                    Albert paced.

Susan spoke loudly.                                        VS                    Susan shouted.

Lola wept bitterly.                                          VS                    Lola wept. “It’s not fair!”

Sometimes, you might add a handful more words, as in the case of example #3 above. This is not a bad thing so long as the result is a stronger image and the usage is as sparse as it can be.

Quality vs quantity

At the end of the day, your focus when revising should be on the quality of words and not the quantity. Your words should serve your characters and plot, and they should be wielded with precision. Avoiding filler words like adverbs and other qualifiers as much as possible will lead to stronger, tighter manuscripts.  And software like ProWritingAid.com can help with strengthening your story at the sentence level.

Happy writing (& revising)!

What’s In a Sentence?

This sentence is too long. This one’s too short. You have too many sentences starting in the same manner. It’s a fight scene, for crying out loud! Make it sound like one.

What’s in a sentence? That by any other…

Not all sentences are created equal, and not all sentences serve the same function. The basics are (for the most part) the same: you’ve got a subject, a verb, and a complete thought. But there are many ways of ordering the parts to create meaning and music, to craft words that sing to your reader. In addition to simple sentences, you can use a subordinatingconjunction (e.g. while, although, when, etc.), coordinatingconjunction (e.g. and, but, for, so, etc.) or conjunctive adverb (e.g. however, nevertheless, indeed, instead, etc.) to build complex sentences.

Capisce?

Before you run screaming for the hills with these grammar lessons, let me explain why paying attention to your sentences is important.

Your Sentences Contribute to Voice

Okay, so here’s a little grammar lesson: In simplest terms, syntax is the order in which words are placed in a sentence. The pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables creates rhythm, which in turn influences your characters’ style and your manuscript’s tone.

In other words: the way we order our words and sentences contributes to voice.

Notice the difference in the following examples:

Chase’s cell phone vibrates on his dresser. It sounds like a swarm of mosquitoes. THE OPPOSITE OF LOVE by Sarah Lynn Scheerger

The fruits and vegetables for sale were rejects from nearby supermarkets—basically, they were cheap and somewhat edible. THE THIEF OF LIES by Brenda Drake

Back then, the outskirts of Boston were still farmland, and in the summer I spent the long days out of doors with friends, coming home only when the sun set. THE GLASS SENTENCE by S.E. Grove

When I open my eyes, all I can see is darkness. Can’t move… can’t speak…can’t think through this jaw-grinding headache. RIDERS by Veronica Rossi

Each of the above has a different arrangement of words, each resulting in a different voice and tone. Sarah Lynn Scheeger’s example makes use of simple sentences. Brenda Drake’s has a compound subject and uses an em-dash to link a dependent clause. S.E. Grove’s is a longer, more complex sentence. And Veronica Rossi’s uses both dependent/independent clauses along with ellipses to simulate longer pauses.

And with each different style, we get a glimpse into the character’s voice and the story’s tone.

Often, our characters’ voices come to us with their unique quirks. They might have a habit of avoiding contractions, or maybe they skip the final “n” in some words. Perhaps they use slang. Or maybe English is their second language, and they skip some prepositions.  

As writers, we try to faithfully record the nuances of our characters, though it’s very easy to muddle the space between their voices and our own. While there is no one preferred order for words, other than it needs to make sense to the reader, it’s important to note that our entire manuscript will not be written using only one pattern or structure. The examples above? Just one of many these authors used.

Which leads me to…

Vary your sentences

Characters will speak a certain way (which contributes to their voice) and you will write a certain way (which contributes to your voice), but to achieve the perfect harmony, there has to be variety. I know what you’re thinking. But my protagonist always talks like this! Maybe…

While it’s important to be faithful to our characters, we need to remember we’re writing fiction. At the 2014 SCBWI FL Conference, Chris Crutcher said, “You don’t need to use the same words (curse, like, etc.) all the time. Just a couple mentions go a long way [to] place your reader there.” The same is true for sentence lengths. Just because a character tends to speak in short, simple sentences doesn’t mean she always should!

Consider the following:

Amazing what sentence variety can achieve, right?

When sentences follow the same structure too many times in a row (or when they repeat “like” every other line), we have monotony. And monotony is not good. It’s boring. A bored reader is one who might not finish the story. That’s the last thing we want!

The good news is that sentence length is an easy fix. As you re-read your sentence, make note when you have three or more sentences in a row that have the same structure. The key here is in a row. Ask yourself:

• Do they start with the same subject? (e.g. He sat... He ran... He kicked...) If they do, change at least one.
• Do they start with the same kind of dependent phrase? (e.g. Running to the door, he kicked the dirt. Shoving him hard, she dashed outside.)
• Do they have the same syntax? (e.g. She didn’t know what was worse, losing or losing to him. She thought it was over, except there he was. She was wrong, as she always seemed to be.) 

A great source for identifying repetition and sentence variety, among other sentence/word choice errors, is ProWritingAid. 

Use sentence lengths to create (or reduce) tension

Aside from creating music, sentence lengths can create or reduce tension. How’s that, you ask? Consider a sword fight scene. If you’re in the middle of a fight, you’re not likely to recount it with long, flowery sentences. Your adrenaline’s pumping. You’re jabbing and ducking. Side-stepping. Another jab, two, three. And your opponent falls.

However, if you’re lying languidly against the hot sand, staring at the cotton candy clouds dotting the sky, you might be more in tune with nature, and as such, your words will take on a longer, dreamier quality.

Short lengths are abrupt. Harsh. Longer ones can be poetic. Use this knowledge to your advantage. Wield that mighty pen—er keyboard—to create sentences that grip your reader.  The combo of complex characters, compelling story and stakes, and flawless sentences will increase the chance of capturing an agent’s (and editor’s) attention!

Happy writing (& revising!)

Alexandra Alessandri