Young Adult Book: 5 Tips to Write a Great One

Young Adult Book: 5 Tips to Write a Great One

A young adult (YA) book is one of the best sellers in the publishing industry. Young readers are always eager for books that tell their stories, use plain language, and feature characters they recognize.

• Young adult titles sell over 35 million print copies a year.
• With 50% of all book sales, this category is small but growing.
• Most titles are fiction, but nonfiction books have their fans.
• It is the fastest-growing category over the past five years.
• Children’s and young adult books have seen increased sales since 2025.

If you’re interested in writing for this growing category with an active fan base, consider writing a young adult book. These five tips will help you get started.

1. Know What Type of Young Adult Book You Want to Write

Before you start writing blindly, be sure you’ve thought about the theme and direction you want for your young adult book. Get some clarity about the type of book you want to write.

• Choose a target age, which is typically 12 to 18 for a young adult book.
• Focus on a clear genre, like fantasy, romance, mystery, or horror.
• Set a realistic writing schedule you can stick to for three to six months.
• Aim for a total of 50,000 to 60,000 words total.
• Plan to finish in 12 to 18 weeks, which you can achieve by writing 1,000 to 1,500 words a day.

2. Focus on Your Theme for Your Young Adult Book

Once you’ve decided on the genre and age range, it’s time to develop your story. You may have an idea that’s been bubbling around in your head for weeks, complete with opening and closing scenes. Maybe you have a theme you’d like to build a story around, but you don’t have a clearly formed plot. Whatever point you’re at, you will need to develop those ideas into an actionable plan.

What’s Your Young Adult Book About?

Begin by nailing down your theme. What is the overall premise of the book? What is its emotional theme? Is it about first love, loneliness, starting over, or dealing with a chronic illness? Try to write a one-sentence summary that answers the question, “What is your young adult book about?”

Get this done before you start writing. It will guide you as you draft your young adult book and keep you on track. Try this tip: Paste or pin your premise on a piece of paper above your desk to keep you on track. When you notice yourself drifting into irrelevant details, use your premise to refocus.

Create Character Arcs for Your Young Adult Book

Character development is the next necessary step in your young adult book planning. Who is your main character, and what is the goal or mission driving the plot?

In a well-plotted novel, the protagonist undergoes many changes as a result of their experiences. They face obstacles, setbacks, and some positive events as they make their way to the end of the story. In doing so, they learn about themselves. The events of the novel change them. They grow in strength and understanding.

This is known as a positive character arc. Some novels feature characters with negative character arcs, but that type of story may not be right for a young adult book.

The protagonist is the most important character, but don’t neglect the others. You need solidly developed secondary characters, family members, love interests, and others who make up the main character’s circle.

3. Write an Outline

The first thing you must write is an outline. An outline will help you write by giving you a roadmap. Instead of producing random scenes or patches of dialogue, you sit down every day to write the next scene on your map.

Most successful writers use outlines to stay on track. When writing your outline, think about where you want to place what screenwriters call “beats.” These are moments in the story when something happens to change the hero’s course of action. Beats can be positive or negative. They can happen to the main character or a secondary one.

Sketch a summary of your story from start to finish. Sketch a plot that begins with the opening or setting scene, inciting event, escalation, climax, and final resolution. At this stage, you don’t need long, descriptive details. Write out the plot with a focus on what is driving your hero.

4. Set Up a Weekly Writing Schedule

If you are serious about writing a young adult book, you must have a regular writing schedule.

How many words can you write in a day? Most people can fit 1,000 words daily into their schedules. If you have more time or a fast writer, you may be able to knock out 1,500 or 2,000 words a day.

What if you can only crank out 500 words a day? Don’t let it bother you. Some people are slow writers, and others have very little spare time. Words on the page always mean progress. A writer who routinely produces 500 words a day will finish their novel, even if it takes a little more time. Slow and steady wins the race.

Here’s a suggested routine that will get your creative juices flowing while keeping a disciplined approach to your writing.

• Daily warmup (10–15 minutes): Free write from your character’s point of view. Free writing is writing that you do without checking your spelling, editing grammatical mistakes, or even staying on any subject. Just write the words that come to mind. Many professional writers use free writing to break up writer’s block before it starts.
• Focused writing (45–90 minutes): Write new words. Don’t edit your earlier work, and don’t spend time rewriting scenes at this stage. Keep writing. Fill up the page. If it helps, use the Pomodoro method with a 20-minute timer to stay focused.
• Evening review (15–30 minutes): Read yesterday’s pages. Note which sections you think need to be redone. Also, take note of any scenes that might make more sense if they were moved to another part of the story.
• Weekly checking: Choose one day a week to review the outline, track word count, and set next week’s goals.

Stick to this routine, and you’ll see those pages piling up. Your book is going from a vague idea in your head to actual written words on paper. Don’t stop now. When you feel overwhelmed, take a deep breath. Refocus. Tell yourself, “You got this.”

5. Follow This Week-by-Week Breakdown to Writing a Young Adult Book

• Week 1: Focus on developing your idea and your characters, create a one-page premise and character sheets. Set aside about an hour for each of two to three weekly sessions.
• Week 2: Create a plot outline. Include 8 to 12 scene beats and a solid story resolution. Expect to set aside four to five weekly sessions of 30 to 60 minutes each, but some writers can complete this step in just one session.
• Weeks 3-10: Write a first draft of 50,000 to 80,000 words. Aim for 1,000 to 1,500 words a day to hit this goal.
• Week 11: Take a rest from writing. Leave the manuscript alone for several days. At the end of the week, reread the manuscript and think about a big-picture revision. This should take about an hour.
• Week 12: Begin editing. Revise your draft, polish scenes, and make sure all the beats and transitions work. Aim to edit 500 to 1,000 words a day.
• Weeks 13-14: Once the definitive version is complete, begin your publication process. This process will depend on whether you want to publish commercially or self-publish your book.

Write and Print Your Young Adult Book

We hope this article has inspired you to begin writing your YA novel. At Publishing Xpress, we are proud to have worked with many first-time writers who have seen their words transformed into print. If you need help with any part of the printing process, we’re here to help.