Come for the Mysteries. Stay for the Characters.
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Last week, I asked you to vote on a plot for the protagonist and antagonist pictured above. I had a tie between the puzzle and the quest. So I chose … the puzzle because that’s what I write. But a puzzle, or mystery, does not have to be related to crime. It’s any problem the protagonist must solve and the antagonist wants to prevent him from solving. Now comes the last block to build a story. What’s their setting for a YA story?
I list some traditional and not so traditional choices, but the main setting should be a place where the protagonist and antagonist come into regular contact. And it should be easy to introduce other characters. We also have to decide if our main characters are high school or college age because that also will affect the choice of setting. Feel free to choose more than one. For example, both characters could work a local pizza place in a small town.
To see the previous prompts for building a YA story, click here.
Let me know your choices in the comments!
Since you’ve heard a lot from me this month on how to create authentic YA characters, I decided to pull from previous author interviews I’ve done so you can read other author’s opinions.
I’ve found that young adult readers seem to really engage with a character when they get to deeply experience that character’s perspective throughout the book. Rather than telling a story or giving limited glances into a character’s mind, narratives that allow the reader to live through the action right alongside the main character – practically feeling like they could be that character – are the ones teens just can’t put down. And I’m right there on the edge of my seat with them!
I still have a long way to go toward writing that kind of immersive point of view, but I think a huge key is having an understanding of the human mind and heart and translating it onto the page. Balancing beautiful prose with the way people actually think. Including internal responses in the midst of actions and dialogue. Taking the time to think through what sensory details your specific character would notice in place of generic descriptions. It’s a long, work-intensive process, but it’s amazing how that in-depth experience really draws readers in!
Read her whole interview here.
Round the characters. Flat or stereotyped characters won’t fly. Even secondary characters need to be more than cardboard cutouts. The characters need to be relatable. They need to experience real feelings: boredom, anger, pain, loss, sadness, confusion, pride. They help drive the story forward and keep the plot moving. Though teens are good at wearing masks of confidence, inside, they question themselves. I don’t try to use slang because I would most likely mess up and use it incorrectly, a big problem. I keep try to keep the language simple and not dated.
Read her whole interview here.
Young people are awesome! I’ve worked with all kinds of teenagers. From the homeless, to the disabled, to the exceptional, and each of them has a magnetic spark. A spark, I believe, we never lose no matter how old we get. Some of us might forget about it, or deem it too immature, or naïve. But, some of us retain that spark and hold it up as the thing that makes us see the world through a lens of hope. Or, the youthful energy that makes us believe we can achieve the impossible even against the odds. That’s all you need to connect with YA audiences.
Read her whole interview here.
Now it’s your turn. What do you think it takes to create authentic YA characters?
Last week, I posted photos for readers to choose an antagonist for the young man in the Nike shirt as we assemble the literary building blocks for a YA story. The winner is this red-headed girl. Now that we have our protagonist and antagonist, we can turn to plot. What’s their plot for a YA story?
*I found these plot points in Steal This Plot by June and William Noble.
Please state in the comments which of the following plots you think would work best for this protagonist and antagonist. I’ll announce which plot got the most votes next Monday.
Last week, I wrote about creating the YA protagonist. Now I flip the equation to discuss creating the YA antagonist. A protagonist is only as compelling as the antagonist he or she has to deal with. Would Sherlock Holmes be as memorable without matching wits with Professor Moriarty? You should invest as much care in developing your antagonist as your protagonist.
An antagonist is whoever or whatever prevents the protagonist for reaching her goal. In Hatchet by Gary Paulsen, the main character is up against surviving in the Canadian wilderness with nothing but a hatchet and a windbreaker. In the nonfiction book Dove, Robin Lee Graham, who began sailing around the world at sixteen, must battle the sea and his own thoughts while he’s alone on the ocean. The antagonist for the main character in Challenger Deep is his own schizophrenia.
The antagonist doesn’t have to be evil or the bad guy. Just the person who is throwing obstacles in the way of the protagonist. Let’s say the main character is a sixteen-year-old boy who wants to become a cop like his late father, who died in the line of duty. His mother is dead set against his goal and does everything in her power to dissuade him in the name of safety. She’s the antagonist but not a villain.
I think it’s far more challenging to write about an antagonist, who is a good person, but is at odds with the protagonist. I can’t rely on painting my antagonist in pure black. I have to use more nuanced colors. While this can be challenging, and even frustrating, there’s also a greater reward if I succeed, creating two characters who aren’t just the good guy and the bad guy.
Don’t fall into the cliches I’ve seen in a lot of teen books in which all the adult characters are either stupid or mean or both. The adult characters in a YA story should be as fleshed out as the teen characters. If the adult antagonist is a villain, I have to supply a better reason for his villainy than “I said so”.
It’s difficult for a teen to contend with an adult because of the vast experience an adult has built up. But don’t level the playing field by making the adult antagonist a dope. First, you want your teen main character to have a worthy adversary. As I said in a teen writing workshop I led over the summer, you don’t want Conan the Barbarian going up against the Easter Bunny. You have to develop a realistic way for your teen to overcome the adult antagonist to make the characters both believable and the story rewarding for the reader.
If your antagonist is a teen, you may run into the flip side of the problem above. To make the clash between protagonist and antagonist interesting, I may end up with two characters who dress like teens but act like adults. Since I write mysteries, I might have a teen as the culprit. Having been a teen and known teens, I don’t buy the teen villain who hatches his plan like a master criminal. What seems more believable is the teen who commits a crime in a sudden burst of anger and then spends the story trying to stay ahead of the police and the teen protagonist.
What are your thoughts on creating the YA antagonist? Who are your favorites?
After tabulating the votes, we have a tie for which one of the photos from last week will be our YA protagonist. To break the tie, I selected … the young man below. I like his thoughtful look. This week, choose an antagonist for a YA story from the other photos I provide. An antagonist doest not have to be a villain. It is just someone, or sometimes, something, that stands in the way of the protagonist from reaching his goal. That antagonist could be someone the main character loves, but for some reason, they are on opposite sides of an issue.
Here’s our protagonist.
Now here are the antagonists. Please let me know in the comments which person you think would be a great one.
JPC Allen Writes