Marcus Dino / Guest Post – Blog Tour
Guest Post today from Marcus Dino
Author of Diary of a Mad Gen Y er
Take it away…
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Tips for writing young adult genre
by
Marcus Dino
Perhaps because of my secondary school teaching background, perhaps because I live in La La land, perhaps because I have grown up on so many movies and television shows throughout the years emphasizing young adult life, for example all these teenage horror flicks we have had the last 50 years starting from I was a Teenage Werewolf to The Final Destination, my focus in creative writing has been young adult genre. Here are some tips that I have used in the two young adult books I have written, Fifi and Diary of a Mad Gen Yer, that I wish to share with you.
Make your characters as interesting as possible. You can write another novel about teenage vampire or werewolf even though 20 other authors have written about the same subject as you have. Perhaps your teenage vampire gets accepted into Harvard where he majors in biochemistry. To help pay his tuition he lands a part time job where he works as a lab assistant. Of course the hospital is also has a place where he has access to ‘his nourishment’ and he doesn’t have to chase ‘warm bodies.’ A decade later he becomes one of the youngest Nobel Prize winners because of his research which led to the development of ‘artificial blood.’
Of course take your characters from real life examples, say your best friend back in high school who was a little bit on the stuck up side, your real life ups and downs as a twenty something, that unforgetable prom night, your college age son describing his ‘frat party,’ remember Animal House?
Develop a riveting, not necessarily complex, plot in order to capture a readers attention. Your story needs to capture a readers attention at the very beginning with your introduction. Also good dialogue between characters gets the readers interested in the story as much as a riveting plot. For instance what line is going to capture a reader’s attention more? “So Fifi are you going to the party tonight over at Dirk Van Allen’s parents place?” or “Omigosh Fif, you cannot cannot miss the big party at Dirk Van Allen’s folks place tonight. It is the rad thing to do and I mean every cool kid in school is gonna be there. I mean Fif you don’t want to be like one of the geeks and stay home and watch TV tonight do you?”
In my opinion don’t overly stress current popular culture with young people today. We’re talking nanoseconds when we discuss the life span today of any big fad among young people. This year’s big name singer or pop group or actor may be passe next year.
I enjoy writing young adult books because it is such a fun and rewarding experience. There is no limit to one’s imagination when creating a colorful story and interesting characters when you are writing fiction dealing with young adults.
Marcus Dino has had an interesting professional career, first as an Aerospace engineer, next as a passionate math teacher teaching in urban Los Angeles which he currently still does, and finally, as a part time literary fiction author. It is Mr Dino’s being a die hard movie buff that led him to writing Diary of a Mad Gen Yer in addition to his first novel, Fifi, Anything goes in the Double Os, first published in 2003. Mr Dino is a graduate of Chapman University and he also has Masters Degrees in both Education and Electrical Engineering. Diary of a Mad Gen Yer and Fifi can be found at www.smashwords.com and www.summertimproductions.net. Mr Dino’s personal website which includes numerous blogs, short stories, and poems involving his central character Fifi Larouche, which helped inspire him to write his anthology, Diary, can be found at www.authorsden.com/marcusdino.
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Nice Blog,Thank you for sharing a valuable topic.
Nice Blog, Thank you for sharing a valuable topic.