How to Write Young Adult (with Wattpad's Finest)

Winner - KellyGe

Hey everyone!

Even though a week or so has passed since the results were released, I still can't believe that The Exchange was included in the Top Ten amongst so many wonderful works and talented writers! Since then, it's been ranking in Teen Fiction (for the first time ever) and I've been floored by all of the support! It's an honour to be able to talk to all of you here and I thought long and hard about what I was going to say before settling on my experiences with YA writing and how it's helped me to grow over the last few months!

THE EXCHANGE

I first joined Wattpad in 2013 but left it for a long while until coming back last year. The Exchange was the first story I started to pick up writing again because I had a draft of it already and thought I would continue. It features Hailey - a high school senior who has just graduated and had a recent breakup - and Matt - a charming soccer captain who is the oldest son of her mum's best friend. They find themselves thrown together for the summer in an offbeat "exchange," and eventually manage to unload their baggage through a variety of trips around town and punny banter (huge fan of puns in case you didn't notice, haha).

Although it's a rather short story with only twenty or so chapters, it's the first one I completed on here and I still hold it very close to my heart. It's definitely not perfect - there are plot holes and overly fluffy romance scenes and a lot of bad puns and weird references, likely because they were a product of binge-writing on Friday nights after a long school-week and I ended up including whatever my heart desired that particular day! For a while, I cringed while looking back on it but recently, I've come to appreciate it again because I've learned many, many things from writing it:

↪ Write what you know. I'm all for imagination and wild fantasy rides and I've experimented with quite a few genres; but at the end of it all, I always find it easiest to write in the YA realm because I'm a student myself and it's easy to use my own experiences in stories. Hailey, for one, is an awkward Disney and pun loving girl, much like me. (Plus, immediately after The Exchange, I tried to write a new-adult mystery romance which was incredibly different and very hard, and I decided ultimately to take it down to re-write :'))

↪ Mistakes are okay. It doesn't have to be perfect from the get-go. They're bound to happen no matter when or how you start writing. With The Exchange, things started out much more simply than any of my current stories and I think, in a way, it helped me build a more solid foundation to write. There were week long gaps between when I would pen chapters and I never really thought about what was going to happen until the day I would write. I don't really describe the characters in detail as it was first-person present-tense and limited. There was no media, playlists, or anything aside from an extra long author's note and some questionable formatting. I haven't even gone back really to edit either. But since it was my first regularly-updated story, I've come to accept its' imperfections as a marking of my start on Wattpad. We all start somewhere!

↪ Think outside the box. Now don't get me wrong, there are some very cliche romance scenes and lowkey pickup lines in The Exchange. But at the same time, I look back on it and wonder when or how I came up with the idea or the (very straightforward) title. Matt, for example, is not at all a badboy but rather a very nice guy. I love myself a good rebel/badboy story, but it can be exciting to write other sorts of male protagonists too!

↪ Interact. My absolute favourite thing about Wattpad is the community! I've come to adore the lovely comments that people leave and talking to readers is my favourite past-time, apart from writing! Aside from that, it's also important to send love and support to writers that you like - I've met a ton of bigger writers who are super nice and are really just another passionate person behind the screen!

Now as The Exchange just hit 25k reads, I've been brainstorming about a potential spinoff involving one of the characters (Tanner)! I had wanted to write and release it to celebrate an earlier milestone, but I'm also hoping to wait it out to develop the plot a little more! But all that aside, I'm really just incredibly excited that the story is being shared and loved by readers like you so thank you!

SINCE THEN

I'm currently working on a teen fiction and romance dialogue story called Lemon Drops & Candy Shops, in which a pessimistic rich boy named Liam Wilkes meets Hana Witschire, a cheerful candy shop cashier. Both are high school seniors who have never really interacted, but they soon find themselves more and more entwined in each other's life - and realizing that neither of them are what they appear to be. My goal with the story was to write young characters with a little more depth than my previous ones; I've still been struggling with a lot of things, like pacing, realism, and the overall aesthetic (which I admit, is a little extra), but it's been another great learning experience! It's also helped me to see the drastic improvements made since the days of The Exchange, while also encouraging me to face the problems of consistency and such from previous works as well!

In an effort to avoid rambling, I'm going to stop here, but I hope that what I wrote was an interesting read for everyone or has helped someone out! As I'm going into college this fall, I do feel myself transitioning into new adult and writing college-age protagonists. But YA will always hold a special place in my heart, because in a way, I've grown up and developed right along side my characters as a writer!

So maybe this chapter was already a shameless self-promo but I thought I might also mention: if you're reading this and happened to enjoy The Exchange, drop by and indulge on Lemon Drops & Candy Shops if it sounds interesting!

And if you're an undiscovered writer looking for a contest to join, I created Hidden Ge-ms Monthly in an effort to support other writers, and there's only a small entry required and new and changing guest judges and prizes every month! The July contest opens on July 1st, and will be featuring six judges and some awesome prizes! ;)

Or if you're simply looking for a friend or support, my inbox is always open!

xo,

Kell