The young adult (YA) category of books continues to be a steadily growing segment of the market. It is projected to see modest growth in 2025, with a 2.4% increase from 2024 and a $12.49 billion market size. YA books are also one of the most in-demand categories being sought by literary agents and editors, due to the increasing popularity of stories that not only target teenagers, but crossover to adult audiences.
Writing for young adults is both a creative challenge and a rewarding endeavor. To succeed, it requires a deep understanding of the category’s unique elements, themes, and audience expectations.
Readers of young adult books fall primarily into the 12 – 18 year-old age range, but can extend into adulthood. The key elements that distinguish a young adult novel from a middle-grade or adult novel include:
• A teenage protagonist or main character• A focus on adolescent experiences and the complexity of adolescence• Themes around emotional growth, identity, and coming-of-age• A fast-paced plot with emotional intensity• A hopeful ending
Some of the more popular genres of YA include fantasy, contemporary, romance, dystopian, and mystery. A trending subgenre of YA is "romantasy", which is a blending of romance and fantasy elements. YA stories often address first-time experiences—first love, first loss, first encounter with injustice, or their first major decision with real consequences. While the content can include more mature themes, it's told through the lens of a teenager learning how to navigate the world. The industry’s recommended word count for young adult novels is 50,000 – 80,000 words.
One of the most important aspects of a good young adult story is a memorable and complex teen protagonist. To appeal to young adult readers, your main character must be relatable emotionally, intellectually, and socially, with believable flaws and the awkwardness of adolescence. If your protagonist is stereotypical, one-dimensional, flat, or predictable, readers will lose interest and stop reading. To create fully-developed teen characters you must:
Age them appropriately:Readers of young adult books tend to “read up” in age, reading stories about kids older than themselves, so you should aim for your main character to be between 15 and 19 years of age. If your protagonist falls into the 12 to 14 age range, you are actually writing for advanced middle-grade readers.
Make them likable:Characters must feel authentic to be credible and believable. You want your readers to get pulled into the story by imagining the characters in real life, keeping them engaged. Readers don’t want to follow characters they don’t like or that they can’t relate to. Make your teens multidimensional by giving them likes and dislikes, personality traits, talents, quirks, and more. It’s these characteristics that make us all different, and when applied to the characters in your stories, will make them feel fully developed, unique, and appealing.
Give them flaws:Make your characters even more relatable by exposing their weaknesses. We all have flaws, especially teens who have less life experience and wisdom. Giving your character believable flaws will make them more human and interesting, and can lead to an emotional response from the reader in the form of sympathy. The more emotions a writer triggers, the better his or her story will be received. No one is perfect. Whether it’s a mental weakness such as fear of heights, or a physical weakness such as an impairment, make the flaws relatable and let your character own them.
Capture the teen voice:Teen characters often have big personalities with even bigger emotions. You can use dialogue and inner monologue to express how your characters think, speak, and feel—without being overly trendy or cliché. You want to avoid forcing any slang or pop culture references unless it's natural, as this will date your content.
The best way to capture the voice of a teen is to hang out with and talk to teens. You can even get their feedback as you edit, ensuring your dialogue and internal thoughts are as authentic as possible.
Choose a point of view that best aligns with your character and story:YA stories are most commonly written in the first person point of view (the “I” voice) and in the present tense. This brings intimacy, emotional depth, and immediacy to the story, allowing readers to step inside the main character’s mind and experience the story alongside them.
Third person limited (the “he/she” voice) is sometimes used when switching between multiple perspectives in a story. This approach can give the narrative a bit more distance, while still focusing on one character per scene or per chapter.
Create relatable conflict:Stories are largely driven by the main character’s motivations or desires. Giving your protagonist a strong goal or need is essential to developing an interesting plot that can sustain a book. Every great protagonist needs an equally great “antagonist” to struggle against. The antagonist is the “villain” or force that attempts to keep your main character from reaching his or her goals. Without this conflict or opposition, a story will be dull, uninteresting, and unfocused. This opposition pushes your protagonist to grow and change throughout the story, and can come from a person, group, or internal/external force. Teens face a lot of conflict at home, at school, at work, with friends, in romantic relationships, mentally, etc. Make your readers care by creating challenges for the main character early on in your story, and clearly communicating what is at stake if they don’t achieve their goal.
Let them make decisions and face consequences:“One of the reasons I love writing YA, is teenagers make a lot of bad choices,” says YA author and writing instructor Christina Hoag. She enjoys writing stories with teen protagonists because this age group tends to get themselves into a lot of predicaments, which makes for compelling characters and stories.
To make your teen characters believable, you need to let them make decisions, good or bad, that affect the story and outcome. Even when adults and parents are present in the story, the teens should be the drivers of the plot.
Reflect real diversity:Teens today are diverse in race, gender, sexuality, and socioeconomic background, so it’s important to represent these experiences authentically, avoiding any stereotypes. If writing outside of your own experiences, we recommend doing thorough research or consulting sensitivity readers.
Show growth or evolution:It’s important to show your main character growing or evolving over the course of the story—this transformation is known as the “character arc” in the writing world. Transformative storytelling is the most powerful kind of storytelling, because it involves readers in the journey of the main character’s change, helping them explore their own potential and desire for transformation. This is what makes readers care and feel invested in the story. Ask yourself, “How do my characters’ experiences, relationships, and circumstances shape and change them from the beginning of the story, to the end?”
Every great story follows a structure that gives it a clear beginning, middle, and ending. Having a solid plot structure is essential because it directly affects the way the story unfolds and how the characters, conflicts, and world are introduced to the reader. There are several different models a writer can use to outline or plot a story including “Freytag’s Pyramid”, “The Hero’s Journey”, and “Save the Cat”.
No matter the model you choose, it’s important to study the young adult book market to see what types of story lines, tropes, and themes resonate with readers of this category. You want to ensure your plot will appeal to these readers and meet their expectations. Here are some tropes (plot patterns) commonly found in young adult books:
• The Chosen One: A seemingly ordinary teen discovers they have a significant destiny.• Enemies to Lovers: Romantic tension fueled by conflict.• Love Triangle: A protagonist torn between two romantic interests.• Coming of Age: Growth from innocence to maturity.• Found Family: Characters finding connections beyond blood ties.
You’ll also want to ensure your story addresses real teen concerns and universal truths that wider audiences can relate to. Here are some themes commonly found in young adult books:
• Identity and Self-Discovery: Who am I, and where do I belong?• Friendship and Loyalty: Navigating changing relationships.• First Experiences: Romance, heartbreak, loss, failure, and triumph.• Mental Health: Anxiety, depression, trauma, and healing.• Social Justice: Racism, gender equality, LGBTQ+ rights, class, and power dynamics.
Unlike middle-grade fiction, young adult stories can address more mature topics like drugs, sex, abuse, mental health, and violence. While you don’t want to throw these topics in gratuitously, you can include them if they are relevant to your plot or if they impact your character’s evolution. Young adult authors also need to tread carefully when addressing life lessons; readers won’t respond well if your content sounds too preachy.
There are several different ways an author can end a story, but young adult readers expect to be left with a feeling of hope, even if the main character doesn’t reach his or her goal. They want to walk away feeling optimistic about the main character’s future.
If you don’t have a strong online presence, it will be difficult to reach young adult readers because teens live on their smartphones, iPads, and computers. Two, key platform strategies YA authors should focus on are an engaging website and a very active social media presence.
Website:
An author website serves as your “central hub” on the internet. It should include essential information such as your author biography, your published work, social media links, newsletter sign-up, contact details, and an optional blog. Your website can also be a point of sale for your books or offer direct links to where your book is available for sale. Platforms like Wix and Wordpress offer free, basic accounts to create a simple website.
To attract younger audiences, you can make your website visually appealing and interactive with book trailers, character art, author Q&As, and more. YA books are also the perfect candidates for creating fun swag and merchandise. Many YA readers are voracious content consumers and will want to read and purchase everything from their favorite authors. YA authors can take advantage of this by writing a series, which can be a great way to boost your career and sales.
Social Media:
Platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube are critical for connecting with young adult readers. You can choose one or two platforms to share updates, behind-the-scenes glimpses, and engage in conversations with fans. The key is to be authentic and entertaining. To make yourself more discoverable, you can use popular hashtags, conduct giveaways, or run ads. Social media allows for immediate feedback, discussions, and the ability to establish a global community.
Teens are greatly influenced by bloggers, vloggers, and social influencers, and there are huge communities of book lovers on TikTok (“BookTok”) and YouTube (“BookTube”) that distribute book-related content. The content creators in these communities have dedicated followers who trust their book recommendations and will make purchases based off of their reviews. A positive review or influencer recommendation can give your book the boost it needs to go viral.
With a strong digital presence, young adult readers can discover your work, follow you if they like what they see, and ultimately become super fans. You can also forge connections with fellow writers, publishers, agents, and industry influencers, leading to new opportunities. These channels allow authors to communicate directly with their audience, promote their work, and build credibility.
There is something about the experience of being a teenager that speaks to us all, no matter how long ago it was. Adolescence is a time of many firsts, lots of challenges, and big changes. By developing compelling teen characters, capturing the teen voice, and ensuring your plot will resonate with young adult readers, you can find success in this category.
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