Feel Young and Talk the Talk

The hardest part about writing for the young adult is remembering to talk young. It may seem rather a simple thing to do but after setting off on my latest journey into a Science-Fiction adventure for young adults I am stumbling through every paragraph.

With enthusiasm and a plot in place, I soon reached forty thousand words. Reading through the work I was annoyed to discover I had slipped back into the creative mind of a 'Grown Up'. I have spent the last two weeks going over the script again to correct that mistake. I have now devised a way to correct each day's work.

Read aloud speech is a tool that is so valuable for the writer. It had been part of Windows setup for some time before I played around with it. As soon as I heard the quality of the speech from male or female (you have a choice) I was hooked.

Once the work is done for so many hours I sit back and listen as a voice reads the work back to me while I have a break. It is easy to hear any mistakes quickly as opposed to reading the work oneself.

The second thing I found out was that when being young again (as author) I had to think young when writing in first person. It is no good getting the dialogue correct if you cannot get the main character's thoughts out of sync with his dialogue when he is describing his feelings and decisions. This took me some time to master. There is a danger that you may sound too young or too educated. To overcome this I changed the age of my characters not only for that purpose but also for the the subject matter. The characters could not talk about or understand explainations about polotics or sex for example. It became a balancing act especially when the characters meet others of the same age more than two hundred years in the future. These problems are interesting and become an ongoing test.

From the text: As we emerged from the alley, an imposing building with a long glass showcase window and double doors stood in front of us. Rows of empty desks filled the large office space behind the glass, increasing the disturbing emptiness of this futuristic world. We approached cautiously, and I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the glass. My usually tidy blonde hair was a tangled mess, and a layer of dust covered my clothes, making us all conspicuous in this strange environment.

I stopped and quickly brushed myself down. Then, in sheer panic, I froze. My heart was thumping like mad. My body started to shake uncontrollably.

A door at the far side of the office opened and a smartly dressed woman – a secretary, I guessed – came striding along an aisle toward me. Apart from her grey suit, the most noticeable thing about her was two bright blue eyes and a cold plastic smile that stood out from a pure white face. I couldn't beleive I was looking at a zombie like figure. Her expression never changed. Scared out of my mind and confused, I turned and ran after the other two.

As I caught up with Gabby and Freddie, I gasped, ‘We need to find another hiding spot. There are weirdo staff in the office, and I don’t think they’re friendly.’

This piece was written and composed in a few minutes but it took a couple of hours to write it from a nineteen year old point of veiw.

This being my first attempt at young adult writing, I have a feeling it will take more than a few months to have it ready for anyone to read.