Story Lines for Teenage Fiction

Are you interested in writing fiction for or about teenagers? If so, you might want to take a look at an article in the Jan. 15 New York Times  entitled "Social Media Rules, Created by Kids."

Nominally, it's all about what kids should and shouldn't post online and how parents might help them avoid mistakes, but it also contains material suggestive of story lines.

"Middle school can be an especially complicated time for girls. They are experimenting with social identity, even as their always-on digital world intensifies the scrutiny. Many want to be seen as pretty (even sexy, in some ways), but also as innocent and as 'nice.' This is an impossible balancing act," the article says.

How might that play out in fiction?

It's OK, one girl told the article's author, to post a photo of yourself in a bikini if you are depicted with other family members, but not alone. Be careful about posting photos of vacations in fancy locations. You might offend friends whose families can't afford them.

If you don't want to spend time with someone, don't claim you have too much homework. Just say you have other plans because a photo of you posted by someone else of you with that person could appear shortly.

Since a recent Pew Research Center survey found that about 24% of teenagers are online "almost constantly," behavioral risks loom large. And so, one might argue, do story possibilities.

Why would a young girl post a problematic photo?

"In a study published last summer, researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, found that the pleasure centers in teenagers’ brains respond to the reward of getting 'likes' on Instagram exactly as they do to thoughts of sex or money," the NYT article said.

"I knew I shouldn't have done it,  but I just couldn't stop," she wailed.

Conventional Publishing: In This Case, a Two-Year Process

In my previous post, I provided a link to an interview in which an author told how he had self-published a photo-intensive book on the 1970s Punk music era by means of a surprisingly successful Kickstarter campaign.  He went that way because commercial publishers wanted things done their way -- not his way.

Today I am providing a link to a different interview in which an author of a novel about teenagers describes her ultimately successful experience dealing with "Big Book" -- the conventional publishing industry.

About a Teen: Life is Gross, Nothing New About Sexting

Justin Taylor is an adult male. His story “So You’re Just What, Gone?” – published in the May 18, 2015, New Yorker -- is about a 16-year old girl, told from her perspective. It’s written in a style known as “close third person,” which preserves the intimacy of the first person while giving the author more observational and descriptive freedom than would otherwise be the case.

The challenge, of course, is credibility. Charity is depicted as attractive and bright (Advanced Placement English), but immersed in the seamier aspects of life. Knowing them well, she copes with them competently. Do you recognize this person? Is this present day, middle class America presented akin to the manner in which  Dickens presented the seamier aspects of Victorian England through one of his characters?