There are SO MANY awesome female-penned YA sci-fi novels. Here are 8 of the very best!
Get Writing! Characters…
Luna, Dudley, Fred, George, Cho, James, Lilly, Viktor…
You know them instantly. Even though it wasn’t their name on the cover. And we’re willing to bet you can name at least a dozen more of the characters that shaped Harry’s world. (Go on, do it! At least 12. Go!) Another roll of the dice says you know each of those characters’ histories, their arcs, their quirks, and the roles they each played in Harry’s life.
A good story has a leading character (or more than one) that you can root for, and supporting characters that you can relate to. But how many books or movies have a whole cast that you feel are part of your family? That you’d really want to be part of your family?
Moment of silence
Of those few that come to mind, how many are some of your favorite books of all time?
Characters play a pivotal role in every good story. Or, at least, they should. This is why you have to go through your work and make sure that every character is memorable; for those characters who are there just to advance the plot or provide exposition, give them something real to do, something to feel, something that makes us feel, or laugh, or recognize something of ourselves in them.
Once you’ve done that, you’ll be ready. Because our exercise this time is more like an exorcise…
Remove the least significant character in your work.
Maybe one day Adam will come back to Supernatural.
If they are truly insignificant, removing them will quicken the pace, give another more meaningful character something more to do, and avoid any confusion the reader or viewer may have in keeping your cast straight in their mind.
This should be challenging. If it’s not—and you George RR Martin-ed one of your cast with zero hesitation—then jump right back in there and do it again with the next least significant character.
Be ruthless.
Keep going until all you are left with is your very own Weasley family. (Except Percy)
Harsh but real. Sorry, Molly.
6 great YA city stories
World-building is always awesome, but so is world recreating. Here are 6 YA novels that do a fantastic job at setting intense stories in beautifully real locations.
Female ensembles: The reason why GLOW and ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK SEASON 5 rule
Jenji Kohan, showrunner of Netflix’s well-established ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK and new show GLOW, had a pretty good June. OITNB’s season 5 was its best season yet, and GLOW was a brilliant debut from creators Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch. Here’s why female ensembles were the key to both shows being so extraordinary.
Get Writing! Find the fire…
Sometimes you throw a log on the fire and it surges; flames reach for the sky and you’re basking in its glow. Other times you throw that log at the wrong time or wrong angle and suddenly you’ve extinguished the flame. It gets dark. Real dark.
Dark, and scary
The same is true for writing. Some ideas send your word count skyrocketing and others have you TBD-ing all over the place. You get lost in the darkness and find yourself ending every paragraph with the dreaded ellipses.
No wants that. No one…
This is where you have to look hard at each of your characters. After all, if plot is the blood of your story, then characters are the heart that keeps it moving. To get momentum, you need the heart to start racing. You have no choice but to turn up the pressure. Basically, you’ve gotta ask yourself: What would George RR Martin do?
Wait, come back! Don’t kill ALL of your favorite characters!
Whatever your characters are most scared of, make them face it. Give them a moment that will change them, haunt them, motivate them or dissuade them.
A moment that will define them.
Maybe you’ll realize… they’re a zombie! Or not.
Write that moment, every detail. It’s okay if you feel terrible, or even shed a few tears. Sometimes—actually, a lot of the time—writing is emotionally painful. But the more you feel, the more your reader will feel. The tension should make your actual heart race.
Once the scene is done, you’ve caught your breath, and your character’s shadows have been illuminated, you have to decide if that moment stays in the story. We know, we know—you bled on the page and now we’re saying you might not even be able to use it?! Yep. That moment may not make it into the finished product, but it’s almost certainly going to be a key part of your character—who they were before they became part of the story, why they were that way, etc. This moment could be a critical part of the path that leads you to the greatest version of your story—be ready!
Whichever way it goes, all the tension you created should generate the friction you needed to get the writing fire surging again. Be the mother of word-dragons you know you can be!
YA novels to read while you wait for WESTWORLD season 2
Yes, we know Westworld was a show with very deliberately slow burn pacing… but did they have to make the wait for S2 such a slow burn too?! Apparently, yes, they did, so here are 5 YA novels to help you achieve God Mode while you wait for the storyline to be rebooted.
Get Writing! Spark your inspiration…
We’re finally into summer and there’s no more need for warm-ups. Which means it’s time to get to the real writing. You’ve been here before—the start of something new—but you’ve always arrived with at least one idea at boiling point, ready to spill over onto the page.
But what if you face the blank screen or empty page and there’s no sign of inspiration?
Brutal truth? Too bad.
The sun is shining, so dive into some awesome new writing!
Writing isn’t a desire, it’s a practice. There are fun aspects to it, which without a doubt improve it, like daydreaming about winning Oscars, reading the new Leigh Bardugo Wonder Woman novel (which isn’t out until August 29 so mark that day off for some serious not-writing), watching the new season of Orange Is The New Black (it’s SO GOOD), and probably Wonder Woman again because it rocks… All of those things (and any you’d like to add to the list) are great for studying plot construction and character development. You gotta read and watch and consume to learn and get inspired. But.
Nothing is as important as getting the words. on. the. page.
Put the words down, baby. Drop ’em like they’re hot. It’s the only way to be a writer.
We’re not total tyrants though; we’re here to help!
So, here are three metaphorical matches for you to strike and spark your inspiration.
It’s been fifteen years and she doesn’t look any different, except for the fact that the last time I saw her, she was dead.
“Whatever you do, do NOT eat—” “…oops…”
Either I die. Or they all die.
In a future post, we’ll get into some hints on how to keep the story burning.
For now… get writing!
YA novels to read if you like BIG LITTLE LIES
Wow, that BIG LITTLE LIES finale, right? It was weeks ago but we’re still reeling. If you’re looking for some murder mysteries with more of those complex, twisty-turny plot shenanigans, here are 6 YA novels you need to read (while you wait for Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman and Liane Moriarty to cook up BLL season 2!).
Get Writing! Attack the block…
Writing is awesome. Of course it is. But it can sometimes feel like heavy lifting—of complex emotions, intricate plot, grounded characters—so it’s always good to keep those creative muscles warm.
Even if you don’t have a project you’re working on at the moment, keep writing. And if you are working on a project but you’re having trouble lifting (AKA… writer’s block), here’s a fun exercise that should help keep those muscles loose. In either case you might think that you don’t want to write something random. But here’s the thing: you never know when those small scenes could develop into something larger, or even solve that pesky plot hole.
Your mind is constantly working on story, behind the scenes of your everyday thought processes—that’s one of the cool things about being a writer, everything you do counts as part of the writing process in some way—but in order to make it real, you have to put it down on paper, or get it on screen.
So here’s a way to stay loose, or attack the block:
Try writing a couple of characters you know and love—either your own, or some from your favorite TV show, movie or novel—and make them argue about something. Anything. Debating the merits of a Caramel Macchiato vs. a S’mores Frappuccino (too close to call, right?), who’s the best superhero/YA heroine/character in Star Wars Rebels (Hera, obvi), who would win in a fight between C3-P0 and TC-14 (trick question, they’re classic droid OTP material)… you get the idea. Characters you love, arguing about anything.
Whoever and whatever springs to mind RIGHT THIS SECOND…. go!
5 YA books to read if you like American Gods
After many, many years, the TV adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s AMERICAN GODS is finally here! To help you deal with the wait between each episode, here are 5 YA books you should read that conjure up all kinds of gods and monsters.
A.D. Croucher 