Things are starting to click together so nicely for me, it seems a bit of a shame to go off on another holiday motivated by nothing more than naughty expectations...but then, if I don't go soon, I'll be stuck with my regular work schedule until the end of next April and that's a rather daunting prospect. Of course, it would be a bit too much to hope that EVERYTHING's going well...I'm still stuck trying to decide how much to rewrite my children's fantasy trilogy.
You wouldn't think it but writing for children/teenagers or young adults is much harder than writing for regular old adults. First of all, there's the language level to consider. You can't really use too many unfamiliar words - not necessarily 'big' words, mind you. I use the word 'fife' and had too explain that it means 'flute' for example, because not many modern under-18s would know that. And then, there's boy-girl relationships and attractions. It's easy enough to have a girl character who behaves like one of the boys but I refuse to write a character who's basically a boy in drag!
And then there's the fact that I'm basically writing a wulin or jianghu-type book (that's Chinese martial arts fantasy world, if you didn't know) but one meant for non-Chinese children, too, so I have to have characters who don't come from a Chinese milieu and need to have certain things explained to them (and my readers, too!) My biggest concern, of course, is trying to keep the flow of narrative and action going well enough that any younger reader isn't going to feel bored by too many talking heads.
Sigh...if only writing for young people were as easy as writing for old ones...
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