How to Write Romantic Fantasy Stories for Teens

Video Transcript

"Hi, this is Laura Turner, and today we're going to talk about how to write romantic fantasy stories for teens. Of course you're going to want to think about the age group that you're writing for whenever you are writing anything, but especially with teens, you're going to want to think about what kind of impression you want to put on them. I know that when I was a teenager I liked to read really racy novels, but if you are actually writing for a teen audience, those books are going to be a little more censored, and sometimes certain teens only have access to those kinds of novels. So you don't want them to be necessarily so censored that they're bland, but you don't want them to be sort of out there and overly sexual either. So think about when you were a teenager, and think about what you thought was romantic and what you thought was ideal in romance and really try to sort of make your book around that. Of course also don't include too much sexual activity because then the children, teens, will actually take the book and flip through to those scenes and show it to their friends so your book will then become sort of this sex-scened book and you definitely don't want that to happen to your book. Finally concentrate on the connection between love and sex and the importance of this for teens because if it's going to be a romance novel you want it to be the ideal so you don't, I don't think that you want to write the novel in order to scare teens out of having sex and I don't think that you want to write the novel and make sex into something that is completely ideal either. So try to put a realistic spin on it but also know that you can write about the ideal romance and sex, love and sex together so that teens can actually have access to something like that. So good luck with writing your teen romance novel."