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Writing for Young Adults

Malorie Blackman

Writing for Young Adults

Write inspirational fiction with the former Children's Laureate and author of Noughts & Crosses.

This course includes:

4 hours

26 lessons

29 exercises

New price $53.40 $89 / $53.40
Voucher code applied: FESTIVE24
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What you'll learn

Join Malorie as she shares the fundamentals of fantastic fiction, so you can turn your idea into a finished story, ready to be sent out to agents and publishers.

  • Plot out your chapters
  • Create character biographies
  • Write great dialogue
  • Understand your audience
  • Pitch to agents and publishers
  • Finish your novel manuscript

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Malorie Blackman OBE is a literary icon. A prolific Young Adult author, in the last 30 years she’s written over 70 books, won over 20 awards, served as the Children’s Laureate and been a prominent campaigner for diversity in children’s literature. Her acclaimed YA novel Noughts & Crosses has found its way onto BBC television, the school syllabus and has been named by Stormzy as his favourite book. When it comes to penning your novel, you’re in the safest of hands.

Course preview

Lesson plan (26)

  1. 01

    Writing for Young Adults Introduction

    03:34

  2. 02

    Process

    09:03

  3. 03

    Influences

    07:07

  4. 04

    Where do ideas come from?

    09:16

  5. 05

    Theme

    06:49

  6. 06

    Story vs plot

    10:17

  7. 07

    Genre

    10:22

  8. 08

    Story structure: part one

    09:58

  9. 09

    Story structure: part two

    08:56

  10. 10

    Story structure: part three

    13:20

  11. 11

    Character & characterisation

    14:01

  12. 12

    Character informs plot or plot informs character?

    11:11

  13. 13

    A writer’s relationship with their characters

    07:10

  14. 14

    Protagonists, antagonists & antiheroes

    06:52

  15. 15

    Tools for conveying characters

    12:47

  16. 16

    Dialogue as function

    09:04

  17. 17

    Dialect, big words, bad language & everyday slang

    09:03

  18. 18

    Style, setting & substance

    16:06

  19. 19

    Representation

    13:46

  20. 20

    Tense & viewpoint

    08:06

  21. 21

    Narrative forms

    08:27

  22. 22

    The craft and art of writing

    09:29

  23. 23

    Dealing with writer's block

    08:01

  24. 24

    The business of writing, part one: before publication

    11:53

  25. 25

    The business of writing, part two: after publication

    14:24

  26. 26

    Malorie's conclusion

    00:58

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