Writing YA Literature as an Adolescent Therapist
When I tell people I’m an adolescent therapist, the most frequent response I get is a look I call the “yikes” face. People’s expressions morph into an approximation of the grimacing emoji, their mouths a wide line of teeth. They say something like “I can’t imagine why you’d do that with your life, but I’m glad someone does.” I’m not a Marine, but I’ve been thanked for my service numerous times.
(Writing the Raw Emotions of the Most Vulnerable Time of My Life.)
Responses like the “yikes” face are often rooted in our cultural beliefs about adolescents: that they’re self-centered, impulsive, over-emotional. Adults remember the mistakes they made in their youth, or they wonder what sullen body-snatcher took their sweet 13-year-old away from them, and they imagine it would be impossible to spend each day sitting with teens, traversing hard conversations.
These assumptions leave me feeling that I’m in on some big secret: that in my nearly 10 years as an adolescent therapist, I’ve come to see teens as some of the most empathetic, thoughtful, and motivated humans out there, and working with them has been one of the great joys of my life. Coming to understand young people—and naming how deeply our culture misunderstands them—has also shaped the way I write. If you’re writing coming-of-age stories for or about young people, read on for some of the lessons my time as an adolescent therapist has taught me about writing young adult literature.
Understand Your Characters’ Frustrations
Young adult characters fall flat for me when they’re angry just for the sake of being angry, or overreacting just because “that’s what teens do.” To write multi-dimensional YA characters whose behaviors and reactions make sense, writers have to understand their characters’ frustrations. Frustration is different from anger—it’s all about being prevented or blocked from attaining a goal.
Put yourself in the headspace of a teen for a second. You’re a person dealing with adult problems like family conflict, trauma, poverty, racism, transphobia, you name it—but you don’t have any of the power or decision-making abilities that adults are granted. You can’t live on your own, you don’t have financial security, you don’t get to decide what you spend your days doing. You might not even get to pick out what clothes you wear (shoutout to all you school-uniform-wearing kids out there) or what you eat. You definitely can’t vote to change things that directly impact you on the daily. Rather than casting YA characters as overly emotional or reactive, get to the root of their frustrations, the real ways they’re prevented from achieving change.
Don’t Underestimate Your YA Characters
Are teens more impulsive than adults? Maybe, sometimes. Did I do things in high school that seem outrageous to me now? Definitely. But YA characters shouldn’t be underestimated in their capacity for insight. Allow your YA characters to be messy and wise.
Because of constant contact with online and social media, today’s teens are 100 percent more conscious of the critical issues and current events happening around them. And, they’re also still practicing how to differentiate their opinions from those of their friends and family. They’re still testing out the consequences of their actions, learning how far is too far, figuring out how to make things right when they screw up. Let them hold that complexity. Let them contradict themselves. Young people contain multitudes.
Remember That Firsts Are Intense
Do you remember the pain of your first breakup? How about your seventh? We feel first experiences keenly and deeply, and YA literature soars when it captures that accurately. Think back to the first song you fell in love with, the first moment you realized you had a crush, the first big fight you got into with your best friend. You probably didn’t have a roadmap to navigate any of those experiences. All of it had to be scrambled through, clumsily and painfully and beautifully.
Check out Parisa Akhbari’s Just Another Epic Love Poem here:
(WD uses affiliate links)
Be Real With Your Teen Readers
At the adolescent community center I used to work at, my colleagues and I had an often-repeated saying: Teens are excellent bullshit detectors. They know when you’re being fake, when you’re putting up an unnecessary barrier, when you’re pretending adults have all the answers. (Maybe I don’t need to say this in 2024, but: We don’t.) They know when adults are glossing over hard things or layering on toxic positivity to minimize real issues.
The best gift you can give your YA readers is to be real with them. Don’t try to tie up all the chaos of young adulthood with a neat bow, or smooth it over with platitudes. Let the mess exist and demonstrate to teens that it’s possible to hold compassion for themselves amidst that mess.
Remember That Teens Are Creative Problem-Solvers
I’ve said that teens often don’t have a roadmap to navigate their experiences. As hard as that can be, there’s a kind of freedom allowed by it as well. Teens aren’t bound to the same limitations as adults. They’re often less burnt out than adults, meaning they’re energized and optimistic about working toward change.
Let your YA characters think, feel, and act outside of the constraints of adulthood. (And, then, maybe let yourself think and feel and act outside of those constraints from time to time!)
*
The lessons I’ve gleaned from my work with adolescent clients have shaped the way I write stories for—and about—young people. If nothing else, I hope for broader recognition that young adults are nuanced, whole, messy and complicated, creative and real humans. And we adults have plenty to learn from them.
With a growing catalog of instructional writing videos available instantly, we have writing instruction on everything from improving your craft to getting published and finding an audience. New videos are added every month!