GenresFiction
Young Adult
First loves, first losses, first real choices.
Young adult fiction is written for teenagers, and it treats their problems as complete rather than as practice for a more important life later. Friendship, first love, family, school, money, identity, and the feeling of being responsible before you have any power are all serious subjects. The reader is sharp. They will notice if you are performing youth from a distance, or if every adult in the book is only there to be wrong.
Plot helps. Teen readers are often happy with pace, and a book that is only a mood will have a harder time. The protagonist should be the one who acts. Adults can be kind, useful, or dangerous, but they shouldn't solve the story in the last chapter and send the teenager home. Language can be excellent without being written to impress a parent who might be standing nearby. Write the book for the person whose life it resembles.
The kinds of book inside it
Contemporary
The world is the one teenagers actually move through, and the specifics of school, work, and home matter more than a grand premise.
Fantasy
The fantasy has to be legible and the coming-of-age still has to be real, because a magic system will not replace a person growing up.
Dystopian
The broken society should press on ordinary teenage life, not only on a chosen one who was born to make speeches.
Romance
The feeling is intense because it is new, and the relationship needs room to be awkward, not just destined.
Thriller
The danger should respect the reader's intelligence, and the teenager's limited power is part of the tension rather than a nuisance.
Historical
The period has to be clear without a lesson attached, and the young person's choices should be possible in that time.
When you want a first sketch, Storywell can draft a story summary in this vein. You are still the one who writes the book. Compose an idea.