Keep a list of title ideas, story ideas and subject matter ideas in a notebook. Make it a point to use your notebook often, jotting down ideas as they come to you. Coming up with novel-length fiction for young adults can be difficult. Make notes regarding current trends popular with your young adult audience and keep track of issues that affect young adults that might make a good story. This will ensure you're always current and have material to consider when you run into a dry writing spell.
Develop main characters young adults can understand. This means primarily keeping the main characters in your young adult novel within the same age bracket as your readers and facing your protagonists with some of the same challenges your readers may face every day. Tackle topics universal to young adults, such as relationships with the opposite sex, moving to new schools, or dealing with peer pressure. Fit these universal topics within the context of various genres, such as horror, mystery, or romance. Since readers of young adult novels generally range from 14 to 18 years old, be careful to keep any romantic or graphic horror appropriate to the age bracket you're targeting with your particular novel.
Write realistic dialogue. Popular phrases and words change often for this age bracket, so keeping up with current trends in dialogue is important. Using outdated language, unless you do it purposely, for a particular reason in your story, can alienate your audience. Since the language and meaning of words changes so frequently for this age group, it's important to spend time in public listening to real young adults when you're working on a new novel.
Don't avoid serious topics, such as sex or other issues you believe may be off limits to your audience. While you should be age appropriate with specific language, you can still address issues of a more adult nature. Treating your young adult audience like children will not win you an audience.
Set a writing goal and sit down every day to meet that goal. To accomplish the process of writing a novel, you need to be consistent about writing. A typical young adult novel, though length can vary, is between 20,000 and 40,000 words. Set a goal of 1,000 words a day, which should be easy to accomplish regardless of your daily schedule. With this goal, you can have a first draft in a month. Give yourself two weeks to polish the draft and you can have a completed novel within two months. Since many young adult novels focus on current trends, writing books at this pace lessens the chance that your story will lose its selling point before you've written it.
Keep your head in the story as you write. This is particularly important for adults writing for young adults. It's helpful if you make a conscious effort to think and feel from the point of view of your characters as you write. Let the characters absorb you. One of the dangers of writing the young adult novel is allowing your adult thought process to dictate the story. Young adults handle situations differently. A broken relationship, for instance, may seem like a more devastating event from a young adult's perspective than from the perspective of someone older, who has learned that relationships end and new ones begin. Think like a young adult and write appropriate to those thought processes.
Think ahead as you write. Can you turn one book into a series. Young adults that read tend to enjoy characters that appear in several books. If you've created a compelling character, consider giving that character an ongoing series. Ongoing series books are popular with the young adult market and can be profitable for writers in the young adult genre.