Writing Great Books for Young Adults: Everything You Need to Know, from Crafting the Idea to Landing a Publishing Deal

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Overview

From a top young adult literary agent, the only guide on how to write for young adults

With an 87 percent increase in the number of titles published in the last two years, the young adult market is one of the healthiest segments in the industry. Despite this, little has been written to help authors hone their craft to truly connect with this audience. Writing Great Books for Young Adults gives writers the advice they need to tap this incredible market.

Topics covered include:

Listening to the voices of youth
Meeting your young protagonist
Developing a writing style
Constructing plots
Trying on points of view

Agent Regina Brooks has developed award-winning authors across the YA genre, including a Coretta Scott King winner. She attends more than 20 conferences each year, meeting with authors and teaching.

Editorial Reviews

Library Journal

Experienced literary agent Brooks offers targeted advice for potential authors of young adult fiction. Though her general suggestions regarding plot, characters, and point of view may be found in many standard fiction-writing guides, Brooks's knowledge of the 12- to 18-year-old market adds meaningful value. As if following her recommendation to maintain a brisk pace in YA books, she moves through her topics quickly; plot and dialog are given the most page space, while the publishing process is given only cursory coverage. VERDICT Brooks offers writers who are serious about attracting teen readers solid guidance through the creation process of writing YA fiction. Writers looking for detailed information about the steps that follow the manuscript's completion will likely want to supplement this title with others, such as Michael Larsen's How To Get a Literary Agent or Susan Rabiner and Alfred Fortunato's Thinking Like Your Editor.—Stacey Rae Brownlie, Lititz P.L., PA

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781402226618
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Incorporated
Publication date: 9/1/2009
Pages: 208
Sales rank: 215,608
Product dimensions: 8.74 (w) x 11.02 (h) x 0.60 (d)

Meet the Author

Regina L. Brooks is the founder of Serendipity Literary and has been developing books for over a decade. She has been highlighted in several national and international magazines and periodicals, including Writers and Poets, Essence Magazine, Writer's Digest Magazine, and Sister2Sister. She lives in New York City, New York.

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LaurieLW

Posted January 1, 2011

Good Overview of YA Genre

If you are new to writing novels for young adults, this book could save you a lot of trial and error. It provides a good overview of voice, dialogue, point of view and other issues you need to keep in mind when writing for this audience. You can buy entire books devoted to each of these topics if you need more help later on. If you can afford only one how-to book right now, this would be a good choice.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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anna_love

Posted June 11, 2010

Wow this was Helpful

If you are looking to be writing a novel, go and read this book to get the whole how-to. I got this book from the library, since I want to write a novel. This thing had writing exercises to get your mind generating to write and stuff, and help you plan and actually show you how to send your work to literary agents. I recommend this book for anyone looking into the YA/Children's literary world

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Scott16

Posted August 1, 2011

MFA-In-A-Book

I met Regina Brooks at a YA Writers Conference and was very impressed. I have now finished reading her book, Writing Great Books for Young Adults. It's sensational. Its impact on my second book in a YA series is already significant. Of particular help in getting me to think along different lines were the chapters on "Understanding Plot," "Building Your Plot," and "Creating a Satisfying Conclusion." But, really, the whole book is excellent: very clear, very instructional, very rich, and complete. It's like an MFA-in-a-book. Regina has put her engineering degree to good use by describing how to engineer a great book. It's all there, and I can't thank her enough for her contribution to good writing for young adults and to my own career.
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MickeyMod

Posted January 4, 2010

more from this reviewer

Yes!

I clicked with this book--which can be rare for me and 'writing how to' books. Regina Brooks explains everything in a way that even the drop-out novice can understand.
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Anonymous

Posted December 7, 2009

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