Writing YA, Verse Novel or Graphic Novel
Writing for YA. There’s no reason to sugarcoat anything when it comes to YA content. The best and most successful writers really open wounds wide and bleed out profusely. A great example of this is Ellen Hopkins’ Crank series. It’s real and raw and young adults really admire the brutal honesty.
Best advice for writing YA is to dare going far enough, lean into verbs, decide what scenes need to be shared more and take up more space, more depth, interiority, and mixed well with dialogue and description to really bring the reader in scene and don’t shy away from nailing each character with all their quirkiness.
Novels in Verse. Huge fan. But it takes a deft hand. Think Jason Reynolds (master at embracing whitespace and negative side of good writing); he’s brilliant, his craft is breathtakingly well-thought out. Think biography, specifically Becoming Mohammad Ali by James Patterson and Kwame Alexander. The merging of two categories (Verse + FreeVerse) breathed freshness into this biography.
A true, sports-like, competitiveness broke out among students reading (or wanting to read) this title and that included knowing what was coming next or being the most knowledgeable about this hybrid narrative-freeverse biography. It helped students finish the read, so this, for me, supported how book clubs work in classrooms to motivate great discussions and keep kids on track and accountable for achieving individual reading goals. When the long-form didn't work, the kids themselves helped to motivate each other.
Discussion with Teen Readers
What we, as writers can gleam from teens?
There are justifiable rules for the shift between middle grade and young adult when you explore it from the pen of a writer. The subject matter and the age of the main character are the biggest tipping points. There are certain, steadfast norms like the fact kids like to read about kids who are a bit older than they are. A curiosity, I suppose for what will come next in life. But, it seems to me, that in recent years, with the all-too-instant access to content online, these rules and norms are blurring, and rendered not so clear.
Compare-Contrasting Two Titles With Sensitive Subject Matter
A novel I recently read overnight is the perfect example: Fighting Words by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley. Like All The Bright Places by Jennifer Niven, which discusses suicide and sexual discussions, Fighting Words introduces teens to even tougher subjects like sexual abuse, drug addiction, homelessness, incarceration, and the foster care system. Oftentimes, this would tip a novel to YA, but it is middle grade. As Kirkus (August 11, 2020) says, "Refusing to soft-pedal hard issues, the novel speaks with an astringent honesty, at once heartbreaking and hopeful."
But as a Literacy Teacher, who suggested kids select a library book to read, knowing we would track their progress, and I witnessed four girls out of 90+ students select All the Bright Places to read. One opted not to read it, and I am not sure why, but she replaced it out for another book. The others, once they were finished reading the book, chimed in on a few questions:
Q: What entices Finch to keep talking to Violet?
A: Finched spoke to Violet because she smiled at him and it was genuine and he wants to get to know her better.
Q: Why does Violet not let anyone know that she, too, was in the bell tower with Finch contemplating a jump to her death?
A: Violet doesn't let anyone know because it would concern her family. They already lost her sister, the previous year, and she did not want to face them or her counselor.
Q: What assignment gets completed by the end of the novel and what is its significance to the story?
A: The significance is the fact that every place they went held new meaning. It became, not just a place, but an experience, as they learned more about each location and it deepened the meaning of their town.
Q: What three places get added by Finch and do they go together with his final places?
A: Finch added a church along with the last three places to help Violet understand that the thing he realizes is that it's not what you take, it's what you leave behind for others, that matters most in life.
Q: What does Violet (and readers) learn in the final places Finch visits?
A: Finch went to Devil's Hollow, and he put his shoes up there (same with hers) and the room filled with children's laughter and many happy people. He then went to the biggest ball of paint place, and he colored it Violet, for her. Finally, he climbed a billboard and wrote his name up there.
Q: What does the novel say about the complexities of teen suicide?
A: The author talks about how it takes a while to happen: there are many reasons that go into that decision and many things that lead up to it—and it isn't random.
Q: Should authors avoid sensitive topics, like this, when writing novels for teens? Why or why not?
A: No, authors should write about it, and the truth is that it happens and if anything, they would put a warning on the book, but I think they should write about these things because they are real and they happen and putting it into a story helps students connect and think about life's deeper meaning.
What I Learned Surprised Me
What I learned in making suggestions that kids select a library book to read that is contemporary and newer is that more often, the book was relayed to other readers and then they, too, read the title. It worked just like that "great movie" coming out and the word-of-mouth advertising that promotes it. What I also learned was that there were a significant number of readers that shifted books before finishing the title. However, I also walked away knowing I could do so much more in using this "individualized " approach to improving literacy— if I worked up the discussions and curricular ties in for the titles being selected.
What's also significant is that a group of boys who typically do not read selected the same title to read and this seemed to motivate successfully completing the read.: a biography, Becoming Mohammad Ali by James Patterson and Kwame Alexander. A true, sports-like, competitiveness broke out that included knowing what was coming next or being the most knowledgeable about this hybrid narrative-freeverse biography. It helped them finish the read, so this, for me, supported how book clubs work in classrooms to motivate great discussions and keep kids on track and accountable for their reading. When the long-form didn't work, the kids themselves helped to motivate each other.
The other thing that made an impact was the selections made. I noticed that only a handful of kids selected nonfiction. I wondered, given the recent novels we read together in class, which were based on true accounts and or supported by real events, and the nonfiction we experienced together would play a role in their novel selection. However, it really didn't seem to.
Turn Reading Motivation into a Contest, While Keeping It Honest
What also surprised me was that some students really read far and wide and deep and so many titles that it really equated, it seemed to me, as to why they were doing well in school. They had built a better library for themselves. They had more content to discuss and talk about. While our average was around 1.5 novels, these students had read some eight titles in a month, which is great! For this activity, students earned a $10 Amazon gift card for the most read books. We had three students who read eight novel-length books during this time— and had written a GimKit Ink book review on its contents. This is huge and would be easy to do from a Library Media Center to support teachers. The librarian would serve as the go-to for the student's authenticity, just because he or she had, in fact, read many of the titles. I did have some "issues" with some of the reviews from other students, which shared incorrect information and was likely shared because they were just trying to "get it done" without reading the text.
My goal now is to create content that 1) ties into the curriculum, 2) shares activities for certain standards (with links) that are featured in the text, 3) hosts a writing contest, 4) posts discussion questions by the chapter (and perhaps Google forms that check comprehension), 5) shares writing activities around each book, and definitely—taking a page out of Amazon's Steve Bezos's own personal reviews playbook (Ante, 2009)—6) includes personal reviews from teen readers. This would gift teachers with a fabulous amount of material that would help them expand and improve their reading literacy lessons.
All in all, individualizing the reading and observing their behaviors when it comes to reading, I learned a great deal about my kids—all ninety-some—for I noticed who was not connecting and I was able to step in and motivate them to consider other well-paced titles. Often, this made the difference in keeping them reading!
When I suggest titles to kids, I select the many titles like the ones I shared with kids in my Literacy classes this year. I try to be mindful and aware of the structure of the texts, the voice, the literary techniques the authors use to reach readers and what can be learned from them as well as how well I am supporting diversity efforts and much as current trends and issues in children's literature: narrative nonfiction, supporting fiction with well-researched nonfiction, the upward trend of hybrid narrative and graphic novels.
What Kids Selected and What It Revealed
What was clear is that kids select books based on their own tastes, but times are changing. When I asked kids what makes up a great book, it was quite fun to experience the responses from 95+ students. Most felt books could be selected based on everyday issues they were most curious about. The more reluctant readers mentioned the length of the book, the images that were in the book, and how many words appeared together on each page. The answers really pointed to the trends we are experiencing in both our teaching and in our creations in children's literature. According to The New York Times (0000), Smithsonian signed a contract to release nonfiction materials to a company with a joint effort to create graphic novels. Not surprisingly so when we think about this response. Middle-grade novels are coming out as illustrated or hybrid, regular with graphic novel panels (a trend starting from Kate DiCamillo's Flora and Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures (2013) to the new Disney's Flora & Ulysses: The Movie release (2021).
What also seems significant is that many students read the novel other students were reading. This means that we, as educators, might stop focusing on a whole novel read and focus more on how reading introductions might inspire further reading. As a teaching professor of Rhetoric in a small local college (now university), I challenged myself to bring in five novels to each lecture. I would use them for various literacy samples and also take a moment to pitch the titles. Not so surprising, most books vanished after lectures, so I began prepping at least ten books per lecture so I could keep up or meet demand. I ended up finding an empty shelf in the main community room and started placing books I was ready to pull from my own bookshelf and placed a post-it note on each one about what I loved most about the title. Not so surprising is that each book vanished quickly, and I was quite happy to think about a student who might be changed by reading them.
When I think about this same situation this year, it proves true, so I believe a big part of the library is to become the voice of students about what they love to read. So, working with kids to promote books for kids seems like the best idea yet. That is why, on this site, I have taken time to share the reviews students wrote about the books we read (see Reader Reviews). I also believe that if schools would allow for post-in notes inside covers (read to be deemed appropriate), it would also be a quick, quiet, and quite effective way of promoting reading throughout the district. In one middle school where I served as a reading and technology teacher, I not only brought new titles into the library, we create that shelf of Good Reads, and we encouraged both teachers (myself included) to place a "post-it-note book pitch" on the cover that shared why they loved reading it. This, too, was effective.
This really makes a lot of sense, but it is the small stuff that is easy to forget when it comes to promoting great reads. While, for our situation, each student wrote a review about their book reads, it was certainly apparent that those who loved their books spoke up and encouraged others to read it.
References
Ante, Spencer E. (October 15, 2009). Amazon: Turning Customer Reviews into Gold. Bloomberg. Retrieved from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2009-10-15/amazon-turning-consumer-opinions-into-gold
DiCamillo, Kate. (September 24, 2013). Flora & Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures. Candlewick Press: Somerville, MA.
Gustines, George Gene. (January 8, 2020). New York Times. Smithsonian to Bring American History to Life in Graphic Books. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/08/arts/smithsonian-graphic-books-idw.html
Patterson, James and Kwame Alexander. (October 5, 2020). Becoming Muhammad Ali. Jimmy Patterson: New York, NY.