Writing Adolescent Fiction

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Setting

Your town

To show the kind of region your characters are living in, give the town a name that reflects its character. Place names such as Massachusetts and Connecticut sound straight out of England; you can use a name like Suffolktown, Studham or Foxboro. A city in the South could have a Native American name like Matchagokie, while your British Columbia town could be named Quappasett or something else that reflects the First Nations history of that province. Something French-sounding like Guyet could set your story in Quebec. Towns in Southern California often have Spanish names like Los Higos; consider using one of these if you are writing a story about your SoCal teens. If you want to give the reader the idea that your town is right in the middle of nowhere in Middle America, try a name like Janesville or Oakville.

The flora of an area can place it in the reader's mind. Describing ailanthi planted along the around gives your story a New York setting, while an ocotillo planted on campus places your story in the Southwest. Palm trees and prickly pear cacti can give your story a Sun Belt setting, and are often used this way -- they feel contemporary, trendy and artistic. A high school campus where students sit under the eucalyptus tree can build the feeling of a story set in Australia.

These plants can be mentioned when a character sits under one, or perhaps when you say that Stephanie walks by the ginkgo trees you give an idea of what is planted there. In a road trip you can describe the plants (and animals) on the side of the road.

Your school

You will most likely make some mention of the characters' school in the story, and if you bring the school in the story often enough, you will probably have to come up with a name. Many high schools just take their name from the town they are in: Fairsprings High School, Elmtown High School. In New York city there are schools named simply by P.S. and a number: P.S. 132. Your Southern California high school will often have a Spanish name with a pretty meaning: Robles Lindos. And many high schools named themselves after public figures: Eisenhower High or William Randolph Hearst High School.

The names of schools can carry a symbolic meaning. A high school could be named Sweet Groves while the students there have struggle-filled lives that are anything but sweet. The school in The Escape is named Lincoln High, which reflects the faculty's hypocritical proclamations about freedom.

A school's mascot can give you some idea of what the faculty of the high school aspire to. A mascot like the Trojans would show that they hope to give teens a classical education, and if the mascot is the Spartans it would hint that the school is pretty strict, and the sports teams have a "go merciless" on the enemy ethos. A feline mascot (the lions, the cougars, the jaguars) could be more playful, but would still be a sign that the principal hopes his students will "claw" rival schools. Mascots can be ironic: after all, in real life, the mascot for conformist Columbine High School was the Rebels. Choice of mascot can also set the tone for your story: if your students are known as the Turkeys, your story becomes light-hearted and even silly.

The scenery

It is important to flesh out your writing piece with information about the scenery. But be sure you scenery is location specific. If a scene takes place in a diner, obviously booths and greasy, but delicious, food will be present. Try and give scenery examples that characterize your location. Consider the following example:

The diner had tightly packed booths and shining trim around everything. A steaming plate of fries was seated in front of Sarah.

Has much less effect on the reader than

Discarded wrappers littered the floor, mingling with the grime of a long, uncleaned day. Laminated tabletops all across the small dining room were cracked with age and graffiti covered them almost as heavily as the outside walls. Grease dripped from the long, slender bit of fried potato as Sarah begrudgingly shoved it into her mouth.

By showing your reader the important parts of the diner, you can paint a picture in less than a thousand words.

Authors

Cilantrohead (talk)
Shdw.puppet (talk)

Plot

For a book to have shape and form, there must be a concise detail given to the circumstances for which the book is written. These circumstances are the forces behind the characters' unpredictable motifs which further divulges the readers' minds to the suspenseful nature of the story. Without a plot which forms the themes discussed in the character form or the author’s expository manner, a book loses shape and form which makes it incoherent and baseless.

Style

Every writer must have a different way or technique (s) of telling stories. For a writer to make sense and be felt or discussed, a writer must develop his own way and skills for which he models his form of language, and characters so that when he is read, they should be felt a sense of distinctiveness in his stories.

Dialogue

Young people tend to speak differently from adults, and the particular language used by teenagers changes very quickly especially in the Internet age. YA writers have to strike a balance between writing characters who speak like teenagers while also not overusing or misusing slang. Seek out content created by and for teenagers to get a read on how young people actually speak.

Creating your characters

The character’s external aspects include factors such as age, race, gender, physical strength, health, disability, clothing, and jewelry.

A character's appearance is probably the most basic technique of characterization and individualization: what a person looks like reveals a great deal about who that person is, his attitude, perhaps even his mental state, his economic and social status, and so on. We form our initial attitude about a person based on his appearance, and we either like or dislike him; we either take him seriously or we dismiss him. Although some stories rely on external character aspects in their plot—for instance in the film Speed, the antagonist is caught because one of his fingers is missing—not all stories do so. This does not mean, however, that the author does not need to know what his character looks like. The author should know his character's external aspects even if none of these will make it into the story, even if the plot will not rely on them. When the author does include external aspects of character in the story, he must make sure that every aspect mentioned serves a purpose. No aspect should be brought up unless it will be paid off; the external aspects must have story consequences. External aspects of character matter: they are the significant details that reveal character nature and past, they affect the formation of character, they can create a need, have thematic significance, serve as motifs, limit and create opportunities for action, and be consistent or contrast with the character's story function. Let us examine each of these aspects.

External aspects as significant details

Significant details are those that create an impression of something larger than themselves. What detail is significant depends, of course, on what the author is attempting to convey about the subject he is describing. Details are significant if they convey a character's past, and this is what the author wishes to convey. The detail should be such that it is telling of something about the character's nature, life, goals, etc.

An important thing to remember when considering significant details is that you should not lump them all into a single paragraph. A sentence or two suffices, and you are served better when you dole out description throughout the story action rather than force the reader to wade through paragraphs of it. Of course, remember that each detail mentioned serves a narrative purpose; don't mention something just because it sounds good, or is interesting for its own sake—you have a person to portray, so pick the details that evoke who he is.

External aspects and formation of character

The most obvious external factors of a character that influence his formation as a person are sex, race, and physical appearance. This is because sex, race, and physical appearance influence the formative experiences a person will go through, experiences that determine who he becomes and affects his way of seeing the world as well as himself. The life of a woman is very different, obviously, from that of a man, even if they come from the same family. Their parents treat them differently, and they go through vastly different sexual experiences.

Race is another external factor that affects the development of a person's nature because race determines what kind of experiences a person will have, how he will be treated, and it comes with expectations, like gender, of what is acceptable and what is not. An African-American or Asian or Arab child experiences different things than does a white child, even if they live in the same neighborhood. This is so because, in a predominantly white environment, such outsiders are treated differently. Of course, a Hispanic teen attending a predominantly Hispanic high school in Southern California has different experiences than a Hispanic teen who attends Beverly Hills High School.

Besides race and gender, physical factors have a great deal of influence on the formation of a character. A fat kid lives in a different world than an attractive, slim child, even if they live in the same neighborhood and are the same sex and race. An attractive person lives a different kind of existence than an unattractive one; being desired by others enables certain personality traits and retards others. Conversely, an unattractive person struggles constantly with self-esteem issues, living the life of someone who is not desired.

Of course, sex, race, and physical appearance are not the only external factors that can affect a character's formation. Take for instance a teenager who can’t afford the right clothes, and has to wear clothing from a thrift store instead. This will have an impact on him, one way or the other. It will affect how he feels about himself, and it will motivate him to do something to fit it, perhaps he will take a job at the expense of academics. It may force him to compensate by focusing on being a perfect student. Whatever happens as a result, his clothing will affect him in a way that will have consequences. And what about a teen whose wealthy father forces him to wear used clothes as a way to build his son’s character? How does he feel about these character-building exercises? You can be sure that consequences will flow from this experience.

External factors and need

Let's consider the unattractive person from the previous section. His great need is to be desired. Of course, he won't be desired for his looks, so he must find an alternate avenue of showing merit. This is known as compensation. Often, unattractive people, or, of course, people who feel unattractive, make up for being unattractive by excelling in something, such as math, art, or sports. By demonstrating extraordinary skill or ability, they are accepted into the group and receive respect and attention from the others. In practical terms, this may mean that the character's need is to be desired, to be accepted by his peers, or to be respected, and his goal will be to get into a brand name school, get a particular kind of a car, or do something that his peers respect, which may mean stealing a car just as well as winning a sports tournament. Why would a character want to steal? Because what is worthy of respect depends entirely on who his peers are, and the environment in which he exists.

External factors as theme and motif

A motif is something that is introduced in one context, and then brought up in different contexts so that meaning will result. For instance, a character may gain extraordinary physical strength, which may be a motif that runs through a story. How the character uses his strength, in different contexts, contributes to the story meaning or theme. In Spiderman, the protagonist is transformed into a spider man through a genetically altered spider's bite. Initially, as the protagonist explores his newfound power, the motif of strength is presented in neutral or fun scenes. Having such awesome power is fun, the story is saying. But the change in his physical nature reflects a theme about strength and responsibility. This theme is revealed through the motif in several ways. When Spiderman does not stop the robbery in the wrestling arena office, he chooses not to use his strength to stop an evil deed. He is still acting in a light-hearted manner, ignoring, or perhaps unaware of, the true realities of his new found abilities. What are the consequences? The thief that Spiderman chose not to stop kills his uncle, and the story changes drastically. Later, the consequence of his power, his secret life that it necessitates, prevents him from having the girl that he desires. How a character gains his strength, how he uses it, what he loses and gains in his life, how he ends up as a result of using it—these are the building blocks of meaning.

External factors as limits and opportunities

Factors of physical nature limit and give rise to opportunities for particular avenues of action a character can take; an older character will not do what a younger one may, a character who is in-shape will not take the same road as a weakling, and a character dressed in rags will be treated differently than a man in an expensive suit. While a character’s physical nature and physical aspects may seem somewhat trivial as a concept in story development, they can, in fact, have a major impact. The impact lies in the consequences of the attribute, and anything that has consequences for the character, now or later, is relevant in story development.

In the novel “Code to Zero” by Ken Follett, the protagonist is attempting to uncover his identity. His initial plan of action to achieve this goal is to seek the help of the police. The obstacle to this is something very humble, and seemingly inconsequential-he’s dressed in bum’s attire. The police officer he encounters, however, beats him up instead of helping him. This forces the protagonist to go on a quest to obtain proper attire so that he can resume his quest to find his identity, and a major sequence of action follows. And for anyone interested in theme and meaning, the fact that the officer beats up a man dressed in rags instead of helping him shows the kind of a world America of the 50s was. From this example we can see how something as trivial as clothing can have a major impact on how the protagonist can pursue his goal, and what avenues of action are available to him.

External factors and story role

External factors and the role a character plays in the story can contrast or reinforce one another. In the film Alien, the antagonist and its appearance complement one another perfectly. Although appearance often signals to the audience the story role of the character, one must be careful not to fall into stereotype with this approach.

Consider these questions:

1. Why have I chosen these particular aspects of appearance and what will the effect of my choice be on the story?

2. Are these factors in contrast or in harmony with the role this character plays in the story, and why?

3. In what way do aspects of physical characterization reveal the character’s nature?

4. Is an aspect of physical nature or appearance a source of conflict, and why?

5. Is a physical attribute a source of the character’s goal or need, and why?

6. How does the character feel about his appearance?

7. How does his appearance affect him?

8. Is there a contrast between how he is and how he imagines himself to be?

9. What does this contrast reveal about him?

10. How would he like to be?

11. What does the contrast between how he is and how he would like to be cause?

12. Does it make him compensate?

13. What does he do to compensate for what he doesn’t have?

14. How does his desire to be what he would like to be inform his goal?

15. Does the character act his age, his gender (or her gender)?

16. What does he wear?

17. Are his clothes expensive or cheap?

18. What is the story behind his clothes?

19. Does he have a lucky pair of pants, for instance?

20. Does he have any body decorations?

21. What kind of jewelry does he have?

22. What is the story behind his jewelry?

23. Did he get that Rolex from a man he'd shot?

24. What’s his manner like?

25. Does he speak with an accent?

26. What does his voice sound like?

27. How much does he weigh?

28. Does he have hair?

At the end of this section you should have a clear image of your character in mind. He should be an individual with logical reasons for his appearance and physical attributes, reasons that hint at his past, and perhaps his future; he should look as if he had a past and has a future. You can go further by drawing your character or finding a picture of someone who resembles your character.

Describing physical characteristics

If you have read classics or other older stories aimed at an adult audience, you have probably seen physical descriptions like this:

Jack was a lanky, spindly old fellow, with arms like twigs. His feet resembled shovels. He had buck teeth that stuck out and smiled contently at you like a grinning bunny, and a tongue like a Popsicle stick. Jack had crows'-feet above his cabbage green currant-like eyes that peered out at you from above his pipe. His snipe nose seemed to sneer at you. There was a rick in Jack's spine as he walked. A white beard of fog billowed around his mouth, right below his double chin.

There is something Dickensian about this kind of description. The writer has almost succeeded at making Jack look like a cartoon character. This style of writing gives the entire story, in fact, a timelessly rustic feel. It does not go well with the contemporary, cosmopolitan, unexaggerated feel of the world of adolescent fiction. Not every character will be beautiful of course, but to fit the timbre of the genre the characters should have about the same number of quirks as ordinary real people have.

When you are writing your stories, you will come to develop your own style, whether your descriptions read something like this:

Stacy's tresses of silky blonde hair were fit neatly into a stunning chignon. Her deep-set chocolate brown eyes looked at you like a puppy dog. The girl had a pixie-like nose that dropped daintily down from its peak. Her Cupid's-bow red lips surrounded her small mouth with perfect alabaster teeth. Dimples were pressed under Stacy's high cheekbones. Her soft hands with long fingers terminated in painted, polished mauve nails. She stood at 5'5" and had a voluptuous figure that poured into a nice hourglass.

or like this:

Jim had messy brown hair, blue eyes, freckles and braces. He was 5'8" tall and weighed 160 pounds.

The two styles have different flavors to them. The first description has a more soap-opera-y feel and sounds written by a feminine writer. The second description gives the picture of a more masculine writer.

Putting physical traits into action

If you first meet a character in Chapter 3, describing her physical traits presents no problem, as you can just tell the reader as soon as she appears that she has curly black hair, brown eyes, a big nose, braces, a triangular chin and a stocky figure.

But what about the central character or a second character who is introduced right at the beginning of the story? If you began your story with the paragraph "Janet Myers had red hair in a ponytail and hazel eyes . . .", you would sort of be giving the impression that this was the most important thing about the character or a central theme in the story. And it would sound odd if five chapters into your story, you suddenly started going into a complete lowdown on the central character's facial features, coloring, height and weight.

You can still find a way to get the physical traits of a person covered one at a time. Just describe the person's body parts when a mention of the body part comes up. If your character has to rub dirt off her nose, you could write:

Rashida vigorously rubbed all the dirt off of her broken nose.

If your character is freeing his leg that got jambed in a closed door, you could write:

Mike pulled his big hands out of his sleeves to free his stocky leg from the door.

Some writers do find a time and place to describe their character in the middle of their short story, novella or novel, however. In The Escape by Logan Feys, for instance, Feys writes, 1,000 words into the story:

At first glance, Mitch would seem to the casual observer to be a rather normal fifteen-year-old. Nothing in particular about his physical appearance was striking. His facial features were smooth, rounded, and unassuming. In subtle ways, however, he looked a bit unusual. He was a little shorter than average. His hair was dark and soft. He didn't cut it as short as most boys did. Instead, he allowed it to grow thick enough to develop natural waves and curls. He wore plain, solid-colored shirts and pants — nothing “loud,” nothing “hip,” nothing bearing popular sports team logos or name-brand insignias.

Avoiding the easel gesture

The easel gesture is a gesture or tic that the character does to give the writer a convenient excuse to add some physical description. Suppose you began a novel and it started out with this sentence:

Beth looked again into the mirror, scrunched up her bob nose, and walked away towards the shower.

Why did the writer have Beth scrunch up her nose? Is it to tell the reader that she has a bob nose? Eager writers often fall into this trap, eager young writers among them. One particular easel gesture that is common in teen-written fiction is having a character run her fingers through her hair just so you can tell the reader what color her hair is.

There are ways you can write a character's gestures and make sure that his gestures are genuine. Facial expressions are with us every moment of our lives. Even when we feel no emotion at all or are sleeping, we wear the neutral expression on our faces. When your character makes a facial expression that represents the appropriate emotion, you may describe the parts of the face that are moving. If your character has bushy eyebrows, you could write:

Brian listened to Whitney repeat what she had said, and his face looked truly puzzled. His bushy eyebrows arched high up above his eyes. Could she have possibly meant what he heard her say?

Many gestures are used to communicate, in place of words. We nod our heads when we want to answer a question yes. When we circle our hands around one side of our heads, we are saying someone is crazy. We put our faces in our hands when we feel like breaking down. If you have a character use body language in a natural way, you get an opportunity for physical description:

Laura Ann pointed with the stubby index finger of her right hand to the sushi bar. The stranger thanked her for giving him directions.

Everyone has bad habits of some sort, be it pulling at hangnails, interrupting people or reading in the bathroom for hours on end. If you give your character a bad habit that involves some part of his body, you can describe the body part when you have your character do it:

Obviously nervous, Greg began twirling his shoulder-length brown hair around again.

Describing by associations

Physical traits can also be mentioned when a character (either the character whose physical traits are being described or another character) reflects on the traits and their aesthetic and social significance. Consider the following paragraph:

Mercedes shook her head as Aleeciah and Ashley walked off with their faux leopard purses. While they were tall at 5'6" and 5'8" respectively, she stood at only 5'1". While they had bouncy, blonde hair and blue eyes, her hair was greasy and dark brown and her eyes hazel. Those two girls wore ribbed baby tees in pink and white, while Mercedes was decked out in a choker necklace, black leggings and a black peasant dress that left everything to the imagination. She thought about the way they could find an endless well of idle chat for any situation, while she always felt as if the cat had her tongue when she needed something to talk about. They drove a Jeep Wrangler and a Jeep Cherokee, while her parents never even bought her her own car on her sixteenth birthday.

You've managed to work in Mercedes' height, her eye color and a description of her hair, all in one paragraph in the middle of the story. Pretty good!

Similar is when you reflect on the ramifications of a character's height and/or weight:

Miranda stood with her mouth wide open and her face frozen as she watched Jeff do his phys ed assignment. She didn't understand how a boy who weighed 95 pounds could be lifting the 30-pound weights.

Having another character describe

In real life, we sometimes tell another person what someone looks like. If your character goes missing and someone files a missing person report, or if one of his friends needs to point him out to one of her friends in a crowd, or if a girl is describing that hot new guy she met to her female friends, you can get a chance to have a character describe even your central characters and let the reader know how they look:

"Sandy, Ashley, I've got to introduce you to Joey while we're here," Loelia said as her two friends' eyes glossed over the mass of partygoers standing around. "He's the boy with the blonde ducktail, blue eyes and goatee wearing the blue ski jacket, torn jeans, flip-flops and green visor".

Disagreements among characters can also give you a picture of what the character may look like:

"Lindsay's the thin girl with a blonde ponytail, green eyes and big hands wearing the black tank top, shorts and moccasins with yin-yang earrings," Karen explained to Dave.."

"Lindsay's hair isn't blonde," said Laqueisha with a this-is-absurd tone in her voice, "It's brown."

Style

You may or may not want to include things like the size of your character's hands or the shape of her ears. But you should definitely make a mention of such things as facial hair, jewelry, piercings, tattoos, nail paint, face paint or bindis if your character has them. Things like the firmness of a character's chin or how close together his eyes are don't tell you anything about your character's personality, except through stereotypes that may not have any basis in reality. But a person consciously chooses to grow a goatee, or to wear an ankh necklace, or to get a tattoo (and chooses what the tattoo should be of). If nothing else, points of style will always tell you about a character's taste.

If you have a character who is not the central character, you should definitely describe these things when a character comes up (unless he has tattoos or a navel ring or nipple ring that are hidden from view, in which case you can have the other character find out about them later).

If this is the character who appears at the beginning of the story, there are other ways to tell the reader about it. You can have your character cleaning out her navel ring (and her navel after she's taken it out of it). When your character with a beard gets up in the morning, have him trim his red beard. When she gets dressed, have her put on her puka necklace.

Accessories (as well as clothes) can also come up with discrimination. If a restaurateur refuses to let Stephanie in because of her septum ring, that gives you an opportunity to let the reader know she is pierced. Max could brush up against the high school principal if the latter tells him that the school dress code forbids him to wear that gothic face paint.

Sartorial description

With sartorial description, you have a lot of leeway in how much and how often to describe. You can describe what a character is wearing in every scene, in full detail. Or you can just describe your character's clothes in the first scene in which she or he appears, and imply that that is typical.

Consider describing the color of each garment: a black T-shirt, a white T-shirt and a yellow T-shirt have three distinct feelings to them. Your readers might even be curious to know whether Mark is wearing a green-and-blue-striped polo shirt or a green-and-white-striped polo shirt. Colors all have different associations, pink being bubbly and girly, beige being suave, orange being earthy with a 70's vibe to it, teal being grungy, but older writers be informed: black clothes are no longer the exclusive domain of morbid or "loner" type youth. Go to any high school that doesn't have uniforms today and black is as basic as blue or white. That brings up another point: less common colors, such as yellow or purple, will be connected with the kids who really stand out.

Perhaps a character has a favorite army jacket or baseball cap that she or he wears in every scene. That can be her or his trademark. If so, you can mention it the first few times the character pops up, then stop mentioning it. Some people wear the same thing every day -- if so, you can just mention in the first scene that that Justin always wears khakis and a black turtleneck, or that Liisa appears in her usual leather jacket, jeans with the knees torn and Birkenstocks. Other people dress differently on different days -- if so, you can describe what Tiffany is wearing each day to exposit her full variety of moods. Or maybe you have a character who appears in a dress shirt to school, but wears tie-dye T-shirts on the week-ends. Contrasting the two scenes can tell you something about his chameleonic attitude.

Maybe your character always wears preppy clothes, or consistently dresses like a punk, or is perpetually decked out in hip-hop garb. You might simply say that the character is "wearing preppy clothes" (or whatever), rather than listing the specific items of clothing.

If it's been a while since you attended high school, drive up to your local high school around lunchtime when the students are out and around, and check out the clothes. Find out what articles of clothing are the most common, what percentage of the teens are wearing different colors, and what brand names show up (for you Gen Xers out there, Nike has taken a hit in popularity since you went to school). Then if you want to write a story set in the present day, the assortment and distribution of different clothing styles will sound authentic. (Of course, if you're zeroing in on a select group of gothic students or your story revolves around the "mean girls", you'll want to overrepresent one particular style, but if you want your characters to represent a cross-section, you better be prepared to observe how the whole student body looks.)

Revealing personality

OK, so you've created a character who is arrogant, sociable or inquisitive. But how do you get your reader to surmise that she or he is indeed arrogant, sociable or inquisitive? You want your reader to be able to tell.

Action

The most common (and most pervasive) outlet for giving readers an impression of your characters is through the character's actions. A cruel character will do cruel things. Anything from the most ground-quaking event to the most quotidian reveals character.

For instance, if you write:

Tina dipped her left pinkie delicately into the finger bowl. Oh, how she loved this dinner!

The reader will get the impression that Tina is dainty and proper.

Having your character tell his mother the truth when she asks what he did on a perfectly ordinary school day does not build the impression that he is an honest character, as only a person suffering from problems with confabulation would find any reason to lie about that. However, suppose you had your character turn in missing tickets she found:

Her arm shaking, Rachel took one last look at the concert tickets. "They're all yours", she said quietly.

"Oh, thank you once again," the woman with the blue purse said, falling all over Rachel. "I don't know how I'm ever going to repay you."

"I really wanted to see Fourth Ear Deaf in concert." Rachel looked down. "But these tickets weren't really mine."

"Girl", said the woman, "To see someone with the integrity of you made my day. That will bring me more joy than seeing any concert."

The woman took the tickets from Rachel's hand and put them safely in her purse. She crumpled her hands up, thinking about the upcoming Fourth Ear Deaf concert. Rachel gave one last wistful glare, then turned away.

Then you (and your character) have really impressed the reader!

If you only write parts that advance the plot, you will have to have the characters' personalities be really central to the major events -- they must be behind these events -- if your characters are to come across in the reading. Including chapters that focus more on the everyday life and personality of the characters -- the "packing peanuts" -- gives you more flexibility, as you get more chances to develop every aspect of a character. Using the example of a cruel character doing cruel things, in the major plot-moving sections you can have your character betray another, or even kill off the protagonist at the end. In the more mundane sections, you can have your character find a person who is drowning and begging for help, and your character is able to help, but merely watches with disinterest or perhaps mischievous amusement right before he meets another character in a dark alley, or push over a disabled student on a school day, or crack a tasteless, heartless joke during a conversation at the hamburger joint.

Dialogue

Main chapter: Dialogue

In real life, you draw some major conclusions about the people you meet by listening to what they say. So will your reader draw conclusions from reading what your fictional characters say. Suppose you are reading a novel and hear Mindy speaking:

"Let's go!", said Mindy. "Take your sticks and beat Buena Vista over the head! Come on! Come on!"

Noelle rubbed the end of her lacrosse stick, glanced up and Mindy and looked back down. "Wish me luck."

"Luck? We're not going to need luck. We're going to win by our force and strength. What are you waiting for?"

You get the idea that Mindy is loud, aggressive, a go-getter and much like a sergeant in the army.

Almost every sentence a character speaks can give you some idea of who the character is. A lot of television shows, in order to save time (after all, they only have 20-26 minutes), will have a character slam down the telephone without saying good-bye. "Saving time" like this is a bad idea in written fiction. Saying "Good-bye" after completing a phone call is such an ingrained convention observed by the vast majority of people that not saying good-bye would be a stronger indication of the type of person a character is than actually saying good-bye would.

Word choice

The power of dialogue doesn't stop at the sentiments expressed in the character's sentences. The very words themselves can reveal something about his character. Consider the differences between the following characters:

"I saw Ben crying under the tree in the backlot", said Chris.

"I saw Ben bawling under the tree in the backlot", said Trav.

"I saw Ben sobbing under the tree in the backlot", said Mark.

"I saw Ben wailing under the tree in the backlot", said Denzel.

"I saw Ben weeping under the tree in the backlot", said Miguel.

"I saw Ben sniveling under the tree in the backlot", said Billy.

See Dialogue for more on the power of word choice.

Thoughts

In addition to the character's words, the things the character thinks but does not say can reveal him or her.

Suppose your character Natalie sees a boy walking by and thinks the following:

Natalie looked appraisingly at Josh and then stopped there and stared. As if!, she thought. Is this guy even aware that a choker necklace is dorky and so not hip? I am so not going to date him.

Natalie has not said a word so far, yet the reader will already be sure that Natalie is not only fashion-conscious, but superficial.

When the writer uses this technique extensively, it is called Stream of consciousness. Some examples are Ulysses, by Joyce; Hopscotch, by Julio Cortázar.

Dress

We get our first impressions of people we see by how they are dressed, and so will your reader.

How neatly a character is dressed can provide instant clues as to his or her personality. If Jerry has the top three buttons on his shirt unbuttoned and his baseball cap on at a totally odd angle, with his jacket fit loosely on his back, the reader will conclude that Jerry is rather slipshod. You plant in the reader, among other things, that Jerry does not pay attention to small details and would likely not get a good grade on the upcoming bio quiz on binomial nomenclature. If Phil's shirt is tucked in, on the other hand, your readers will expect Phil to be meticulously conventional. If your character is kind of flaky or if your character has ADD, perhaps she will come to school one day with her sweater inside-out.

The kind of clothes someone is wearing provide a lot of information about who they are. They can identify what clique your character belongs to: someone with a black trenchcoat, black eye make-up and a pentagram necklace could be identified as a goth. Someone who wears a beret to school would probably be artistic. A rugby shirt, or a baby doll dress, or capris, or a ra-ra skirt, or a cowboy hat, or wallet chains all have their associations, and bring certain personality traits to mind.

How the outfit is put together can also give an impression of a person. Someone who wears green sweatpants with a puce sweatshirt is not the same kind of person as someone who comes in blue chinos, white shirt and beige jacket. Often writers, cartoonists or screenwriters show that someone is the absent-minded professor type by having him wear mismatched socks, but this has become a cliché and you should avoid it.

Having your character change and dress differently on two occasions can also reveal something about him or her:

Cole locked the door and started to throw off his black Chromica T-shirt. About to start class in less than a half-hour, be figured he better throw on a red polo shirt. Then he opened his closet where a cashmere sweater was folded neatly. He put it on over his polo shirt and looked into the mirror.

Cole seems rather like a plastic metalhead. A character who wore the polo shirt and cashmere sweater all the time, or who wore Chromica T-shirts to school, would be quite a different kind of person.

Likes and dislikes

Who doesn't like chocolate ice-cream? Such a statement is used to express how good chocolate ice-cream is, but questions like this can help construct a character's image or personality. If your character likes ice-cream, sure it is helpful to establish that they are rather average. But if a character is a pessimist or more morose or dark character, they may say "Ice-cream? Blech, no. Too sweet." People have just learned something about this character. A character who like football, basketball & jogging obviously likes exercise. A character who is fat might not enjoy such things. One of the things you must remember is that people don't do things that they don't want to do. Even things they don't really want to do, like homework and doing the dishes, they are really choosing the lesser of two evils (they choose to do their chores rather than be punished) so what a character likes gives a little insight into what a character does, or wants to do. Now, of course, you can run at it like a neanderthal and say: Suzie likes cooking and puppy dogs. But both you and the reader will have more fun if you have Suzie cook something and express her delight at doing so, then give the dog the bowl to lick, all the while smiling from ear to ear. Very important however, is that you really shouldn't mention a 'like' unless you are going to write about it. Your readers will feel short-changed if you mention that Gary likes sky-diving, and then never ever mention sky-diving again.

With dislikes however, don't get confused with fear. When I say I hate spiders, I mean that I am afraid of them. If I mention that a character is afraid of spiders, it may be interpretted as a chekov's gun, and people will expect my character to be confronted by spiders at some point. Also, if John hates Ashley, then this is also not dislike, this is rivalry. If John is the protagonist, people will expect Ashley to be the antagonist, if not an obstacle. These can however, both be interpretted in certain ways. Perhaps a fear of spiders is a way of showing that a character is afraid of silly things, and as such is cowardly. Perhaps John hating Ashley shows how John is an aggressive character. Just be careful that you aren't saying something that you don't mean. Otherwise, dislikes are very similar to likes. If Peter dislikes reading, it shows that he is probably a more outgoing or active character than Benjamin, the little bookworm who loves reading science fiction stories.

Which brings us to the main and probably most important feature of likes and dislikes. And that is the question "Why?". Jeremy likes to eat potato chips, but dislikes dogs. This can say something of a character, perhaps Jeremy is lazy, or doesn't like healthy food. Perhaps he is too irresponsible and hates the idea of looking after an animal. You can learn something here. However, what if I told you that Jeremy likes potato chips, because when he was younger he and his father used to sit on the couch, eating potato chips, watching action films. This shows that Jeremy likes his father. Liking potato chips is just one facet of this, and there may be many others. What if Jeremy dislikes dogs, because as a child he was bitten by a dog? Perhaps he is traumatised, or maybe he has scars. This all adds up to what a character is. Think about what you like and dislike and why. Knowing such things helps to construct characters

What other characters say/feel about him or her

If your story has more than one frequently interacting character, there HAS to be some emotions towards each other. If John, the high schooler protagonist, interacts with André, the star quarterback, there are many ways to create their interactions. One common cliché is interpreting André as a bully to John, as his athletic figure is a great obstacle for the protagonist. However, this trope is too overused in high school settings, so try to make a subversion to make this aspect of the story unique. For example, André can be a star student: star quarterback, gets good grades, and has an upbeat attitude, leading him to become very popular with the school, and John might simply admire him, so John will want to befriend him, but André might not even recognize him. Another common trope, particularly in fantasy settings is the protagonist encounters a mythical creature. The protagonist will try to help or get the mythical creature on his side, but the mythical creature refuses. As when the protagonist gives up, he might find himself in danger. As a deus ex machina, the creature will save him, therefore forming a bond between them. Try to subvert these clichés, and you'll create a very unique story.

Describing directly

Of course, there is always outright telling the reader what your character's personality is like:

Fred was masculine, short-spoken and dependable.

Even when writers do this, their characters' personalities usually shine through anyway through their actions, dialogue, etc. In fact, there is not much use to this direct characterization, as it is called, since if you do also show a character trait through actions or dialogue, describing the character becomes redundant, and if you don't show a personality trait anywhere in the story, the trait is probably not worth mentioning. There is a rule of thumb, don't say "Joey was funny", make him do funny things and the reader may realize that. It is the principle of showing instead of telling.

However, do use direct characterization if your characteristic is so impressionistic that no indirect characterization can perfectly convey it:

Mandelyn was a light, kelp-free wave briefly visiting upon the shore, with all the simple but mysterious elegance of a Japanese rock garden.

A final word

If you have some packing peanuts in your story -- a chapter or part of a chapter that does not move the plot along -- make the best of it and write parts that really show what your characters are like. A dialogue between two different characters, or even two ostensibly similar characters, can bring out the differences in their personality.

Depression and suicide

Teenage Depression and suicide

Many teens are not educated about depression which can also lead to suicide. They think when you are depressed you are crazy and you're not , you're actually have a lot in your plate that you feel like just taking a time off from everyone and everything .

When you're depressed you have body pains, you often feel sad and cry a lot, you actually distance yourself from your loved ones, at some point you feel like the situation you're in is not gonna get better and you end up being vulnerable and not paying attention to yourself and you think about ways to end the mixed emotions you are getting.

You may end up wanting to drink to actually cope and you may actually think about committing suicide. Everyone gets suicidal thoughts and its normal. Those thoughts just trigger your mind and make you think you're gonna be at peace . When this happens you should always think about the people who love you .

We as young people we should be the one teaching people about it and the most important thing is to talk . You shouldn't bottle things up because they gonna drain your soul

Teen pregnancy

When dealing with teen pregnancy, remember - your opinion about what should be done with the baby will shape your story. Whatever option your character chooses must be something you feel comfortable writing about, even if it is not the choice you would have made. For instance, if you do not feel right about writing about someone who has an abortion, don't have your character have an abortion.

Should your teen character decide to place the baby for adoption, the Web site Adoption Online has examples of letters from those seeking to adopt. These letters can be used as examples of what possible adoptive families will say about their homes, families, and why they want to adopt. Also look in your local library under the Dewey Decimal number 362.734, but choose those books that do not emphasize international adoption - books that emphasize international adoption do not tend to have anything about placing a baby for adoption.

Should she decide to have an abortion, books on this subject include Abortion by Carl N. Flanders (1990), and Abortion by Allison Lassieur (2001).

Should your character decide to keep the baby, examples of teen parents who have kept their babies can be found in the books Teen Fathers (1998) and Teen Mothers (1996), both by Gail B. Stewart and both part of the Other America series. Other books that might be helpful are Teen Parenting by Gail B. Stewart (2000), which is part of the Teen Issues series, and Teen Mothers: Raising a Baby (2000) and Teen Fathers: Getting Involved (2000), both by Julie Endersbe.

Drugs

Stories written for children have to give a simple "Just Say No to drugs" message, firm and unambiguous. With adolescent fiction, you are free to deal with the topic of drugs in a non-judgmental, more nuanced manner. You can write a story all about cocaine, or a character's marijuana use can be a casual aside in the plot. Maybe you can write about a character's heroin addiction as one of the many complications in his life. You can write about drugs bringing someone up, and then bringing him down, or write about a character's struggle to break free of addiction, or write about someone being raised with a very strict drugs-are-bad message and then learning drugs are not all she was taught, or write about someone being raised by hippies then being surprised when harder drugs make her life miserable, or write about a teen wondering if drugs are all there are to life.

If you are writing a story about a teen addict who seeks treatment, there are plenty of options there, as well. You can write about your character going to a therapeutic boarding school, or a therapeutic wilderness camp, or an AA-type group. Your character could also enter outpatient treatment. If the drug being abused is alcohol, consider disulfiram (a medication that causes one to become violently ill from even a sip of alcohol) as part of the treatment.

Risky sex

caught by

Risky sex can range from young sex to getting caught at home or even caught in public.

sibling
parent
webcam
police
employees(at stores)
other people (could want to join in to stay quiet)

First three at home, and others in public.

Sex ed

In many sex education curricula, all kinds of sexual intercourse are presented as risky, especially for girls. These include:

risk of pregnancy
risk of infection
risk of emotional trauma.

Teen myths and stereotypes to avoid

Things to avoid.

1.“Real” women don’t do math.

This is a big myth which everyone can't seem to stop and think about. There is no such thing as a real woman who doesn't do math. Math is basically a compulsory subject in most schools. "Real women" are women that have jobs (some don't) but they are independent and they can also be doctors and engineers.

2. Black people are inferior.

This is another huge myth that is still being tackled everyday. People from African blood aren't naive. They quite influential and independent.

3. Women weren't created only for childbearing or for being a housewife.

It is a common belief that because men were the principal producers in 19th and 20th century society that this has always been the case. In fact in earlier times when women were the main food-gatherers and producers, there were matriarchal societies where women had high status, were preeminent as cultivators and were glorified as goddesses. As late as the 2nd century BC, the major deities in European culture were women.

There are a variety of theories as to why this changed. Some like Reed felt that with the evolution of private property women lost their place in productive, social and cultural life and their worth sank along with their former status. Others like DeBeauvoir felt that change occurred when it was established that men as well as women were involved in the reproductive process.

Napoleon felt:

"Woman is our property we are not hers because she produces children for us — we do not yield any to her. She is therefore our possession as the fruit tree is that of the gardener."

Researchers also used women’s reproductive capacity to conclude women's intellectual inferiority, and then turned around and concluded that using the intellect would destroy reproductive capacity. For example:

Female students were concluded to be pale, in delicate health and “prey to monstrous deviations from menstrual regularity.” (Clarke, 1873, last printing 1963!)

The woman who uses her brain loses her “mammary function first and had little hope to be other than a moral and medical freak.” (Hall, 1905)

Women are “closer to children and savages than to an adult civilized man.” (Le Bon, 1879, reported in Gould, 1981)

As you can tell from the publication dates of these texts, this ideology is outdated, and is not applicable to modern literature. Women, such as Valentina Tereshkova, the first female astronaut, and Katherine Johnson, the astrophysicist the who helped put man on the moon, have accomplished a great deal in the fields of math, science, and engineering. Therefore, women's contributions to the STEM fields are a perfect example of why you should not include "Women can't do math" in your adolescent fiction, because it sets an unfair stereotype on the young, impressionable girls who read your books.

Culture difference

This would apply if following cases if you have either a foreign exchance student or family for overseas on vacation or a student or someone move to area form out of area.

LGBTQ

Bullying can be worse when you are LGBTQ. Family and friends may or may not support you.

Character names

First names and surnames for characters of many different ethnic and religious groups. Here are many girls' names and boys' names, general, ethnic, and religious, and more than 48,000 surnames to choose from.

General

Americas

Names from Early Established Diaspora Communities in the Americas
- Popular names in the U.S. in different years
- West Indian
- Latin American Names
Names from Communities of Indigenous Peoples of the Americas

Europe

Western Asia and North Africa

South Asia

Subsaharan Africa

Congolese
Horn of Africa (Ethiopian and Eritrean, Somali, Djiboutian)
- Ethiopian and Eritrean
- Somali
- Djiboutian
- Christian, Muslim, and Jewish names
Ghanaian
Kenyan, Tanzanian and Ugandan (including Swahili names)
Malawian
Nigerian
Senegalese
Sesotho
Sierra Leonean
Black South African
Zimbabwean
African-American
West Indian

East and Southeast Asia

Burmese
Cambodian
Chinese
Filipino
Himalayan (Tibetan, Bhutanese and Nepali)
Hmong
Indonesian (and Malaysian)
Japanese
Korean
Lahu
Laotian
Manchu
Mien
Mongolian
Thai
Vietnamese

Oceania

Australian Aboriginal
Fijian
Hawaiian
Maori
Micronesian (Guamanian, Northern Mariana Islander, Marshallese, Palauan and FSM)
Papua New Guinean
Samoan
Tahitian
Tongan

Religion