asynchronous post for 23 April 2021: what YA story do you have to tell?

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asynchronous post for 23 April 2021: what YA story do you have to tell?

4/23/2021

I think that I've mentioned a number of times that when we've met face to face, I always encourage students to image what they would write in the genre that we are reading any particular week. We've done this a number of times in class to greater and lesser success, but I want to try again.

What story would you tell for a YA audience? No particular word count. Have fun with whatever ideas you have. You can write in any genre, but it's for a YA audience.

8 Comments

Matt M

4/23/2021 12:31:39 pm

So when I was in elementary and middle school, I would “write” books in notebooks and share them with my friends. One idea I had once was a kid finding an old chest in his basement and it contained a treasure map to buried treasure. I want to steal this old idea and refresh it for this discussion.

I would write about a kid (I’ll just call him Dom for now) who goes away to a boarding school somewhere and has a difficult time fitting in. The teachers are horrible, he misses home, and he has a difficult time getting acclimated to the new environment. In Dom’s dorm room, he finds an old chest hidden behind a makeshift panel in his closet that contains a map to some sort of treasure/reward. Over time, Dom follows each lead and more and more of his suitemates join in and become his friends. It becomes a race between students and teachers to find the treasure. That’s kind of where I am at now. I’m not sure if I’d want to bring fantasy and magical elements into the story or not, but this is something I envision myself doing someday. And hey, I’ve remembered the initial idea for a long time already, so maybe I’ll sit down and write something to get started at some point. It would be young adult because I would try to explore some of the themes that kids go through in middle school.

Emily Spagna

4/23/2021 12:35:55 pm

YA is what I write for the most part. Maybe not quite as young as middle school level, I prefer to write for the high school crowd. Two stories I'm working on, the one for this final and another that I have been working on for years, are very similar in their settings and themes. I like to write about alternate worlds, or future worlds. One is set after World War 8 when the government is very different and the landscape is mostly taken over by nature. The other is set in a whole different world when technology hasn't really come around yet, or at least in this village. The story I've been working on for quite awhile is about a group of kids, ranging from 8th grade age to early adulthood (around 19) who are escaping from this government experiment facility. They have no memories about life before the place. They decide to leave when they realize a lot of the people they knew were going missing, and were being killed by an experiment. So they try to get out, but they're caught once and some of their friends are killed because of that. But that makes them want to get out and stop these people even more, so they try again. Most of what I have written so far is this part, they're running from the people that held them captive. Along the way to safety, they find out some of them have powers and as they're on the run, they learn to use them.

Michael Wood

4/23/2021 06:20:58 pm

After my class with Dr. Montgomery, I was able to understand how and why some authors write memoirs. For an assignment, the class was tasked with writing a short personal story of about ten pages and I became inspired to fully develop my idea. I've brainstormed a bit and part of me thinks that I could adapt my experience as a work of fiction inspired from my personal life. The entire premise would focus around a young man who suffers from chronic depression and often loses the will to pursue his dreams. He keeps to himself and developed a very pessimistic look on life after his good friend leaves him and his girlfriend cheats on him. He eventually finds a new girlfriend but she is not the kind of person he needs in life but accepts it due to his misbelief that it is something he deserves if true happiness is an unrealistic expectation. i would hope to take a nuanced approach with this and apply my first hand experience in developing the main character. The main character only realizes his own mortality when his estranged grandfather passes away. The family attends the funeral although the man was distanced due to his past mistakes in life and the main character feels as if he could have been there to comfort him in his final days but will never have that chance. A turning point in the character's arc comes from when he meets a homeless man and a worker from Metro PCS who had similar but more drastic problems with women. Both men, are in a more difficult position but they prove to have satisfaction in life leading to the main character having a change of heart about his outlook. Unfortunately, his relationship and self respect do not improve as fights with his girlfriend worsen and he hides his self-loathing from his parents. The final section of the story features the young man as he finds his own isolation when he goes to Las Vegas for a day and meets a group of colorful people. People who appear to be better off financially but are not satisfied with their lives. The main character does not have all the answers to his questions but does manage to find the will to keep fighting little by little.

Rebecca Monestime

4/23/2021 10:06:08 pm

For me, whenever I think of young adult fiction I always imagine those books related to sex and romance and plus that is a genre I enjoy so that is what I would write. That is what I am doing for my final project in this class it has elements of romance in it because I really enjoy writing stories like that. The crowd I would be aiming would be high schoolers to adults because I like to include scenes that are suitable for an adult audience. I am not so interested in writing stories for a younger audience but if I had to do it for an assignment or as a task in the future, I would do it.

Marissa Merlino

4/28/2021 06:42:07 pm

If I were to write a YA novel, the plot would most likely have some sort of supernatural/science fiction aspect. The idea I liked the most out of my brainstorm was a story about a girl who is born into a rich family with a father with a government job. In her biology class, she learns things about the human body that do not match her own, leaving her looking for answers. She asks her parents questions about these differences and with little hesitation, they confess that she is an extraterrestrial being who they have adopted as their own. This shatters everything she has ever known. They begin to explain the secret base that her father works at, which is why she never sees him, and the extent that he had to go to in order to take her out of the base and raise her as his daughter. The rest of the novel would center around the main character's internal conflict as she struggles to keep this unbelievable secret and try to live a normal life despite knowing that she doesn't belong on earth.

Paige Couture

4/29/2021 02:19:31 pm

This is just an idea that I’ve been playing around in my head for the discussion board post. I remember when I read a lot of YA (I still do), I was very into vampire-based stories. Yes, like Twilight. I also was into reading True Blood and the Vampire Diaries. I was also into those parenthood shows. However, I’m not really into writing about romance. With that being said, I would probably pitch an idea that involves a teenager raising a child through high school. However, most shows or books focus mainly on the romance. I’m more interested in the child itself, allowing readers to watch the infant grow into a toddler. I also want the readers to know the child’s interests, dislikes and how development works in children. Sort of like a parenting book for young mothers, only turned into a novel. I’d write scenes about what to do when the child gets sick or injured and how to apply first aid to them. I’d also add something that would make this child more unique than other stories. An idea I was thinking was maybe giving the child some sort of psychic ability. I think that everyone in the world has a reason why they are here, whether that is to teach or to become a mother. I think adding a child with some sort of psychic ability, or even having great intelligence in math and becoming the next Mathematician is something unique to add to a literary text. This idea would be considered to be YA because not only will it help educate young mothers, but it would also try to prevent further teenage pregnancies. Everything that I’ve learned in my ECE courses, would be put into this novel to help others.

CJ Hall

4/30/2021 09:19:11 am

For me, I don't know if I have a YA story to tell... I spent so much of my childhood in enrichment/tutoring sessions, dance/gymnastic trainings & in vocal competitions and performances. I got to leave my scheduled life and immerse myself in characters who were "typical" kids. I enjoyed living vicariously through other people's lives and their adventures. It wasn't until I was in college that I began to really forge my own path and maybe an early twenty something/coming of age tale would be more my type of piece to write. If I were to write about my later teen years and finding out family secrets and uncovering a whole new identity - that would be the closest thing to a story I could write - but that would still be creative non-fiction...

Lynne Campbell

4/30/2021 09:33:54 am

An idea for a YA novel that I have been plying around with since high school is a story about two teenagers named Clayton and Levi. In this world the people are Linked with their soulmate sometime before they turn seventeen. When someone gets Linked their heart glows and they follow the pull of their heat to the person who is to be their soulmate. Their hearts beat as one and being apart from one another will impact their mental and physical health. It isn't uncommon for people to find their Link after the age of seventeen, but people are more likely to be judged for it. For those who never get Linked, they are more likely to be ridiculed and leave society altogether. Levi's biggest fear is to go through his life Unlinked. All he wants more than anything is to be Linked with his best friend, Kenna. But on the day of his seventeenth birthday, the Link never happened. Levi was ready to lose all hope and pack his bags to leave when his chest began to glow and he met eyes with the guy who bullied him for years.

asynchronous post for 23 April 2021: what YA story do you have to tell?

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