Sophie McKenzie: The differences between writing books for adults and for teenagers

The differences between writing books for adults and for teenagers

Sophie McKenzie

I am very much at home writing from a teenage point of view but I love the challenge of adult books too. Essentially I don’t think about the age of the reader as I write; I’m primarily writing for myself.

So what are the differences?

Clearly an adult thriller is more likely (though I’m sure there are exceptions) to have adult main characters and a longer and more complicated plot than a book for younger readers.

Thrillers are essentially escapist reads – though the best of them are thought-provoking too - and my storylines often put ordinary people that readers can hopefully relate to, into extraordinary situations. Because young people are generally less powerful in our culture than adults, I think this means my younger thrillers probably read as slightly more exaggerated than my adult books do. It’s not that the events I describe couldn’t happen, but children have less freedom in real life – and so fewer opportunities to take daring risks and get into the kind of danger described in my books.

There are differences in the writing process too. I found my editor’s response to the first draft of Close My Eyes really interesting. One of her main comments was that I had over-explained certain elements of the story and she wanted me to cut these back. There were many, many places in that first draft where she wrote ‘this is already implied’ in the margin. I guess I was used to spelling things out a little more than she felt was necessary. It was a useful lesson.

Likewise, whereas when I write for teens I try to keep back-story to a minimum, I felt I had a little more leeway to give background on the characters and their relationships in my adult books. Certainly when writing Trust in Me (my second adult thriller, to be published in 2014) I often worried that I was putting in too much background. However, once I’d finished I realized I hadn’t at all, I’d simply included a level of detail in the first draft that had taken me three or four drafts to accomplish with Close My Eyes.

And what remains the same?

I’d say there are more similarities between my adult and teenage thrillers than there are differences. Fundamentally, whatever age group you’re writing for and whichever genre you’re writing in, all that really matters is the story. I try to start all my books with a clear sense of whose story I’m telling and what is driving them. There will always be some goal or need that they have – and plenty of obstacles getting in the way of their achieving it. That is the story and everything must drive the narrative towards telling it. The only real difference is that with an adult book I allow myself a little more time to look at the scenery along the way!