Young Adult
Write the YA novel readers finish in a night
A voice that sounds seventeen, stakes that feel like the end of the world and a pace that keeps the lamp on past midnight. FeelyWrite is the writing partner that keeps your cast, their secrets and every shifting friendship in one story bible, so the voice you started with holds to the last page.
FeelyWrite is an AI writing studio for young adult novelists. Keep your narrator’s voice, her friendships and what she is hiding in a story bible (we call it Story DNA) that every feature reads before it writes, so she still sounds seventeen in chapter thirty. Start with 15 free credits when you sign up, no card.
YA readers can tell when the voice is borrowed.
Teen readers forgive a lot, but not a narrator who sounds like an adult looking back. Keeping a young voice true across a whole book, with a cast growing up in front of the reader, is the hard part.
- The narrator sounds seventeen in chapter one and thirty-five by chapter twelve.
- A best friend changes personality between scenes because you forgot what you set up.
- The stakes read small on the page, even though they feel enormous to your character.
- The draft sprawls past the 80,000 words most YA debuts stay under.
The craft
What makes young adult fiction work
Young adult is not a simpler adult novel. It is a story told from inside the years when everything happens for the first time, by a narrator who does not know yet how it ends.
A voice from inside the age
Most YA protagonists are 14 to 18. The voice has to sound like now, not like memory. Keep a paragraph of your narrator in Story DNA and every draft is written against it, so the voice holds from the first chapter to the last.
Firsts with real weight
First love, first betrayal, the first time standing up to someone. Big feelings are the point of the genre, so measure the stakes against the character's world, not an adult's.
A cast that grows
YA heroes work out where they fit beyond family and friends. Friendships shift and rivals soften over a book. Story DNA holds each relationship as it changes, so a falling-out in chapter six still stings in chapter twenty.
Honest, not graphic
YA can go dark. What sets it apart from adult fiction is how it handles the hardest moments: close on the emotion, with the most intense material kept off the page.
A few lines in a young adult voice
Mara texts me at 11:52, which means it's bad, because Mara thinks anyone awake after eleven is a serial killer.
*He kissed her. At the party. Everyone saw.*
I read it three times. Then I turn my phone face down on the quilt my grandmother made, like a quilt can protect anyone from a sentence.
Tomorrow I have to walk into first period and sit two rows behind both of them. Tonight I get to decide whether I'm the girl who cries about it or the girl who pretends she saw it coming. I haven't picked yet. The phone buzzes again. I don't turn it over.
How it works
A partner that remembers your whole book
Set your premise
Capture your idea, characters and world as Story DNA. It becomes the memory every suggestion is measured against, so nothing drifts.
Write with a partner
Draft a scene, reshape a paragraph, deepen a description, or ask for three ways forward when you stall. You keep every word you want and ignore the rest.
Keep your voice
Nothing is auto-published and nothing is locked in. Your manuscript stays yours. Export the whole book to docx, epub, pdf, or markdown anytime.
Young Adult writing, answered
How old should the main character in a YA novel be?
Most YA protagonists are 14 to 18. Younger, cleaner YA sits around 14 or 15; edgier YA can run to 18, though not into college. Once your lead is at university, the book usually reads as new adult.
How long should a young adult novel be?
Most YA novels run 55,000 to 80,000 words. Debuts do best between 60,000 and 75,000. YA fantasy and science fiction can stretch toward 100,000, because the world needs building. See the fantasy page for that side of the shelf.
Can it keep a teen narrator's voice consistent?
That is what Story DNA is for. Give it a page of your narrator talking in their own words. Every feature reads it before it writes, so a scene from Draft in chapter twenty sounds like the same person as chapter one. You approve every line.
What is the difference between YA and adult fiction?
Two things: the age of the lead and the treatment of hard moments. YA is told from inside a teenager's life. In DIY MFA's words, it "skirts the edges of what's too much." Adult fiction is more likely to show terrible things outright.
Tools young adult writers use
Your young adult novel is waiting for its first scene.
Start with 15 free credits when you sign up, no card. Your book is yours to take with you. See pricing.
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