High School level fantasy- How do I write slightly beneath my age group?

I'm grappling with an even bigger age gap, as I'm 26, and writing YA Fantasy. Luckily, I have an 11 year old at my disposal (not mine, but still) who is a big reader, and therefore gets abused daily as my target audience. I think the best thing you can do is write what you feel works, and then pass it over to someone in that age bracket that you trust to give you honest and constructive feedback.

HTH!

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"The first draft of anything is shit." Ernest Hemingway

I wouldn't worry about it. Most high schoolers who read for pleasure at all would read adult fiction, not young adult (indeed, many of my peers last year who did read probably wouldn't have been seen dead in the YA section, but since 90% of my peers wouldn't have been seen dead in a bookstore in the first place, that's not saying much). I was reading adult fiction at 14; most of my friends who read were at a similar level. There is no clear-cut marketing niche for high-school age readers, mainly because they are, essentially, adults, at least in intellectual and emotional capacity; the only thing separating them from being fully adult is that they haven't stepped into the societal role yet. You don't need to tone down the maturity of the work in order to appeal to them.

In short: it'll be fine, don't worry. xD

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Todat's random TV Tropes article:

I wear one when I write!

Well, speaking as a teenager, I wouldn't worry too much about being *too* mature. Being patronizing and the assuming your readers are immature is far worse than assuming someone is mature, and adult --even if we aren't. Also be aware of stereo types, and what's true and what isn't. If you're in college you're probably not that out of touch, but the stereotyping, can be the most mind bendingly annoying thing about YA lit sometimes. Otherwise, I recommend just drawing from your own experience in high school, and writing what sounds authentic to you :D

I've been having similar problems. I agree with the above, but I would also like to add that looking through anything you may have written during then, including notes, diaries, etc. or even some going back to some music or movies from that time can be helpful in stirring up some memories and emotions. I don't know about anyone else, but things seemed a bigger deal then, more dramatic, more emotional--less control/independence and more frustration, but that could just be the distance of time coloring things.

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***caffeine induced hysterics***hahahahahahahahahahahahaha

I'd better never write for YA then, we took all our class notes on papyrus and I dunno if they would have held up that well. Someone needs to let Rowling know she can't write for YA ;)

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Runs Through Faerie Rings

In my experience, Fantasy is a rather accessible genre and if they are both interested, a teen and an adult can mostly read the same fantasy. Anyway, as people mentioned before, just do not worry about it too much. Your book will write itself as a certain audience, if that turns out not be what you aimed for, you should just roll with it.

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My novel's little corner

Toying with widgets!

@ Neushorn: you're SO right. I'm an avid Fantasy reader, and when I'm done with a pook I pass it down to my teenaged kids. I don't dictate what they can or cannot read, though I admit to feeling a bit uncomfortable having them read books with too much explicit sex n violence (evidently I'm not as immune to the 'mom thing' as I always assumed I'd be).

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Runs Through Faerie Rings

The idea that you would have to "write down" to higschoolers in extremely insulting. When I was in _5th grade_ I was reading adult fiction already. Any avid fantasy reader in highschool is perfectly capable of handling anything you throw at them. If GRRM couldn't squick 'em, you aren't going to.

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All lines are arbitrary; otherwise, we wouldn't have to draw them. ~Nicholas Vesiri

http://atsiko.wordpress.com

While I am commenting from opinion only, not from actual knowledge, it seems to me (based solely on observation) that most stuff classified as young adult or teen fiction is classified that way solely because the main protagonists are teens themselves, with the age "targeted" by the publishers being one or two years on either side of that of the protagonist and their immediate supporting cast.

I do read a good bit of YA fiction (I'm not terribly picky about targeted age group in what I read, just genre and quality), and this is how it seems to work.

Again, only opinion -- but, while I've never worked in the publishing industry, I did work for a bookstore for four years, and read a lot of YA fiction then and now.

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PROBABLY OFFENSIVE RANTS ABOUT THE FORUMS!

My main character is 17 and in her last year of high school, but it's more of a backdrop for her story then anything. High School wasn't that long ago for me, (only 2 years or so) so I just reflect on my experiences there. And I add a lot of emotion to it, so it almost seems like an overload at times, since hormones and stuff run high then (still do), and my main character is incredibly snarky.

You could also try reading a couple of YA books as research while your at it, and compare your writing to them. For YA/highschool fantasy, I'd recommend the Sweep series by Cate Teirnan.

But as Atsiko said, don't feel like you have to "write down," to high school students. They're often much more mature then you remember.

Hope this helps!

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"Nailing a live octopus to a wall is impossible. Everything else is merely difficult." -Simon R. Green

Are your high school characters going to a private, public or inner city school? Trust me, the environment in which they grow up makes a lot of difference in how they would speak among themselves.

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a good rule in publishing to remember is that:

Children read up.

So if you're writing a story for 11 year olds, the main character should actually be around 14 or so. And high school students want to read about 21 year olds etc.

I wouldn't write down at all. I think once "kids" reach highschool, most of them are reading adult books, and though some of them still read Teen or YA, that's due to choice and not reading skill.

I hope that helps!

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Sarah

"She said she cried at least once each day not because she was sad, but because the world was so beautiful and life was so short" - Brian Andreas

I'm still perfectly happy to read good YA fiction, especially since a l of genre boundaries are much looser. It's somewhat true that non-adult fiction is targeted so that the children are reading up. That's a genera principle of course. I I've *never* really cared about target audience. Obviously, I'm not going to read picture books, and the vast majority of middle grade will be too far below my level, but once you hit YA, age targeted writing is pretty much out. The stories will deal with issues that teens might find more relevant (eg, no mid-life crises, for the most part), but avid teen readers are already on a fairly "adult" reading level.

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All lines are arbitrary; otherwise, we wouldn't have to draw them. ~Nicholas Vesiri

http://atsiko.wordpress.com

I am fifteen, and a sophomore in high school.
I hate YA fantasy.
I've read most of the stuff on the shelves of Borders and Barnes and Nobles, and it really makes me angry, mostly because the authors do tend to assume that they need to write down to us.
That being said, I enjoy some of the fantasy that is grouped in the YA section. Not much of it, but a little.
What YA is, in my understanding, is mostly about teenagers in high school wailing endlessly about whatever stupid problem that is in their lives, be it vampires to the history test to the creepy dog they just saw in homeroom.
They then proceed to kiss each other.

That's all it is! *insert angry bear noise here*

But you really shouldn't tie yourself up with genre conventions right now - no matter how horrified I feel at the though of calling YA a "genre". This is NaNoWriMo, you should feel free to kill off the annoying ones one by one in increasingly gruesome ways.
That's how I celebrate the fifteenth, usually.

If you're worrying about the maturity of the teens, don't. It tends to be different depending on who they're hanging out with, really. For example, the fake popular idiots are usually wrapped up in themselves (and think that they're mature), there's the immature hilarious people, there's the people who read fantasy (they're all awesome, by the way), and there's a few who went through the serious false-maturity already, and can poke fun at themselves.
Some of these groups can overlap.
Plus, there's four grades in high school: freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors. Some freshmen are more immature than others, and same goes for everyone else.

{/rant}

Yeah, sorry about that. You touched on a topic near and dear to my heart, and that tends to make me talk a lot.

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Scribere volo!

As a junior in High School, and as someone who considers themselves an outsider within their age group, let me just say this:
Don't worry about it. I don't think you CAN be to mature for us high school kids. Majority of the kids in my grade (rating over 90%, from what I gather) have already dealt with everything from some of the less savory versions of intercourse to drugs and alcohol to suicide and more.
If you can find it on any major TV channel, or in any of the comedies that came out in the past year, they've dealt with it and probably know about most of it detail. So don't worry about it. Just say it's young adult, if that's what you want it to be.

Wow, I'm doing the same sort of thing. I'm 17 and a college student and my main characters are 14, and the thing begins with my MC starting a new school. I think it's working so far because I have enough memories to remember what being 14 was like... I hope. She also gets to be 'the new kid' and I've done that a couple of times myself, so know what that's like. The thing is, I've exaggerated what kids are like at that age and I'm fearing some if it sounds stupid. I was pretty daft myself at 14 I have to say.

I think the best idea is to not think, 'oh, they're in highschool so they're kids' and aim just a bit more mature than you thought? I'm not sure, that's what I'm doing anyway.

Sorry for the babble, Nano keeps stealing my sleep.

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Dammit Nano, stop stealing my sleep.

Mad-o-meter: 88%
Characters killed: argh... I don't know...
Bad guys introduced: 4 (finally)