Writing Tip — Cliches I Hate in YA Fiction

Since I started the month writing about why I write YA fiction, I’m ending it with cliches I hate in YA fiction.

All the adults are mean, stupid, or unrealistic.

All the characters in a book should have an understandable motive for how they act. In YA fiction, the adult characters should be as well developed as the teen ones. If the father of the main character is cruel to him, the author must provide a reason other than it’s convenient for the plot. If the parents don’t know what their teens are up to, it shouldn’t be because they are too stupid to realize their kids are into trouble.

This kind of character motivation was brought home to me by my friend, author Cindy Thomson. I wrote about this in my post “Digging Deeper into Characters”. With both your major or minor character, you need to ask why characters act the way they do. I think this is especially important when developing a villain. She does things because she’s bad isn’t a good reason.

In my novel The Truth and Other Strangers, Sheriff Acker hates the family my main character belongs to and goes outside of the law to deal with them. Why? Because some members of the Lody family are con artists, and the sheriff assumes all Lodys are bad. But why does he go outside the law? Because he thinks like a Pharisee. He believes he acts so perfectly in both his personal and professional life that he can accurately judge when to use extra-legal methods to protect law-abiding citizens from anyone he labels a criminal.

When any of my characters isn’t behaving correctly or won’t behave at all, I need to ask why. Over and over until I come up with a realistic answer.

Private Schools

In YA book after YA book, the main setting is a private school. In Christian fiction, it’s often a private Christian high school. A variation is for a kid in a private school to lose her money and be forced to attend a public school. I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but I think most American teens never attend a private school, certainly very few attend a private high school. My kids don’t. The teens in my church don’t.

I see some advantages for this setting. The teens have less oversight if they board at a private school, giving the author more room to get them into trouble. It’s also an easy way to employ the fish-out-of-water plot: poor, deserving teen wins a scholarship to snooty private school and is set upon by rich brats. (By the way, why do so many YA books deal with rich brats? Do publishers or authors thinks poor kids don’t have interesting problems?)

Although authors can use this setting well, new authors should find other ways to get their characters into trouble or throw them into uncomfortable situations. The private school is growing old. And I think readers would appreciate seeing characters in a setting more familiar to them.

Your turn. What cliches do you hate in YA fiction?

July 30, 2019 2

Writing Tip — Immerse Your Readers in Deep POV

The one piece of writing advice I have run into more than any other is “show, don’t tell”. It wasn’t until I read two books on the subject, Understanding Show Don’t Tell by Janice Hardy and Rivet Your Readers With Deep Point of View by Jill Elizabeth Nelson, that I understood that when you immerse your readers in deep POV, you guard against telling and are more likely to show.

I put this into practice for the first time last January when I wrote the rough draft of my short story, “Debt to Pay”, which will appear in the anthology From the Lake to the River. To achieve deep POV, I had to imagine my entire story through the senses of my first person narrator, sixteen-year-old Jay. It was as if my rural setting in Wayne National Forest was a world in Minecraft, and Jay was my avatar.

What amazed me was how thoroughly I experienced Jay’s environment through this technique. I saw the world through his eyes, heard it through his ears. When I finished writing the action sequence at the climax, I was breathing hard, and my heart was racing. Deep POV made my imagination come alive and I hope I have transferred the vividness into words.

The disadvantage with deep POV is that it can confuse your readers. I discovered that when I asked relatives and friends to read my rough draft. In general, they thought the story made sense, but they became confused during the action at the end. I had captured the chaos Jay experiences so well that my readers found it chaotic, too. As fellow writers Cindy Thomson and Michelle Levigne told me, sometimes a writer needs to insert tiny tells to help the reader. Your reader shouldn’t work hard to follow your story. I know when I have to deeply concentrate to figure out a plot, I may just give up.

So I returned to my rough draft and inserted tells to help the readers follow the action. But I had to make the tells seems natural for Jay to think since I was still using deep POV.

How do you get into the mind of your POV characters?

August 21, 2018 0

Writing Tip — Guest Blogger, Cindy Thomson

I am so excited to introduce you to a friend of mine I met through chapter meetings of ACFW. Cindy Thompson writes historical fiction set in ancient Ireland and early 1900’s America. I highlighted her nonfiction book, The Roots of Irish Wisdom, back in March. Since my focus this month is on historical fiction, I am very pleased Cindy had the time to answer questions about her genre.

Me: Welcome, Cindy! My first question is why did you select ancient Ireland and the American immigrant experience of the early 1900’s for your novels?

Cindy: I love history and there are many time periods that interest me. I got interested in the early Christian period of Ireland when I started learning about St. Brigid at an Irish festival. The Ellis Island series, on the other hand, was recommended to me by my agent at the time. He knew there were publishers interested in that subject so he thought I should write about Irish immigrants.

Me: Which comes first – research or storyline?

Cindy: For me the history comes first. I start learning about a time period and the people who lived during that time, and then the story comes after.

Me: What resources do you rely on for research?

Cindy: Whatever I can find. Researching 5-6^th century Ireland wasn’t too easy, but there are books about the social history of the time. Whatever books I can find, biographies, novels in that time period, and for later time periods newspapers and personal accounts.

Me: What is the most unusual resource you have used?

Cindy: For Sofia’s Tune I wanted to learn about people who lost their twin. I discovered there is a national group called Twinless Twins, and they put me in touch with someone who was willing to tell me her story. She influenced the formation of my character Sofia. I’ll leave it at that so I don’t spoil the story too much for those who haven’t read it, but I would say that was a pretty unique resource.

Me: What advice would you give to someone interested in writing historical fiction?

Cindy: Make sure you have a passion for it and you enjoy research. Do your research thoroughly so that you don’t make glaring mistakes. There will always be readers who will nail you if you use a place name that is modern rather than historical or use inventions that had not yet been invented at the time your novel is set. These anachronisms will leave readers wondering if you’ve done any research and cause them not to trust you as an author.

You should feel a connection to the people who lived during the time you are writing about.

Enjoy. It’s my favorite genre and historical fiction fans are always eager for the next intriguing tale!

Me: Thanks so much for your insights and advice!

Please visit Cindy at the links listed below.

Cindy Thomson is the author of eight books, including her newest novel, Enya’s Son, releasing this summer. Being a genealogy enthusiast, she also writes articles for Internet Genealogy and Your Genealogy Today magazines, and children’s short stories for Clubhouse Magazine. She has also co-authored a baseball biography. Most everything she writes reflects her belief that history has stories to teach. Cindy lives in central Ohio near their three grown sons and their families.

www.cindyswriting.com

www.facebook.com/cindyswriting

www.twitter.com/cindyswriting

May 15, 2018 3

Writing Tip — Favorite Stories

For my favorite story this month, I chose a book to suit St. Patrick’s Day. Cindy Thomson, my friend from my writer’s group, wrote The Roots of Irish Wisdom: Learning from Ancient Voices. She recounts the lives of Ireland’s most famous saints, Brigid, Patrick, and Columcille. She also has shorter biographies of “The Apostles of Erin.” Other chapters cover “Celtic Learning and Art” and “Celtic Prayer.”

It’s interesting to read her nonfiction account of Brigid since she also wrote a novel based on the saint. Her research showed her that some of the attributes of the Celtic goddess Brigid were assigned to the Irish nun.

Ancient Irish history fascinates me, perhaps because it developed differently from the rest of Europe. Since Rome never conquered and then abandoned the island, it entered the Dark Ages with a different tradition. In her chapter “Celtic Prayer”, Cindy writes that “Christianity developed differently in Ireland … because the faith had a monastic base.” This “took root … because ancient Ireland consisted of a system of tribes, groups of family members ruled by a king.” The Roman style of organization with a bishop in charge of a city “was unnatural to the Irish.”

I enjoyed the chapter on prayer because of the wonderful rhythm to some of the prayers and the images from the natural world.

At only 84 pages, this well-researched book is a quick read. So if you want to curl up with a book while you sip Irish breakfast tea (I hate coffee) and snack on Irish soda bread on March 17th, The Roots of Irish Wisdom will not let you down.

March 8, 2018 2

Writing Tip — Researching History

Although I am a history major, I have never felt inspired to write historical fiction. If you are interested in that kind of fiction, learning how to conduct research is critical. I know several authors who write historical fiction and their sites have many articles giving advice on research.

Cindy Thomson writes books the Ellis Island series and two books set in ancient Ireland. She is also a professional genealogist.

Sandra Merville Hart has written two books set during the battle of Gettysburg.

Tamera Lynn Kraft had set Resurrection of Hope in 1920 America, Alice’s Notion’s during World War II, and A Christmas Promise in a Moravian settlement in Ohio, 1773.

At writer’s meeting I went to, Sandra gave advice on how to kickstart your novel if it stalls in the middle. One idea was to go back to your research notes. Whether you have researched languages, locations, or legends for your writing, keeping your notes organized and available will help you find your creative spark when you need it.

August 17, 2017 1

Tag: Cindy Thomson