5 Things to Avoid When Writing a YA Novel

It seems as though everyone wants to write a YA novel these days--but it can be tough to suss out all the conflicting advice online and find out how to do it well. In this presentation, editor Kate Angelella will talk about the top five mistakes to avoid when writing a YA novel.

Kate Angelella is a full-time freelance writer and editor and a former Simon & Schuster children's book editor. She has acquired and edited books by #1 New York Times bestselling YA author, Nova Ren Suma and Kekla Magoon, a Coretta Scott King and NAACP Image Award-winning YA author — among many others.

[MarsDorian]

Very insightful, Kate. Learned tons about YA traditional publishing. The point about not obsessing about trends surprised me. I had believed that traditional publishers were all about cashing into trends (see Twilight=more vampire fiction. Hunger Games=more dystopian fiction)

[jjsantos]

I'm outlining my YA story and found this vid. It's very helpful. Thanks Kate!

[samauthor]

Even years later, this is still relevant and very useful information. Thank you.

[Reedsy]

Anyone interested in working with Kate Angelella, you can reach out to her here: Absolutely, you can reach out to Kate anytime here: reedsy.com/kate-angelella

[DianaIsabel]

Oh MT Anderson's Feed - my all-time favorite YA narrative voice. When I read it for the first time I was like wow - it must take so much work and practice to craft such a tight narrative voice. I was blown away. Thank you - this is very helpful. I'm still working on my YA novel and have gotten much of this advice but your insights offer nuances that have helped me to clarify my choices and given me direction and points for revision.

[Trigger_]

*Thank you Kate. Such an informative video!*

[andrewjohnston]

This was very helpful. I've found out that my manuscript is more YA than Adult. I'm sticking with YA.

[WriterTambra]

This was very helpful. Thank you so much!

[kpro]

This was my first google search and ummmm. Wow….. just wanted to thank you for your wisdom. I hope there are more resources like this, amazing!

[Psychosis]

So I believe my novel is between YA and Adult. It takes place in 1340AD but in its own universe. The main character, Catharina, sees her own mother kill herself at the very beginning. Thus throwing her into the rebellious 19 girl that she is. Basically its a novel about conquering, conquest, and death. My novel can be summed up as a series of battles and realizations. The point is, almost everyone dies at the end due to their beliefs and desires. The MC(Catharina) throws herself off the tallest peak of her home country. She does this because everyone and everything she cared for died because of her. She realized that and just couldn’t take it. Book ended.

[ThePoliticrat]

Million dollar idea: a super meta website/blog where Holden Caulfield writes insufferable, but somewhat insightful, reviews of different YA books, and gives his thoughts on various plot points and characters, judging them on the basis of an arbitrarily designed “phoniness scale”.

It would be interesting to know what the OG YA protagonist would think of his modern descendants.

[Ninja_Alien_]

I'm currently writing a YA sci-fi story. Some of these tips really help. It's actually my first YA, so lots of learning. I usually do adult and middle grade.

[SWilde-wsqg]

If deep topics such as existentialism, anthropological difference and repressed sexuality are main themes in the story can it still be considered YA? If there's no whacky humour in the story can it still be considered YA? I'm very confused about this bc I never liked YA novels as a teenager yet I really want to write about young people for young people.

[garynaccarto]

New Adult and Young Adult are often confused with one another because of the word adult so therefore late teens and early twenties might be confused with young adult.

[garynaccarto]

As far as novels if it were a perfect world novels would defy catagory and alot of times even if your idea for a story might be a good story you might have to either alter stuff or remove thing that was perfectly good ideas in order to fit into a specific catagory and therefore you might not be able to write something the way you specifically want it to write it that is if you want to get something published.

[daisyhinojosa]

My YA main character is 14 years old phew!!!

[chlk]

Is it OK if the story starts with a really interesting dream and THEN the main character wakes up?

[jacquelinestigman]

Hello Kate! Wondering if you are open to editing a young adult book. Thanks!

[russelladams]

You're a goddess of viable info, thank you.

[kittypop]

I find that old people put themselves in the shoes of teenagers and try to write in that way, and it’s usually just absolutely cringey to read because it’s so off