A note from Headbuzzer: This week, author Maria Padian will be visiting on our blog! Maria is the author of Out of Nowhere, and this post is her final post! It's not goodbye though - say hello to Maria on Twitter @MPadian, or stop by the board we set up for Out of Nowhere to chat about it!
On Writing for Young People
By Maria Padian
Here’s something you won’t often hear adults say: I love teenagers.
Well... I do. Which is ironic, because I certainly didn’t love being a teenager. But I love writing for them. I love standing in a room full of them, reading one of my stories to them, and listening as they laugh and cry and gasp along with me.
Teenagers don’t read with pencils in their hands, carefully taking notes or marking the text. They read with their hearts, with eyes open and wondering and willing to follow you into the darkest and loudest and funniest and scariest places. They want daring stories, and characters who say shocking things, or who stand up in a crowded room and yell, “The Emperor has no clothes!” They want the truth, even if it’s delivered like a punch on the nose. They want to lock into plots like they lock into a wild roller coaster, feeling that drop in the stomach when they peer over the edge, screaming the whole way down, then, as the ride comes to a close, declaring, “That was awesome! Let’s do it again!”
The books and stories I remember loving the most in my life were the books I read as a teenager. I spent hours in college “studying” James and Joyce and Woolf and Eliot… but it was Charlotte’s Web that made me cry, and Johnny Tremain that kept me up all night, reading with a flashlight under the covers.
As an author, my dream is to write for people who read with their hearts. And that’s why I love teenagers.
Paigers97: I love all of her post this weekend and I can't wait to read her new book Out of Nowhere.
Books_Rule: That's true, I do tend to read with my heart and not a pencil. Thanks for another great post!
JessDay: Awesome post, kind of inspiring actually!
Liviania: Lovely. I've enjoyed many books I've studied, but it's the ones I discovered on my own I tend to like best.
Evie: Great post! I so agree that teenagers read with their hearts. :)
SashaMae1996:
Why thank you for loving teenagers. And I agree abut the reading with their hearts. When I read a book for school and have to take notes, I dont remember th story as well as if I dont have to take notes. And when I read for fun and I liked the story I ca generally tell you the whole story.
AnnabelleMarieV: Aw, this was such a sweet and genuine post!
KindredDreamheart: Great post!
Bookendipity: Awesome post
LoveyDoveyBooks: That is the best possible answer to "why do you write for teenagers?" :P
Synchro_Reading: I love this post :) I do read with my heart, even though I'm no longer a teen.
Star_Chaser: Thank you so much for this inspiring post. YA and j-fic books really are the best because they can be read when your a kid as well as when your an adult.
AllieB: That was such a great, sweet post!
Tiffasaurus: I think the reason that so many adults are reading YA now is because they feel like they can read in that way again. Nobody wants to know your literary analysis of a YA novel when you say you've read it.
KawaiiMuffin: That's so true! In reading and writing, this is something I've found true my entire teenage life. We like exciting. We like terrifying. We like sad. It's almost like we want an author to rip our hearts out. But we come back for more. Because we're teens.
Dell:
There's truth to that - every adult novel I've read has been written with the goal of doing something, not just telling a story. I prefer YA because the issues you face in terms of knowing who you are and finding acceptance in the world don't change when you leave high school and become an "adult", they're there just no one focuses on them.
As a writer I think I certainly want to write for someone who isn't going to nitpick at my grammar and plot devices but'll actually love the characters and become part of their lives too.
Dell: As an addition to that post: The whole "reading with pencils" thing is actually why I decided to become a history major - I love reading and I love writing but I could never handle needing to read so critically everything that I read and look at. So I study history where what I'm reading during my day has a clear division - sources and literature.