I would add also to consider the teenager’s cultural background. For an American teen, fitting in with your peers is the main source of anxiety, while Asian teens might feel the pressure to live up to their family’s expectations. While teenagers of immigrant families might find themselves struggling between their family’s values and the ones of their new home

Currently writing a book around a teenager and the most interesting thing I’ve come to learn is the depictions of them acting in extremes are sometimes valid. Not because they’re dramatic, but because they’re experiencing so many things for the first time.

"The goal is to make them less of a type and more of an individual."

Talking with my teenager is almost like speaking with an adult. Then she'll have an argument with her sisters and it sounds like she's 5.🙄

I’ll be honest, I identified more with stories that weren’t putting sexuality and popularity front and center as a teen. I’m not even ace, but that stuff wasn’t a big part of my life at the time. I wasn’t interested in many people romantically, I had other priorities, and I didn’t care about drama. I had different friends from different cliques, so managing isolation more than anything else was my experience rather than doing stupid stuff or experimenting with relationships.

As a teenager, I would like to note that most of these apply more to teenagers in the 16-18 age range. If you're writing a younger teen, while some of these tips still apply, it's perfectly okay to write them similarly to a younger child, just one that is going through puberty! Not much changes when a kid turns 13.

As a teenager who's 16, one of the most annoying ways people don't seem to understand is putting us in a wrong light is by writing us to be one dimensional. In American media, they always depict teens as "rude, disrespectful, loud, brashy and heartless". Most of the times when they write a teenager having an argument with an adult, they always try to make the adult look like the logical and right person while the teen is always wrong. And they always write teenagers hobbies to only be "partying, hooking up, drugs, alcohol and so on" and those who don't do it are seen as nerds or losers. Not to mention the stupid stereotypes. If you're a nerd, you must always wear glasses, braces and wear blouses, if you're a jock or a popular girl, you must wear the latest fashion, no glasses, be bossy and do poorly academically. It goes to a point that half of the teachers in our school believe that's how we all are like. They don't understand that we're not all the same. So thank you for this video. Though they're some parts I disagree with, bookwriters and even show directors need to see this video before writing their teenage characters. Feel free to correct me with whatever I said.
Edit: MAMA! PAPA! I GOT 80 LIKES FOR A COMMENT!
In all seriousness, thank you so much, everyone. Wasn't expecting much likes. Kisses to all.❤❤❤

THANK YOU!!! A big thing teens struggle with is feeling seen, and when the media depicts them as phone addicted, self-absorbed, one sided, rebellious children it really does not help. Most teens are trying to figure out who they are, what they think is right, and how they fit into the world. A big problem I see is that they only depict surface level struggles, like make up, dating, drama, an things like that. And while we do think about those things, it's much deeper. We care about makeup because we want to express ourselves or we want people to like us because there's always the fear of loneliness hung over you. We care about dating and friends because we're trying to figure out how to handle deeper connection with others, how to recognize signs that others could harm us, and how much give and take each relationship requires. All of this is mixed with the crushing weight of getting ready to step into a future we are not prepared and that will determine the rest of our lives. We're trying to get a grasp on current events, our political views and morals, and impending disasters that are about to fall on our shoulders. We are trying to figure out our place in the world, our connection with others, and who we want to be. We are not stereotypical, surface level teens, but people who are becoming self aware and navigating the constant waves of stressful situations being pushed on us.

Something I’ve seen people miss is teens boldly making mistakes obvious to adult and not just being the victim of bullying but bullying others younger sibling parents or teachers who are easygoing and friends who don’t standup for themselves

"...especially if it's been a long time since you've been a teenager."
Man, right from the start he's throwing shade and hitting below the belt.  😆

A small tip related to the topic, don't forget that some people don't confront the important things in their adolescence and can affect their adult life. This can be an interesting consideration for a character.

Ideas to continue this series:

How to write an old person
How to write an assassin
How to write an immortal character and/or
How to write a supernatural character
How to write A PLANT ☘️🔥

As a teen, just don't write teens as that steriotypical pop culture stuff, it makes teens sound annoying, especially female teenagers with "getting in love" and starting to go crazy because of that, especially if she's an oldest sibling, they are the ones most stereotypied, and as a female oldest sibling teen i never saw myself not even once in these kinds of reps, i actually thought them so annoying,
Long comment probably

This may be the exception to the rule, but almost none of the teens in my friend group committed any rebellious acts growing up.  I can think of one outlier, and that was in an unideal family situation.  For the rest of us… I think we had our rebellious phases during earlier childhood and then got over ourselves.  😂

What I remember of my teen years is overworking and being asocial.

My biggest gripe about YA Books is that it feels like every single one has to shove in some 1 dimensional subpar romance subplot. The story could be great but then the MC had to dwell on the cute boy next door for 5 pages. As tedious as I personally find it, I understand that attraction is something you start to experience when you're a teen so naturally it has a place in YA books. When I was a teenager, relationships weren't a high priority so that's probably where my disinterest comes from. I remember joking with my friends that I would write a book with no romantic subplot.

I like to add another point: Don't ever leave out politics. Teenagers, especially the older bunch (16-19) are heavily interested in politics, even if you as a parent don't get to hear or see it. World, country, school, economics. It's less pronounced if there isn't a crisis going on, but trust me, teens (and even kids to some extent) see and feel what's going on and are bothered by it. The angry young man is not a stereotype without reason. And believe me when I say that some of the best and most insightful talks about politics I had within the last two years were between me and teenagers in the age range of 13-16.

Oh, another point: Young teens are fundamentally different in mannerisms and speech from older ones. Around 16 there is an actual break in their behavior, at least that's what I see in my students.

As a teenage girl, my thoughts on this video:


On number 2: One small thing I'd like to add, rebellion doesn't have to be drinking, smoking or being rowdy. For me it's liking cute things, pursuing art instead of sports and having more moral justice. It really depends on the environment of your character, especially their guardians. My mother, for example, wanted me to be more of a tomboy when I was younger, and something I've realized now is that by going in a more cutesy and traditionally feminine direction, I'm rebelling against it. Keep that in mind please, because it annoys me to no end how most teenage characters are written to rebel in this very stereotypical way.

On number 4: Something I'd like to mention about technology is also that we sometimes use it a lot even if we know it causes us mental stress. I, for example, had a time where I would spend most of my day on my phone, but I hated myself for doing that as it made me feel bad and caused a disconnection from real life of sorts. Don't forget about the standards social media gives either. For example, someone's behavior or self-esteem could vary depending on the spaces they're in and what is seen as good and as bad in those spaces. Also, not all teenagers are obsessed with their phones. One of my very close friends only looks on hers once a day to check if she's missed any important messages and that's it. So the whole technology thing is a bit more complex than what it seems like on the surface.

On number 5: I, personally, wouldn't consider myself a sexual person. Might be just me, but I don't really feel sexual desire for people, more like fleeting crushes and thoughts like "oh, they look good" in a non-sexual way. I do like romance and I would say I'm a romantic person, but I wouldn't call it something you HAVE to put into your book. Some of my friends don't really care for that at all, so this really depends on the character you're writing.

On number 7: Yeah, best way to figure that one out is to listen to actual teenagers talk. Also, keep in mind we text differently from how we talk, I use a lot of abbreviations in my texts for example but don't abbreviate a lot when talking to someone in real life. And a note on "formal" and "adult" words; Some teenagers I know, notably the close friend of mine I already mentioned in number four and me myself, use more formal wording. She does it with everyone and in a more serious way (like, not as a joke), while I do it mostly around authority figures and, if around my friends or family, as a joke. By the way, if my English in this isn't too well-versed, then that's because I'm German.

On number 8: And don't forget social pressure from social media or the character themself. I mentioned this before in number four, but social media can really change your behavior, including what you see as norms. So if you, for example, see people do something on social media and notice it's called "cringe" when it's something you do yourself, then that could lead to you becoming self-conscious over that behavior. That is social media-inflicted peer pressure, I suppose.

On number 9: THIS. I'd say this is the one thing everyone needs in a book that has a teenager as a main character/important character. Clothes, music, the food you like, the way your room looks, your hobbies, all that is important when thinking about identity. Something I'd suggest for this outward expression is searching up different aesthetics, like coquette, goth, grunge, etc. EVERY teenager I've met so far, including myself, seems to be striving to have a certain aesthetic or blend of aesthetics as a form of self-expression. And, about identity development; I work on myself constantly, have been through more development and change in the past year than I could tell you (literally gone from wanting to off myself to loving life) and it feels like I'm a new person every day, even though I'm still me.


Thank you for reading all this, I hope offering my perspective as the age demographic you're maybe trying to write helped! Good luck with your story <3

Good video. I’d say what can help make a rebellious teen work is figuring out the source of it and have it be for sympathetic reasons. Into the spider verse does this well with Miles. His rebellion comes from not believing he will fit into his new school, despite being a genius and surrounded by them and wanting to live a carefree life. The model being his uncle Aaron.

And his father is framed as someone who is tough but genuinely cares about him.

It’s why his arc of becoming spider man works because the coming of age is having him take a leap of faith in trusting himself and believing in himself. That he is worth it.

Teenagers, and young adults, do a lot of things because they "seem" adult, or because that's something an adult "would" do. Drinking coffee and alcohol are two common ones. The realisation that being an adult means you can be childish if you want is one signifier of becoming truly mature as an adult.

For teenage language, I bring two examples. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Dawson's Creek. Buffy (and especially that character) had them talk in a way that isn't how teenagers actually talk, but makes for a good idea of how they talk. In particular using simpler words in improvised forms, using them as nouns, verbs, or adjectives even if it's technically improper, when they can't think of the exact words they want to relay, and missing metaphors, and stuff like that. Meanwhile, Dawson's Creek had the teenagers wax philosophical statements with complex words and sentence structures to the absurdity. Funny, but not realistic.