YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE IS LIT

It's important to create authentic, relatable characters in any type of novel, but in Young Adult literature, you might find it more difficult to achieve this. Younger readers are less likely to push through to the end of a book they don't like, so it's up to you to make sure the characters they'll be reading about keep their attention. The key to this is writing the character realistically and true to their age. If your character is fifteen, you want them to act fifteen, not thirty, and not ten. Kids and teenagers are smarter than a lot of people give them credit for, so it is important to make sure you aren't writing characters who are simple and preoccupied with nothing but ice cream and unicorns. At the same time, you don't want it to sound like it's you, the author, speaking through a teenager. Your character should be unique, complex, and believable. For this lesson, we will refer to characters from the following books as examples: When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead, One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs, and The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. It is not necessary for you to read these books, but if you wish to see examples of strong characters in Young Adult literature, it would certainly not hurt to read them.