Craft Articles
Join us in exploring others’ craft and building our own.
Here you will find explorations of mentor texts – articles that dive into specific craft elements in published books, interviews with authors, and tips on growing and improving as a writer.
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Tirzah Price: Don’t Stop Challenging Yourself
Keep writing the next book, and don't stop challenging yourself! When you're a new author, there's so many fun "firsts" and great experiences that come with being published and you should definitely enjoy them! But it's important to remember why we write in the first place and to challenge yourself creatively along the way.
Writing Engaging Young Adult Mysteries That Tackle Emotional Health Issues
“Mysteries are natural places to explore issues of emotional health, because the behavior of people who harm others can generally be traced back to their own emotional problems and issues, and of course their actions have a huge impact on the protagonists of our stories.”
Playing with Romantic Tropes in YA: Love and Other Natural Disasters by Misa Sugiura
Sugiura uses a combination of tropes to effectively push the romance forward while simultaneously creating seemingly insurmountable obstacles.
Striving for Unfiltered Vulnerability: A Q&A with Misa Sugiura
"I create my characters’ flaws, misconceptions, and spiritual wounds around a theme or a question that interests me, and then I give them a personal conflict that directly challenges those flaws, misconceptions, and wounds. After that, it’s a matter of developing broader challenges, events, relationships, and conflicts that can revolve around the same theme." ~ Misa Sugiura