Suzy Vadori

Show don’t Tell Writing Podcast: Episode #105. How Brains of Different Ages Read (And How You Can Write for Them!)

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Show, don’t Tell Writing Podcast Show Notes & Links

Book Coach and Author Sam Cameron is back on the podcast to talk with Suzy this week about the uniqueness of Teenage brains. 

They discuss: 

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Podcast Episode Transcript (unedited)

105. How Brains of Different Ages Read (And How You Can Write for Them!)

Suzy Vadori: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Show Don’t Tell Writing Podcast with me, Suzy Vadori, where I peel back the layers of how to wow your readers with your fiction, your nonfiction. Anybody can bang out a first draft, but it takes a little more work to make your book as amazing as it can be. Join me as I share the step-by-step writing techniques you could apply to your writing right away, as I host successful writers who share a behind-the-scenes look at their own [00:00:30] writing lives, and as I live coach writers on their pages, giving practical writing examples that will make your own writing stronger.

Nobody is born knowing how to write an engaging book. There are real and important skills that you need to learn. On this show, I cut through the noise and get you all the info you need. I can’t wait to see how this information is going to transform your writing

Today on the Show [00:01:00] Don’t Tell Writing Podcast, we have a special reappearance of a guest, Samantha Cameron, who has been on the show before. But when we were talking before, we started to get into this discussion on brain chemistry, and as you know, I’m absolutely obsessed with how reading works in the brain and how your words can play out in readers’ brains and how that can all work and how you can affect them.

And Sam has a unique perspective because she was a former high school English teacher and [00:01:30] has a lot of information on how teen brains work, and so we started talking about how the young adult books need to be different in order to appeal to teen brains. But conversely, in this episode that w- when we decided to ha- do an episode, of course, because you need this information as well, and we wanted to geek out and have this conversation.

But more than that, knowing what needs to be different about teen brains can also help you with what is different about adult brains. So regardless of your genre, we’ll talk [00:02:00] about this a lot in this episode today, regardless of your genre, take a listen. This is gonna be super interesting. Welcome back to the podcast, Sam Cameron, who is a book coach and developmental editor helping frustrated authors find clarity and fall in love with their stories again.

She specializes in helping writers revise complete manuscripts so that they can turn rejections into requests. She’s the creator of the weekly Substack Truant Pen, where she shares actionable

Sam Cameron: advice for stuck writers.

Suzy Vadori: Okay. Welcome [00:02:30] back to the podcast, Sam Cam. I’m so excited to talk about this topic today

Sam Cameron: I’m so excited to be back.

I had so much fun last time.

Suzy Vadori: Yeah, and it, this topic came about, as I said in the introduction, it kind of came about after we recorded the last one. We, we kind of touched on this, and I think it’s a really important one for you to hear. So before you tune out if you are not a young adult writer, I wanna say we’re gonna talk about brain chemistry in young people and also how it’s different.

So [00:03:00] even if you write for adults or whatever age category you write for, listen to this because it’s important. And as well, we’re gonna talk about crossover, we’re gonna talk about all kinds of things. So don’t miss this one. Okay. I just wanna start off by saying to our listeners, first, when we say writing for young people, really, which is what it’s about, what do we mean?

What are the ages? Like, what, what, what is this young people? What are we talking about?

Sam Cameron: I’m glad we’re starting this way because if you just say teen or young people, [00:03:30] I think folks have lots of different ideas about what that means because I’ve had people come to me and say they’re writing for young adults, and what they mean by that is someone who’s in their 20s.

Suzy Vadori: Yeah.

Sam Cameron: But that’s not actually what the industry means when they say young adult. And it’s also kind of different from the psychological definition of adolescent and teen. So to clarify what I’m talking about, when I talk about teens or adolescents, I’m referring to roughly to people who are between the [00:04:00] ages of 10 and 20, which is a pretty large age group.

Within that age group, folks who are in these ages are undergoing an enormous amount of development, physical and cognitive development. It is the largest period of development that we undergo any time except for when we’re toddlers. It’s just that people don’t think it’s as cute when you’re a teenager as when you’re a toddler.

Um-

Suzy Vadori: No, my teenagers are pretty cute. They push back- I think teenagers are pretty- But [00:04:30] I, I think it’s kind of cute too, and sometimes I laugh. They don’t really appreciate that, but you know. You gotta, you gotta think some of this is cute. But yeah,

Sam Cameron: so- I think there’s, there’s a lot of amazing things about, about teen brains.

Suzy Vadori: And, and that’s a huge range, like 10 to 20. So we’re gonna talk about the brain development and what it means for your writing and how to appeal to these people. But actually, that spans a ton of different categories-

Sam Cameron: Yeah,

Suzy Vadori: it does … in terms of, in terms of what publishing says are the categories. I can, I can run through them or you [00:05:00] can run through them, but let’s just state this, ’cause it’s a hard thing to find.

Yeah. That publishing actually states the category based on the age of the protagonist, which is weird, and sort of the age of the reader as well. Do you wanna elaborate on that? Yeah.

Sam Cameron: Yeah. Yeah, I’ll elaborate on that. So that age range that I gave, that 10 to 20 age range, there’s three, maybe four different publishing categories that span that.

So the first one we’re gonna hit is middle grade, or sometimes abbreviated as MG, and that’s broadly [00:05:30] speaking for characters or readers who are ages 8 to 13. So mostly these days you’re not gonna see something marketed as middle grade- That has a protagonist that’s older than 13. Really older- Yeah.

Suzy Vadori: Can you talk about that?

Because there’s a reason for that. Yeah. Because readers won’t read about younger kids. They don’t want to. Yeah. They’re not interested. They’re too cool, right?

Sam Cameron: Yeah, for the most part. Yeah, absolutely. So what’s interesting though is when I was a kid, you could find middle grade novels where the main [00:06:00] characters were older teenagers or where the main characters were adults.

So I’m thinking, for example, of like Ella Enchanted was my favorite middle grade novel when I was a kid. Once Upon a Marigold. These are all books that are middle grade by definition. That’s clearly who they’re written for, but the protagonists in all those books are older teenagers or adults, and that you don’t see anymore.

It is incredibly rare, if not unheard of, to find a middle grade novel with a, an older [00:06:30] teen or an adult main character.

Suzy Vadori: Yeah.

Sam Cameron: Um, does that-

Suzy Vadori: Okay …

Sam Cameron: match what you see, Suzy?

Suzy Vadori: Yeah, it definitely does, and I love that you said eight to 13 because typically we see it listed as 9 to 12. And then when we- Mm-hmm

talk about the next, but it isn’t because there’s sort of this 9 to 12 and then I’m gonna steal a bit of thunder ’cause I wanna move on, but the, the young adult category is sort of 14 plus, and the issue is, listen to that for a second. We have 9 to 12 and then we have 14 plus. Well, who’s writing that gap?

I write that gap for that [00:07:00] reader, and it’s hard because there’s no shelf, and so I have this huge marketing lift to do to reach that category of readers that I think is so important. Those on the cusp tween-teenagers who actually want to read higher content or they have a higher reading level, avid readers, but so middle grade doesn’t work for them from a reading level perspective, but they’re not quite ready to read some of the racy stuff in YA that’s for 17s, you know?

So, okay. So then there’s YA, [00:07:30] right? Which I say 14 plus, but there’s lower YA, which is sort of for 13, 14, and then there’s upper YA, which is like 16 plus, which can- Right … include lots of other content. And then you said, because we’re saying 10 to 20, there is this other, and I love that you say kind of half category.

Do you wanna talk a little bit about that for the 18- Yeah … plus-year-olds?

Sam Cameron: So there is a ca- an, a publishing category that appears and disappears periodically. It’s in and out of favor. At the moment, it seems to be [00:08:00] having a little bit of a return to popularity.

Suzy Vadori: Very cool. Very cool.

Sam Cameron: Which is the new adult category.

And so that is very, very similar to YA, but it is a little bit longer. It can be a little more explicit sexually and, and violently speaking. Yeah. And it is for people in that sort of 18, 19, 20 category of you’ve left high school, you’ve graduated high school, you’re going to college, you’re starting your first job.

Suzy Vadori: Yeah. So for those of you who write for [00:08:30] adults, this category for 10 to 20 is still important because …

Sam Cameron: Well, teenagers read all sorts of things, right? Just like- Yeah … adults read all sorts of things. So if you are writing f- for adults, you may still capture the interest and attention of teen readers. And I saw this as a high school teacher, that there’s lots of teens who like both YA and adult.

There’s teens who only wanna read adult. There’s adult books that are regularly popular with teens, like [00:09:00] Dune and Game of Thrones, are wildly popular with teenagers even though they were not written with that audience in mind.

Suzy Vadori: Yeah. And so that’s the dream, right? So this is why you need to keep listening to this podcast, because the dream- Mm-hmm

is that everybody everywhere will find your book. And I, you hear this a lot from writers, that, “Oh, I want my book to appeal to everybody.” And I mean, there’s the old marketing adage, if you’re speaking to everybody, you’re speaking to no one. Mm-hmm. Right? So the thing is, the trick is, how do you write in your category with the genre expectations in your [00:09:30] category, yet still leave the door open to appeal to a broader audience?

And so that’s what we’re gonna talk about some things today. Some of these tips and tricks might be the key to getting that big crossover. Okay, I just love that you’re on the podcast, and this is how it started. I’m a parent of three teenagers, one soon to, to pass over that 20-year-old mark in a couple of months.

But still a teenager, I’m gonna take it for now. And there’s this whole concept of generations, right? So I’m Gen X. Mm-hmm.

Sam Cameron: And when

Suzy Vadori: I say Gen [00:10:00] X, so a lot of my listeners are Generation X. I don’t know the specific names. I don’t have the dates in front of me, but you probably know if you are. And that means I was a latchkey kid who, you know, was home alone a lot, did my own thing, and I read a lot because I didn’t have a lot of technology.

And so when we’re writing as adults for other categories, sometimes we’re a little bit blind to the differences, um, which is why this is really important. Do you wanna talk a little bit about, because now these categories of [00:10:30] generations are getting much smaller. They don’t span 20 or 30 years anymore because of technology and changes.

Mm-hmm. What do you see, like as a former high school teacher, how does that change? Like Millennials, and Gen Z, and I don’t even know. I think my daughter’s right on the cusp of whatever the next one is.

Sam Cameron: Yeah. So I think you’re right that technology plays a very big role in how teens come to reading and experience reading in a different way.

So for example, I’m a [00:11:00] Millennial. W- I’m what would be called peak Millennial, in that I was like the largest couple of years of when Millennials were born. And we were born in a time when basically we, we spanned an enormous amount of change, right? We were born into an analog world, and then by the time we graduated high school, people had smartphones.

And so- But

Suzy Vadori: did you have a smartphone? Probably not. I did

Sam Cameron: not. Smartphones

Suzy Vadori: were different. Some

Sam Cameron: people did. Yeah.

Suzy Vadori: But now it’s really like-

Sam Cameron: But now it’s ubiquitous … very,

Suzy Vadori: right. Yeah.

Sam Cameron: So that’s one thing, right, is that the, the type of [00:11:30] technology that’s available, you know, changes how kids interact with books, and how much time they’ll spend- Or don’t

because like education, like the expectations of what kids are supposed to do, like I think kids today are way busier than either of us probably were as teenagers, right? So as teens, teens used to have a lot more time, I think, for leisure reading than they do now. They’re much busier. There’s like higher expectations.

Suzy Vadori: Yeah, my kids travel and play sports, and like do all kinds of things, and are busy all the time. And if they’re not busy, [00:12:00] then they’re making plans, right? And they can make- Yeah … quick plans.

Sam Cameron: And so there’s, so there’s, there’s elements that change, and then there’s also things like culturally what’s going on, you know, and that will impact, like when

So millennials really liked a lot of very dark, you know, dystopian fiction. I don’t think the current generation is as interested in that because their world is pretty dark. They’ve lived it. They’ve lived it. So there’s things like that that change. And then what’s interesting is that there’s some, like, brain chemistry things that are just, you know, standard [00:12:30] brain chemistry things, but because the technology has changed, the way those brain chemistry things are activated kind of differs.

So an example-

Suzy Vadori: Okay, let’s talk about that.

Sam Cameron: Yeah. Yeah. So an example I can think of is teenagers have a lower baseline level of dopamine in their brains than adults and younger children. Do

Suzy Vadori: you wanna … Okay, do you wanna back up and explain that whole thing? Oh, yeah. ‘Cause I know what you’re talking about.

I’m, you know, dopamine chaser here. Um, but- Yeah … but our list- that might be new to our listeners, so let’s talk about it. Yeah. [00:13:00]

Sam Cameron: So dopamine is a neurotransmitter. It’s one of those chemicals in your brain, and it basically floods you with good feelings to reward you for doing things that are gonna help you survive.

Um, so it’s part of our survival mechanism. So you get flooded with dopamine when you eat carbohydrates, ’cause we need them to survive.

Suzy Vadori: Yum.

Sam Cameron: Um, you get flooded with dopamine when you socialize, because we’re social animals. And you also get flooded with dopamine when you are reading something really good, [00:13:30] because reading is also a survival thing, right?

Storytelling’s a survival thing. It’s how we learn. Um, it’s how we, by kind of getting the chance to see what it’s like in somebody else’s experience, and this is where show, don’t tell becomes so important, right? Yes. ‘Cause you’re- You’re on the show- … bringing them into that- … don’t tell podcast … into your experience.

Um, w- we want that, and we get dopamine for that because, again, we’re social animals. So we need to [00:14:00] know how to interact in society, and books help us to, to do that. So teenagers have this, like, lower baseline level of dopamine in their brains, um, and what that means is that they’re very easily bored because they’re not getting as much of that good feeling.

So I don’t know if you notice this with a- with your kids, Suzy, but it can happen that-

Suzy Vadori: Oh, yeah …

Sam Cameron: w- you know, kids who, like, maybe they used to really like something and whatever it was, like, now it’s really boring or they’re just, like, bored all the time. [00:14:30]

Suzy Vadori: Yeah. Now, yeah, and, and I see this, you know, they kinda turn into somebody different for a few

All of a sudden-

Sam Cameron: Yeah …

Suzy Vadori: but one, one coming out of it and one already out of it, and one just entering. So, uh- Yeah … it, yeah, it’s, it’s totally true. Like, things that they used to love doing, you know, skipping down the sidewalk with me is no longer cool or whatever. There- Yeah … there’s other things. But also, to get them to engage is difficult during that stage because they’re okay just laying [00:15:00] on their bed looking at their phone.

Yeah. And they really don’t need you to interact. Well, that’s … And I think so it’s like, so

Sam Cameron: here’s- Yeah, so for

Suzy Vadori: younger, right? Here’s

Sam Cameron: where the technology comes in, right? Yeah. We know that our devices give us a hit of dopamine, right? That’s, that’s, and that’s what all the social media apps are designed to do.

So that makes social media, for a lot of reasons, but one of them is the dopamine, the lower level of dopamine. That’s what makes it so appealing to teenagers. But also, the low [00:15:30] dopamine makes teens more susceptible to anxiety and depression. And so all of the problems that, you know, we’ve been talking about within our societies about should teens be allowed on social media, what should we do about access to these technologies, are because in anyone, we know that these technologies can cause depression and anxiety, right?

Or exacerbate depression, anxiety. And because of their natural brain chemistry, teens are more susceptible to those things. So-

Suzy Vadori: And I think, [00:16:00] yeah, and I, and I just wanna add to that because I think at late stages of, you know, social media, I mean, I’m on social media. I met many of my listeners on social media.

But it’s changing rapidly because of AI and other factors, and because those companies are struggling to remain relevant, remain profitable, all these things, where you’re the product on social media right now. And actually, I’m, I’m really proud. I live in Canada, and Canada just passed something. Who knows?

By the time this airs, it may already be struck down or it may already [00:16:30] be in place. I don’t know. But they just passed something this week saying that they are going to outlaw social media under 16. Now, I don’t know how they’re going to do that, because my kids would just change their birthdate. There’s ways around it.

I mean, we, we’ve been… We’re pretty strict in our household, I gotta say. Like, ’cause before I get all this hate mail or advice on parenting, we, we are very strict, and we have very open communication about social media in our, in our household, and my kids were old when they got it, and we’re kind of like, my youngest still [00:17:00] doesn’t have data.

Like, we’re just kinda stingy about it. Yeah. And, and we do monitor it, and when they were younger especially, they weren’t allowed phones in their rooms, and they weren’t allowed this and that. And in elementary school, we had, they had one phone between the three of them because they needed a phone. They were walking from the bus stop by themselves, and they were home with a, a young babysitter, like a teenage babysitter- Mm-hmm

for that time. So we wanted them to have a phone when I was working in corporate and I wasn’t home when they got home from school. And so, [00:17:30] yeah, they had this one phone, and

Sam Cameron: anyways, it’s not, I mean, it’s a work in progress. I’m sure we’re not doing things perfectly, but in general, kids these days have a lot

Suzy Vadori: of

and a lot of competition. They’re not reading as often, right?

Sam Cameron: Yeah.

Suzy Vadori: Okay. So what is about, so lower dopamine, that’s actually really interesting. I didn’t know that. What else about teen brain chemistry is interesting as it relates to reading?

Sam Cameron: Um, okay, so we talked about the lower dopamine. The other thing that’s really fascinating paired with the lower dopamine is [00:18:00] that teen brains are what neuroscientists would call highly plastic.

So plasticity in neuroscience means, like, how adaptable your brain is, like how able you are to learn new things. And teen brains are highly plastic. Um, and so this makes sense if you think about it, right? Like what your teen is up to on a daily basis. They’re like learning calculus and Spanish and how to drive and world history and like all these things at once.

And it would be way too much for an adult brain [00:18:30] to actually take all of that in and absorb it. It would take us a lot longer, for sure. And so that combination of the fact that you have the low dopamine, right? And so teens are bored because of that, but also their brains are highly plastic. They have this natural, intense curiosity that makes them really want new things, right?

To, to have new experiences and to find new things. So that actually Makes [00:19:00] reading appealing to teenagers, right? To, to those who enjoy reading, right? It makes watching television, it makes socializing, it makes all of these things more appealing to them. It actually makes school appealing, right? If they are lucky enough to be in a school environment where they have teachers and courses that pique their curiosity, they are naturally primed to want to learn new things because it, it fills that gap, that natural gap.

Suzy Vadori: And when I look at my middle schooler, they [00:19:30] have seven or eight periods in one day. Mm-hmm. Seven or eight different subjects. I’m like, and then my high school, they got four, right? ‘Cause it kind of changes, I think, their ability to context in that way or what they, like how deep they need to go on a given day.

So what else?

Sam Cameron: So the low dopamine, the other thing that it does is it makes their emotions very powerful. Teen emotions very powerful. So folks probably remember this from their own adolescence that especially new emotions like a first [00:20:00] crush are like very, very intense compared to like other times of life.

And so teens are really looking for an outlet for those very intense emotions, and so books again can kind of provide that for them. So again, the value of show, don’t tell- Like, like repeat

Suzy Vadori: their experience, right? Or-

Sam Cameron: Yeah … reflect

Suzy Vadori: their experience or help them process their feelings about something in their lives.

Yeah.

Sam Cameron: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So like a teen who is having very intense, like a very intense crush, they may not be able to actually [00:20:30] do anything about that very intense crush in real life, but they can read like a love story or like a very intense romance and like have an outlet for those feelings, right? Or a teen could be extremely angry about just everything, right, and how unfair everything feels, and they maybe can’t do anything about that in their real life, but they could read something like Red Rising or one of those like big angry rebellion books and have an outlet for that anger, right?

And something

Suzy Vadori: like that. Right, [00:21:00] because as they’re reading and getting the dopamine, getting all the other things, they’re also processing, right? Right. Where like processing their own feelings and putting themselves in that situation and kind of working through so that it doesn’t feel so big and scary. I mean, when you read something that’s way bigger than what your own experience has been, or way more traumatic or way, you know, deeper or whatever it is- I know, you know, I don’t know if it’s, I, I assume it’s a brain chemistry thing.

I don’t know. I’ve thought about it. But sometimes reactions in teenagers over [00:21:30] small things can be really big, right? Mm-hmm. Um, they lose control or blow things out of proportion, as it were.

Sam Cameron: Okay, so what’s this mean in terms of from a reading standpoint? What does this mean in terms of their focus, in terms of what topics they’re

Suzy Vadori: interested in or the feelings or big questions that they might be exploring?

What does that, what can we learn as writers about this particular moment in time and what they might be looking for? You mentioned a couple, that [00:22:00] they’re looking to explore feelings about crushes or anger or these things, but anything else that you wanna add? What can we learn about?

Sam Cameron: Yeah, so I have, I have three ideas that I wanna talk about, and the first two appeal will be useful for writers of any age group, right?

So if you’re writing adult, these first two tips will still be useful to you. And then the third one is more specifically about if you are wanting to write for the YA or middle grade markets. So the first thing [00:22:30] is to be as, I, I’m– What’s the word I’m looking for? Um, concise. You wanna be concise, right, and tight with your writing in terms of making sure that you don’t have, like, meandering plots.

Yeah, that you don’t have all these tangents that don’t go anywhere. And this is something that will appeal to a lot of adult readers as well, um, because a lot of adults’ attention pan- spans have also shortened as a result of- Yeah, I was

Suzy Vadori: gonna say, I think that’s changed over time, and [00:23:00] that’s something that a lot of writers, especially if you’re, you know, with many from the boomer generation and from my gener- you know, from Gen X generation, and we grew up reading much slower books where the pacing is different, and you just can’t get away with that now.

It doesn’t, doesn’t stand up in the marketplace, right? It’s not what people are wanting.

Sam Cameron: Yeah. Like, I mean, if you go to the, the bookstore and you see “Priory of the Orange Tree,” don’t think you can get away with writing a fantasy novel that long. That’s rare, right? That, one, that someone’s gonna [00:23:30] buy that.

And, and the author whose name I’m forgetting, it’s Samantha something. She is an established author before she wrote that book. Like, that was not her debut. Yeah, so shorter, shorter books, or at the very least, like, very tight pacing of, you know, moving from one thing to the next very quickly, especially at the beginning.

The second is lots of interiority on the page. Now, this might seem contradictory to what I’ve, I just said, because interiority, that, that place where [00:24:00] you show how the character is feeling and how they’re processing and making meaning. Yeah, so those inner thoughts, like they can, on the one hand, they seem like they might slow down the story, right?

And so if you’re like, “Wait, Sam, you just told me to cut my word count,” and, you know, everything like that, I wouldn’t do it at the expense of the interiority, because the interiority is where the emotion is coming from, and it’s what makes it, it’s what makes the book appealing not just to [00:24:30] teen readers, but to- readers of all ages

Suzy Vadori: Um, honestly, when I talk with readers and when I look at the way that books have changed in the last 30 years, I mean, or 40 years if I’m being honest, how long I’ve been reading, 45 years, that switch to interiority or deep perspective is one of the biggest shifts.

And if you’re coming to this having read a lot of books that are 25 or 30 years old as your inspiration, you know, mention Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings or, you know, you’re, [00:25:00] you’re comparing yourselves to these epic big books that are, would probably never get published today, unfortunately. It’s because of this switch or this ability to immerse in that deep way, several with interiority, which is one of the only things, advantages that we have over film or

Sam Cameron: television

Suzy Vadori: or, um, other mediums even, even live acting, because they don’t have that ability to be inside somebody’s head.

And you’ll see that shift [00:25:30] technically in more recent books in that something like omniscience where you’re, um, or a third person that is close third person is rare today. And you have to do it so well, and it has to be, you know, there has to be a reason for it. You have to be over the top well to be accepted in publishing.

Third person close and/or first person is by far more popular in most genres because we can do this interiority thing, which is really difficult to do [00:26:00] well in those other formats. So I just wanted to point out, like technically there’s been a shift because of this, because of what people are demanding, and because we have access to, I mean, I can go and do virtual reality or like many, many immersive technologies that allow me or raise my expectations.

Sam Cameron: Yeah. Yeah, and I think it’s telling that the, to me, the novels that I see continue to be popular with teen audiences. So I brought up that like Dune and Game of [00:26:30] Thrones continue to be popular. Yeah. And partly that’s because kids were drawn to them from the movies and the television show. But then they actually read the books and they like the books.

And I think both of those series do have, you know, pretty deep interiority, you know- Mm-hmm … even for the time that they came out. And that’s part of why they’re still, still appealing. So anyway, so those are my two, like if you want to write for something that will appeal to anyone and that would also get you the teen readers is the deep interiority and [00:27:00] the kind of tighter plots.

And then the other question you asked about was like what appeals, like what types of stories appeal to teen readers. Um, so this is more of a thing to consider if you are aiming specifically for like middle grade or YA and those kinds of sweet spots. So middle grade, so that’s that again, that kind of 8 to 12 You know, 9 to 12 age group.

Those books, though the sort of phase of life that kids are in [00:27:30] there, these are kids who are starting to get like a little bit of independence, um, and they’re starting to figure out like what, who they wanna be in the world. So they’re thinking about their interactions with their friends, doing the right thing, you know, when they’re faced with like- And, and but

Suzy Vadori: they’re still part of a family unit too-

Sam Cameron: Yeah

in

Suzy Vadori: this topic, um, and they see themselves as part of a family unit. They’re gonna try to break out of that, right? Yes. And so that was like the family unit. But then we get to the next category, and [00:28:00] then there’s other sets of topics, right?

Sam Cameron: Yeah, so then with, at the YA side, there is, that’s the age at which kids are really thinking about autonomy and independence, right?

Like you said, kind of breaking free of the family unit. This is where, you know-

Suzy Vadori: Kill the

Sam Cameron: parents … the age at which– Yeah. Well, this is why like,

Suzy Vadori: you don’t have to kill them. That’s the joke of some

Sam Cameron: of

Suzy Vadori: these. Yeah. If you look at every Disney princess, her mother is dead. Um, sorry to be crass, but this is true, and we don’t really think about it.

We just accept it. So find a way to get rid of the parental [00:28:30] figures or at least make them so useless that they can’t– They’re not going to spring in the way that I might and save my kids.

Sam Cameron: Yes.

Suzy Vadori: Like, “Hey, yeah, you know what? That person’s lying to you. That’s not true.” Or-

Sam Cameron: Yeah …

Suzy Vadori: not have those parental figures or teacher figures or whatever they are that they can actually rely on.

Like-

Sam Cameron: Yes.

Suzy Vadori: Because it’s-

Sam Cameron: Yeah, you need to give the, the kids agency, whether it’s middle grade or YA, right? Your k- your child protagonists need to have agency. You can’t give [00:29:00] the agency to an adult, even if it feels, quote-unquote, “more realistic,” because the point is that these are kids. The kids who are reading this want to see themselves in the driver’s seat.

So Suzie, you know, did say like, “Kill off the parents,” and like that’s why. That’s why so many YA books are about orphans, right, or middle grade books are about orphans. Um, but there are some examples of books I can think of where the parents are present and they’re supportive even, but they’re, the plot is structured in such a way that-

Suzy Vadori: That

Sam Cameron: [00:29:30] they can’t intervene

Suzy Vadori: for some reason

the teen–

Sam Cameron: They can’t intervene. So the two examples that pop to the top of my head are Date Me, Bryson Keller by Kevin Van Whye, and in this book, the main character is closeted, and he’s not sure how his parents are gonna react when they find out that he’s gay. And the plot kind of revolves around him sort of secretly dating this other boy who’s also closeted.

So he can’t talk to his parents or any of the adults about what’s going on in the plot because he’s worried about how they’re gonna respond [00:30:00] when they find out.

Suzy Vadori: Well, right. So when I say kill the parents, you don’t have to literally kill them, but you have to create a barrier so that whatever the real or imagined, right?

Sam Cameron: Yeah.

Suzy Vadori: In that case. Okay, so that’s sort of the topic. That is amazing. So okay, but what can we do technically to attract these younger readers in terms of what emotional depth can they handle? Or we kind of touched on this, what about dark? Like what can middle grade YA readers [00:30:30] or that age group reader, what can they handle?

Because that question comes up a lot, or sexual explicitness, or politics, or religion, or death. I mean, I’m throwing a lot of these things out there, but this is a big question when people want to write a book that appeals to young teenagers, whether they’re writing for adults and they want it to be a crossover or not.

What does that look like? How do you make those decisions, and what are the rules if any?

Sam Cameron: Okay, that’s a really good question. So there’s a huge amount of diversity [00:31:00] among kids, just like there is among adults. And kids, for the most part, will kind of know what they are interested and what they can handle in terms of, you know, what they want to be reading about.

So you’re gonna have some kids who are really craving the dark topics and who can handle them and want to read about them. And then you’re gonna have some kids who really don’t want that and, and really can’t handle it. So I think that it’s important to provide, as [00:31:30] creators, a variety of, of topics. And so if there is a kind of dark topic that you feel like is important and you have a story that you wanna share about it for young readers, then go for it.

Um, we’ll talk about some of the, the quote, unquote, boundaries in a second. But if that’s not some- if you’re not someone who wants to write that, you don’t have to because there is a, a market for, and readers who aren’t looking for the darker stuff. [00:32:00]

Suzy Vadori: I think as long as you’re clear on this and, and like every genre, I mean, why can’t middle reader not technically genres?

They’re age categories, right? Within that, there are lots of different genres, and they all kind of get lumped together on the same shelf. But there are thrillers and mysteries and romance. You know, all of the things. And so the darkness level and the whatever, it, it really does depend on what type of book.

And as long as you’re clear on and it’s obvious from the get-go, you don’t wanna surprise the reader with-

Sam Cameron: Right …

Suzy Vadori: a really dark twist three-quarters of the way through [00:32:30] because it’s very discombobulating, especially for a younger reader, it can be very triggering. I know when I was trying to help my kids, I mean, choose books, you know, Hunger Games was a huge series, and the movies had just come out when my daughter, my, who’s now turning 20, was probably 10 or 11.

And so she came to me and said, “I wanna read The Hunger Games.” And I mean, I’m, I’m not one for, and we can talk about this too, I don’t try to censor books by any means. Mm-hmm. But I wanted her to understand what the book was [00:33:00] about because I know my kids. And I said, “Hey, yeah, it’s a really awesome book. I loved it.”

I said, “But it’s about kills- kids kind of being forced to kill other children.” And I said, “When I took your dad to the movie, he looked at me and said, ‘I understand why you like it and why this is a really important movie. But please don’t make me watch anymore. I’m gonna, I’m gonna throw up.'” Like it was just way too, way too hard for him.

And I told that to my then 10 or 11-year-old, and she said, “Okay, well I’m not ready to read that yet. Like, that feels sad.” Right. And I [00:33:30] was like, “Okay,

Sam Cameron: yeah.”

Suzy Vadori: You know, a year or two later she’s, “Yeah, I think I got this.” And then she read it and she was like, “Whoa.” Like crazy emotional, but like, “I’m ready.” And that was sort of, I didn’t tell her, “Don’t read the book.”

I own the book. It’s on the shelf. Go ahead. But just so you know, like do it- Yeah … in a space where you’re gonna be okay, and I’m here to talk about it if it becomes not okay. Right? Like-

Sam Cameron: Yeah …

Suzy Vadori: helping them through that choice.

Sam Cameron: Yeah. Which is I think a service that we all owe to any reader of any age, right?

Is to be very [00:34:00] clear upfront what the emotional experience of the book is so that people can choose whether they’re on board for that experience or not. Like, I think there is a temptation for s- like, ’cause I’ve talked to some writers who are like, “Okay, well, if I include this, then I have to put a content warning, and is that gonna turn people away?”

It’s like, yes, it is gonna turn people away, but it’s gonna turn people away who would not enjoy reading this book, and so that’s good. You don’t want to trick someone into reading a book that they’re not actually going to like. [00:34:30]

Suzy Vadori: Yeah, and I think that’s true no matter what you’re writing. It’s often writers always wanna have the surprise twist, and if you’re writing thriller or suspense, I mean, go listen to my other great colleague, Samantha Skal.

We do an episode on that about twists and things. But if you’re not writing something that needs to hide it, it’s often not the right answer because you could, you could really surprise your reader, and that’s true with fantasy books where the first half of the book there’s no magic, and then all of a sudden there’s magic in the second half of the book.

We’re breaking a contract here, right? [00:35:00] They, we’re gonna attract the wrong reader. So the same thing is true with any of these deep topics, which, like you said, I mean, there’s a place for these, and it’s also the reason why a lot of readers read up or read adult- Mm-hmm … topics, but don’t be afraid to explore them in, in YA or in middle grade.

And you were talking, okay, so you kinda mentioned boundaries. You threw out there that you wanted to talk about boundaries. What do you mean by that?

Sam Cameron: Okay, so in terms of boundaries, these are things that are not hard and [00:35:30] fast rules, but they are the things that traditional publishers typically will stay away from just because it, they’re sort of the social mores and, and- Or

Suzy Vadori: controversial

Sam Cameron: or controversies or whatever. So- Mm … the biggest one, the biggest, clearest one is that there’s a pretty hard line around anything sexually explicit for characters that are under the age of 18. Um, now this does not mean that you can’t have characters under the age of 18 having sex in your book. [00:36:00] It just means that it’s probably gonna be fade to black or closed doors.

It’s gonna be not explicit if you’re doing traditional publishing. So that’s the, I would say, the biggest

Suzy Vadori: one. Yes, not erotica for teens. Correct.

Sam Cameron: Yes. Um, teens read that stuff, but they read it in adult books, and I think it’s very notable that A Court of Thorns and Roses, the main character’s 19 years old, right?

So we can get away with some very

Suzy Vadori: explicit sex scenes. I was thinking of that, and that’s a, that’s a really, you know, that’s a really controversial series, or it isn’t but [00:36:30] maybe should be. And you know, when I, when I used to do a lot of school visits, I would see that book on, you know, grade five kids’ desks because they’re reading up.

And I think- Yeah … because it’s in the young adult section, their parents don’t realize what’s in the book.

Sam Cameron: Yes.

Suzy Vadori: As, and again, I mean, I’m not for censoring or anything else, but I know, like, i- in the case of some of my colleagues or friends, they’re like, “Oh, my kid is reading this, and she’s 11,” right? And I’m saying, “Oh, cool.

It’s actually an amazing [00:37:00] series, but just so you know, there is fairly explicit sex in it.” And so, like in, you know, not erotica pieces, I said, “So they’re gonna learn some new things, but just be aware, not don’t let them read it.” And they’re like, “Whoa, should I not let her read it?” And I’m like, “They’re all reading it.”

Yeah. So just, just-

Sam Cameron: Just like know … be prepared

Suzy Vadori: to have the conversation and open the door to the conversation. And that’s one where, again- Not exactly a censor, but those, those books are also in my home. And when my daughter was, you know, 14 and said, “Can I read these books?” I said, “They [00:37:30] have this in it.” And she’s like, “Ew, I don’t wanna read that.”

And so I was like, “Okay, well, when you’re ready,” you know. And I’m sure she did read them eventually. Now she’s 20. But she didn’t ask me, so, so I’m sure they got read. Um, during the pandemic she, she ate books. I had … I’m fortunate to have some really amazing colleagues who have, uh, worked with some huge publishers, and they brought over boxes of, like, ARCs and, like, cool stuff.

And I remember, this is, sorry, just one quick aside, ’cause this is such a good story. It was during the pandemic, and she was in [00:38:00] grade, ninth grade, I think, and we had, like, this online Zoom meeting with her teacher who requested it, which is unusual. And we’re sitting there, and she’s kind of wagging her finger and saying she’s a good reader, and the things that she’s bringing to school to read during reading period are not high-level books.

They’re kind of middle grade or whatever, and, or really young, like y- lower YA, and she could be reading much more. And we, we were doing, we were doing this Zoom [00:38:30] meeting in this office, like, right, I was sitting right in this chair.

Sam Cameron: Mm-hmm.

Suzy Vadori: And I said, “Oh,” and I looked at my daughter and I said, “What, what gives?”

And she said, “We only read 10 minutes a day, and I don’t wanna leave that,” like, they were back in school- Mm-hmm … um, masked and all the things, and distanced, but they were back in school, and she said, “I don’t wanna leave my book there. And so I just bring a book that I can re-read.” She goes, “But that’s not what I’m actually reading.”

And I reached for this stack of books that was on my desk, I’m like, “This is her actual reading list.” And I was, like, [00:39:00] showing the teacher these things, and she’s like, “That book isn’t out yet.” I’m like, “No, it isn’t.” She’s like, “Oh my God, now I wanna read what she’s reading.” But, like, yeah, it was this thing where she was actually hiding what she was reading because it wasn’t, you know, she didn’t wanna talk about it with other kids.

She didn’t wanna show people that she had signed books-

Sam Cameron: Right …

Suzy Vadori: from pretty big authors. They weren’t mine. They were from colleagues that had dropped them off to keep her entertained, but yeah. It’s amazing, right? Like, what they end up reaching to [00:39:30] read. Okay, so we’re talking about the content and all of the things, and the boundaries.

Were there any other boundaries, or are we good?

Sam Cameron: So that’s, that’s the really the only Absolute, like clear

Suzy Vadori: boundaries Well, and I will say, yeah, and I will say if you are writing, um, YA and/or middle grade, and you want to be in the school system, then you have a different standard, um, because you may not be- Yes, that’s true

allowed to present in schools if you have certain content in your books. And it’s just something to be [00:40:00] aware of. It doesn’t mean that you can’t write them. It does mean that you may get banned, which might, might be a great thing because you can feature that or you can rail against it, um, maybe do something right.

Yeah.

Sam Cameron: I mean, so for example, like I write LGBTQ fiction-

Suzy Vadori: Yeah …

Sam Cameron: um, and you were saying about how like A Court of Thorns and Roses is just like on shelves at, you know, in the YA section in the school library- Yeah … or whatever, and nobody thinks twice about it. Totally has.

Suzy Vadori: Nope.

Sam Cameron: And a way less explicit same sex romance-

Suzy Vadori: Ugh, so

Sam Cameron: frustrating

would absolutely be [00:40:30] challenged. Yeah.

Suzy Vadori: Yeah. So frustrating in terms of what- Yeah … people’s biases are, and, and you know the whole point of literature at that age is to expose people to different things.

Sam Cameron: Yes.

Suzy Vadori: And actually, this is a topic I’m gonna stumble through right here. But you know, there’s this idea, and it’s something that I coach a lot of writers on, and I’m sure you come across as well, when we are from a different generation and we don’t have the language or things, you know, bullying was different in terms of what was acceptable and things like that in our [00:41:00] day, and it does still happen, but we try to model different things in books and not, not unintentionally reinforce negative stereotypes.

We try to not sugarcoat the world, but we try not to give voice to some of those negative opinions. What’s your experience been on that? Like w- whatever the topic, right? There’s things that are just– I had to tell a writer, you know, writing middle grade this week when she’s using the word stupid. Mm-hmm.

And I’m like, “Kids don’t use that word anymore,” [00:41:30] right? Like we don’t to, not in the way that we did growing up, and you’ve gotta adjust it ’cause a publisher won’t like it, right? Like how do you-

Sam Cameron: Yeah …

Suzy Vadori: how do you talk to your writers about that?

Sam Cameron: Okay, so that’s a really good question. So one of the things that I’m always on the lookout for is tropes, like problematic tropes that are now kind of-

Suzy Vadori: Stereotypes, right?

Sam Cameron: Yeah, or stereotypes and things like that. Yeah. So like the gay best friend stereotype, for example. Like, I was just working on a manuscript that had it, and I was like, “Okay.” And I said, “You can do this, [00:42:00] but there’s a lot of people who aren’t gonna like it,” right? There’s a, a lot of people who are gonna find it to be kind of like stereotypical.

So if it’s important to you that your straight female character has a gay best friend, because like some straight women have gay male best friends, you just wanna make sure this guy is like really well-developed as a character and that, you know, you do something to subvert the trope. Like, you know, what if he’s married?

Whereas like normally that stereotype is, you know, if I’m working

Suzy Vadori: on- The single one that’s always available

Sam Cameron: to- He’s single all the time. Right.

Suzy Vadori: Yeah.

Sam Cameron: Yeah.

Suzy Vadori: [00:42:30] Yeah.

Sam Cameron: So I would say that that’s the main way in which that comes up in my work, is kind of identifying tropes that are now like, you know, used to be really common or like things that we now would say are stereotypical that we, we wanna edit out.

The other place I would s- you were talking about how we wanna like model things that are like maybe not reality, but would be like a better version

Suzy Vadori: of reality.

Sam Cameron: So like consent in relationships, you see this in romance novels both, you know, [00:43:00] as well as in YA novels. So I thought, I was just thinking about is, I, I always forget the, if it’s Dark and Deepest Red or Deep and Darkest Red.

I think it’s Dark and Deepest Red.

Suzy Vadori: Okay.

Sam Cameron: By, uh- Oh … Anna-Marie McLemore. It’s a retelling of The Red Shoes, the fairytale.

Suzy Vadori: Yeah.

Sam Cameron: And there’s a sex scene in the book. It’s very not explicit, like very implied, but it’s between two teenagers, and the author very specifically models healthy consent between these two teenagers, right?

In a way that probably [00:43:30] real teenagers don’t yet know how to do. But it is no fun for those teenagers-

Suzy Vadori: I hope my kids never listen to this episode- Who are reading it … because I’m sharing a lot. But my youngest came home this week and said, “Mom, we learned all about consent today in sex ed.” And I was like, she, and I said, “Oh yeah?

How was that?” She’s like, “I mean, how many times have we had this conversation?” Because it’s something that we talk about, um, very openly in terms of writing, and she’s my one hope for, I have one hope for a reader and one hope for a writer. [00:44:00]

Sam Cameron: That’s my,

Suzy Vadori: and then I have a child who’s interested in neither. But yeah, so, so she’s actually quite interested in that topic, and so I don’t think she offered any advice or anything, I’ll say, during that class- Yeah

but she said, “Yeah, like, all the things that you and I have talked about and things we learned today,” so yeah. It’s something that they’re learning, but, but it’s difficult to model, for sure. Or for many of those teens in that classroom, it was probably the first time that they’d ever heard that topic talked about.

Sam Cameron: Right. So

Suzy Vadori: modeling it in books- Well, and like,

Sam Cameron: if their parents- [00:44:30] Mm-hmm … you know, don’t wanna talk to them about it or don’t know how to talk to them about it, you know, a book is a place where they can find it.

Suzy Vadori: Yes. And for me, because I’m so aware of it because of the industry, it’s definitely something I talk about with my girls, it’s something I talk about even more with my son.

Um, it’s really, really important for, to have that conversation, and to model that in books is amazing. Okay, so the bottom line is we do want to have, we talked about tropes or, or whatnot, we wanna have diversity in our books, but we don’t wanna be modeling or [00:45:00] inadvertently reinforcing negative stereotypes.

But give them a role, right? We don’t wanna just stick something in there that, you know, a diverse character that is unlike ourselves just to have them there or to check a box. Right. We need to make sure that they are, you know, that it’s not just that they’re a gay character, but that they actually make sense in terms of, yes, there are many, many gay people in the world, so they belong in your book.

Uh, it doesn’t need to- Yeah … write it, right?

Sam Cameron: Yeah. There’s, um, so there’s a, a little test [00:45:30] that, it’s called the Vito Russo test. It’s kind of like the Bechdel test, and it’s specifically for, for gay characters, but I think you can modify it in general for, like, approaching writing about marginalization. So the, the Vito Russo test is do you have, like, identifiably, explicitly gay characters?

Suzy Vadori: Yeah.

Sam Cameron: So, like, Dumbledore doesn’t count because he’s not explicitly gay in the book. J.K. Rowling- Exactly … just said he was later.

Suzy Vadori: Yeah. Um,

Sam Cameron: is the character important to the plot such that their [00:46:00] removal alters the story? And the last one is, are they identifiable by features, differentiable from other characters by features other than their marginalization?

Suzy Vadori: Yeah.

Sam Cameron: So those are three good questions to ask yourself, and just like replace gay with, you know, whatever type of marginalization you’re working on, or representation- Yeah … you’re working on. Right? So make sure that your characters are three-dimensional, right? That they’re not just identifiable by, well, this character’s gay, and that’s how they’re different from the main character.

Suzy Vadori: Yeah. They’re not a stock character, right?

Sam Cameron: [00:46:30] Yeah. And that they actually matter to the story.

Suzy Vadori: Okay. Well, this has been absolutely amazing. I, I’m sure we’re gonna talk about teen brains for many, many years to come- Yeah … you and I. But yeah, we’re to the quick-fire portion. You only get one quick-fire question, because I’ve asked you these questions before.

But what is your best advice for writers listening today that wanna pull in young people to their books?

Sam Cameron: Do some journaling about what it was like for you at that age, and [00:47:00] what mattered to you, and what you cared- Mm-hmm … about and what you wanted to see.

Suzy Vadori: Yeah. Good advice. But then I, yeah, and i- it’s excellent advice, but if you are of my generation, you’re gonna need to temper that, right?

Um-

Sam Cameron: Yeah …

Suzy Vadori: to, to modernize it a little bit and appeal to them.

Sam Cameron: But- Some of the deep stuff will resonate still.

Suzy Vadori: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, universal truths are universal truths, whether or not you had a landline that you, a pink phone that you pulled down the hall and in your bedroom with a really [00:47:30] long cord, or whether you Snapchat your friends 80 times an hour, right?

Like, technology- Yeah … may have changed, but the resonance or the emotional resonance- The feelings … probably hasn’t. Yeah. Amazing. Thank you so much, Sam, for coming on the podcast again today. This was amazing.

Sam Cameron: Thank you, Suzy. It was great to be here.

Suzy Vadori: Thanks for tuning in to the Show, Don’t Tell writing podcast with me, Suzy Fiedorowy. It is my [00:48:00] absolute honor to bring you the straight goods for that book you’re writing or the book that you’re planning to write. Please help me keep the podcast going by helping people find us. You can subscribe to the podcast and leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else you’re listening to show how much you enjoy the show.

That’s how other listeners will find us. Also, visit Suzyfiedorowy.com/newsletter to hop on my weekly inspired writing newsletter list, where you’ll stay inspired and be the [00:48:30] first to know about all the upcoming training events and writing courses that happen in my community. Want my eyes on your writing?

Submit a page of your current draft for a chance to come on the podcast at the link in the show notes. I’d love to chat with you about your writing in my always positive, incredibly supportive way so that you can make great strides towards your writing goals. I’m here to cheer you on. Remember, that book you’re writing is gonna open doors that you haven’t even thought of yet, [00:49:00] and I can’t wait to help you make that it the absolute best it can be.

See you again right here next week

 

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