The YA Handbook (Part Two)

Read part one of The YA Handbook!

Rule Six: Make a love triangle including two guys who used to be friends but broke the bromance in mysterious circumstances:
As Seen In: Soul Screamers, The Iron Fey, Matched, Fallen, Vampire Diaries...

How about we dump Elena and try third

 time lucky?

A love triangle just isn't enough for some authors, no they have to put history between the two guys
who're in love with the girl. Whether they are hated brothers, ex best friends or even the metaphorical depiction's of Good and Evil they have to have HISTORY.
Why do they do it? How else can the author slowly reveal why the two guys fell out? Ironically it's usually because they fell in love with the same girl a few years before (or hundred years if they're vampires). Imagine how thin the books would be without all the back stories?
This one was recommended by Elisa at Lost Inside the Covers.

Rule Seven: Give the heroine red hair:
As Seen In: The Mortal Instruments, Gemma Doyle Trilogy, Forgotten, Entangled, Imaginary Girls... 

Redder, Redder, Perfect

Brunettes are so last century, we have all of the classic heroines with brown hair; Jane Eyre, Elizabeth Bennet etc. So authors, wanting to stand out from the crowd have decided to go with the less common red hair. Unfortunately for them loads of authors have had this idea so red heads are way more common in fiction than even in real life.
Why do they do it? Nowadays hair colors are associated with personalities. Blondes are considered stupid and ditsy - no offence blondes and brunettes, plain and boring - no offense brunettes. Red heads on the other hand are thought of as feisty and tough which is what authors strive for.

Rule Eight: Give the main character an name with an unusual spelling:
As Seen In: Shatter Me, The Chemical Gardens, The Iron Fey, Matched... 
Even the most uncommon names are becoming more common in YA lit. One way to set your character aside from the rest is to have an inventive name but some authors have found a way around that. Inventive spellings! Juliet becomes Juliette, Megan becomes Meghan, Kai becomes Ky.
Why do they do it? It could be that they want  to use a traditional name without it being boring, or maybe they just prefer the names written that way. Either way, the names will be either genius or irritating and its a thin line between.

Rule Nine: Make the main character constantly compare them self to their beautiful, confident best friend:

You think she's cuter than me
don't you? DON'T YOU???

As Seen In: Twenty Boy Summer, Gemma Doyle, Soul Screamers, Delirium...
No one likes a cocky heroine but at the same time no one likes an attention seeking one who constantly notes her plain or ugly appearance. It's even worse when they go on about their friends beauty with barely concealed bitterness and jealousy. This kind of heroine is the type that spends ten pages at a time wondering why the love interest likes them and not the friend. It's just plain annoying.
Why do they do it? They are probably trying to make the heroine seem retiring and humble and avoiding the whole too confident, 'I know I'm gorgeous' personality - sadly Charlaine Harris didn't get that memo.

Rule Ten: Start the series with the character going to school then nearly never attend again with no consequences: 

Who wouldn't want to go here?

As Seen In: Twilight, Morganville, Legend, Hush Hush, The Iron Fey, Nightshade...
When you are going to write a book about a teenage character the audience is going to presume they're at school. Some books can get away with the characters never going to school but others start the series with them at school and slowly fade it out. For all we know they may just graduate without mentioning it but that's unlikely.
Why do they do it? The problem with school is it restricts the adventures they go on to holidays and weekends and that's just not good enough. The characters need to be free to save the world any time they want and school doesn't fit into that. The school boards don't seem to care so who are we to argue?

The YA Handbook (Part One)

As promised here is the first part of the YA Handbook. The ultimate guide for creating the most stereotypical Young Adult novel in existence.

Rule One: Kill off one or both parents
As Seen In: Evermore, Series Of Unfortunate Events, The Hunger Games, The Vampire Diaries...

At least we can date vampires...

Have you ever read a YA book and wondered where the parents were while their teenagers were off hanging around with vampires or nearly being killed every other day? Then you remember that their parents were killed tragically in a car crash/doing the exact thing they always do. Their reckless behavior must be left over grief from their parents early demise, right?
Why do they do it? Because if the parents were around we, as readers, would start questioning their abilities as parents and we can't have that! So the solution is to just get rid of them so the children have excuses to rebel!

Rule Two: The Heroine has to be 'special'

As Seen In: Twilight, House of Night, Vampire Diaries, Need...

Have you noticed a common factor with the above books? If you haven't I'll help you out. Every book above has a heroine on my Top 10 worst female character's list. Coincidence? I think not! I believe the world is just not ready for a 'special' heroine, our jealousy would just be too much if there wasn't more negatives than positives about them. I mean look at Bella Swan, she has half the worlds teenage girls wishing they were her just so they could have Edward but imagine how huge that number would be if she actually had personality? Feminists everywhere hate her for setting women back twenty years but if they were on side... it doesn't bear thinking about.
Why do they do it? Because the world would explode if that many green eyed monsters came out when discussing Twilight, (which for many girls is about 95% of the time) so to prevent it the heroine is made horribly infuriating.

Friendless by choice?

Rule Three: The Heroine must not have any important relationships in her life other than the love interests
As Seen In: Twilight, Sweet Evil, Matched, Numbers, Mara Dyer... 
If YA books were accurate then the definition of love would be something along the lines of: 'A feeling which causes you to forget your friends and family exist so that you can stalk date someone who appears to hate you but is obviously as creepily obsessed in love with you as you are them'. 
Why do they do it? A far as I know being in love doesn't cause all of your friends and family to disappear so maybe the hero's 'get rid of them' - and hopefully will go onto rid the world of the soulless heroines highlighted in Rule Two.


Rule Four: Two guys must enter the heroine's life simultaneously (and be opposites) 
As Seen In: The Infernal Devices, Soul Screamers, Fallen, The Chemical Gardens, Vampire Academy...
You know the deal, there is coincidentally two new guys at school within days of each other or better yet the heroine is new to town and two guys immediately fall for her - normally for reasons I cannot fathom. These boys will always be opposites whether it's boring good guy vs hot bad boy or maybe hilarious vs serious. Either way the guys will always be polar opposites and the girl will always choose the one you don't want them to, or is that just me?
Why do they do it? I believe that the love triangle phenomenon came about when an author drafted two hero's and couldn't pick between them so just thought 'I may as well put them both in'. It's good in a way because everyone loves an underdog and for the underdog to exist we need an overdog.

Rule Five: Que mean girl/s
As Seen In: Morganville, Pretty Little Liars, Bloodlines, Before I Fall, Thirteen Reasons Why...

Anyone who claims not to have seen it lies!

No high school is complete without mean girls! They are normally cheerleaders but as long as they're blonde and Barbie like they can apply. This trend isn't as prominent as it once was and I can seriously say I miss it. I'm sick of everyone adoring the heroine!
Why do they do it? Since the success of Mean Girls I noticed the mean girls in YA increased too. I think it's physically impossible to display an American high school without cliques and mean girls because then whose going to spread gossip? Whose going to torture the wannabees? YA lit needs those catalysts to survive.

That's all for now but look out for Part Two next week and if you have any suggestions for the handbook voice them in the comments and I may put them in!