Or, what I learned about YA from my big sister.
I’ve been giving some thought to why I write YA literature. The simplest answer is one I got from Andrew Karre at a conference. Basically, in writing, teenagers are the easiest to get into trouble. You barely breathe on teenage character and oopsie they’re in trouble. There are barrels problems out there to write about–an endless supply. But I’ve never been fully satisfied when I answer the question that way. Because it doesn’t answer what it is about teenagers that tugs at me and makes me care. I think Shel Silverstein illustrated it best. Have you read The Missing Piece and The Missing Piece Meets the Big O? Amy, my sister, asked for those books one year for Christmas when we were teenagers. So I got them for her. And I was all excited because I was going to write in the card something exactly like “You’re my missing piece.” That’s how I rolled. But then I read the books.
I was like, crap, that’s not what these books are about. Amy said it best: “We’re not looking for our missing piece. We’re looking to shape our hard edges until we see the whole person.” And I was like, wow. It was so much of how I felt as a teenager. And that is much of what I’m trying to do with my characters that I write. It seems to me that teenagers have all the stuff inside them that adults do, they just aren’t rounded out. I’m pretty positive we never reach perfect circleness, but all that stuff inside is what interesting people are made of. That struggle to round ourselves out in our teenage years, to me, is a lovely thing.
Jody Sparks Mugele 
Yeah, you are right. They are easy to get into trouble because they are more independent and starting to make bigger choices about life. And their thought process is more mature than mid-grade which I think makes it a bit easier to write about. But you do have to write in a way that they can relate to, which I think you’re good at, maybe because of who you are and because you’ve taught. Some of the things that you have characters do, like licking their foreheads, I’d never think of. I think because I’m more removed from that age group (though Anna Li will soon be there).
I wonder how having actual teenagers in the house will change our writing, Natalie. This next week Eleanor turns 12, the official YA category age. Thanks for compliment, too. You are good at writing dragony action; I can’t see myself writing that. Did I ever tell you the time I had Eleanor read some contemporary YA and she said, “Too much thinking and not enough dragons.” That was funny.
No you didn’t tell me. Funny. In less than a month Anna Li will be 13. It’ll be interesting to see how their reading tastes will change. Anna Li already reads YA books and totally loves the Hunger Game series. I already know I’ll have to let her read the last one in the series first.