So maybe you're attempting to finance a really expensive drug habit. Or maybe you're yearning to get in touch with your inner adolescent. Or maybe you're just bored as hell. If you ever find yourself wanting to write a Teen Fiction novel, here's some basic guidelines on how to do it:
Use Tiny Paragraphs:
Using extremely small paragraphs is not only necessary in order to maintain the interest of your pre-pubescent readership, but it also allows you to cheat. Since indenting takes up quite a bit of space, the more indenting you are able to do, the sooner your novel will be finished. And the sooner your novel gets finished, the sooner you can begin devoting your time to more useful activities. In most Teen Fiction novels, a single sentence can suffice as a paragraph. For example:
Murdered. Murdered by evil.
And now another cheerleader had been wounded in an accident. More horror.
Was it an accident?
excerpted from R.L. Stine's Cheerleaders: The New Evil. It's my niece's... really.
As illustrated by the previous
quotation, just about any
monkey can write a Teen Fiction novel, as long as he is aware of said indentation technique. Moving on...
Always describe in great detail just how good-looking your protagonists are:
While this probably isn't very nice, the truth is that the sort of kids who read Teen Fiction (i.e. most of them) don't want to read about ugly kids. It's escapism, and it's undeniably popular among the junior high set. Like constantly indenting, this also has the benefit of taking up space, as "the exceptionally gorgeous California blonde" obviously takes up more room than "the blonde". A good offshoot of this is to describe their clothing. Preteens love that sort of thing. For example:
"She fought the tears that welled in the corners of her large, blue-green eyes. Her eyelashes were naturally thick and dark--which was fortunate. It had been an emotional roller-coaster of a day, and even though Jessica's psyche felt battered and bruised, thankfully the afternoon's tears left no mascara marks on her smooth, golden cheeks."
excerpted from Sweet Valley University #16: The Other Woman
By all means, incorporate popoular slang terms even if you've only got a vague idea of what you're talking about:
Does the average 12 year old know what "bling bling" means? Probably not. It doesn't matter if you do or not, just shove it on in. They'll go crazy for it.
Above all else, Teen Fiction must be ethically sound:
If the protagonist goes and smokes a joint, he will get caught. If he cheats on his girlfriend, he confesses a week later. Mainly this is because if teen fiction novels aren't ethically sound, parents probably wouldn't want to buy them for their 12 year olds. Of course, it's highly probable the 12 year old might want a filthy and ethically suspect novel, but since the parents are the ones with the money, it doesn't really matter.