I want to be a total sellout who writes a best selling YA trilogy that gets adapted into a moderately successful movie...

I want to be a total sellout who writes a best selling YA trilogy that gets adapted into a moderately successful movie series. What do I need besides the post-apocalypse, a teenage girl in love with two hot guys, and hoverships?

A bad white old straight guy as the bad guy, but he is actually the good guy

You need to buy lottery tickets because your chances of making money that way is about the same.
Given that you're so dumb you not only need help writing it, but think it's a good idea, the lottery ticket is probably a better bet because you're going to suck

No no no, take an old form of genre fiction and make it for teenage girls. It's basically chaste porn parody. Twilight was vampires, Hunger Games and all it's rip-offs were Boomer era Sci-Fi, just find the next thing, like pirates or Cold War spy stories.

>Muslim female lead
>POC and wh*te male duo to complete the love triangle
>POC man wins her love, wh*te man cucked
>POC man is actually transgender FtM bisexual demigirl
>Muslim female is okay with it and everybody lives happily ever after
>Until Book 2

Nice, but young female spies and pirates have both been done. OP needs to go even further to really influence pop culture.
I'm no expert in YA, but surely a young medic addictologist in a high-functioning druggie society could work. Or another rehash of Greek myths, like a Young Medusa series or something. That could sell, I think?

why not make the girl bisexual too?
she is "well-read", "introverted but not shy", a whore who always sees herself as morally righteous, and yes, you can narrate from the protagonist's POV to give the impression of her righteousness to your readers, too!
Your grilley is basically very insecure, but performs astoundingly well outside, and she is aware of that, as well as everybody else, who praise her
2 or 3 "deep" quotes repeated ad nauseam and references brought to the doorstep (preferably from other ya novels) which stand in total contrast to what led to the downfall of humanity
add in for the lulz, the mbti meme sprinkled with a bit of jung quotes about how important is the subject in contrast to the object, the interior to the exterior, blah blah
add in some drugs too, the protagonist likes them but isn't addicted, or even if she gets addicted towards the end she will be rescued from OD by the bigger and better chad (who is a werewolf btw)
oh and her best friend, her confident and stuff like that, yea, she is a wannabe chosen one (but then again, who can blame her, everybody wants to be the chosen one!) you can choose whether or not she wants to trait the protagonist and reveal her true colors(no way! she is actually a werewolf too!!!!11!!), or have a fight with the protagonist which ends in her impeaching with the reality that she will never be the chosen one and a refound loyalty
i dont read ya AT ALL as u could prolly tell, this shitpost is a fantasy of my bored mind and i enjoyed writing it, but the main idea behind it, if you want to sell, is to portray the main grill as the ideal image of a woman, and if possible, to tie every distinctive characteristic of her to things that women do every day, basic thoughts they have, and show how distinctive, how unique they are!
in short, you have to flatter your reader
gl user

Hero's journey targeted to young males.
Masculine adventure, female damsel, wise sage, etc.
Go to DeviantArt and commission someone to do a cover for your book, make sure their art is popular.
Write a list of titles for the book every day for a week. At the end of the week do compare one name to another, eliminate the less likable one, repeat.

being good isn't what sells books, 50 shades and twilight have completely fanfic level prose. Harry Potter actually looks good by comparison, and I'm not even rose tinting it because I hated those books when I was a kid.

hunger games was the most boring shit i ever read too, wanted to off myself after 50 pages. the formula

1. take an ancient myth that 89iqers aren't familiar with due to the sorry state of classics education (Hunger games used the story of the Minotaur for example)
2. strip out any complex characters and replace them with a sue protagonist and some easier to understand characters, make sure everyone has either a clear and simple motivation, or a clear character defining trait
3. take out any allegory or other high level literary techniques. Replace them with a couple of reasonably well designed plot holes. Plot holes are essential for fan theorization which spurs discussion and helps to build a community/fanbase, allegory simply won't be picked up by the few remaining young readers.
4. sell out your boipucci to the correct people to shill for your piece of shit.

young males are a dead demographic when it comes to reading my friend.

A vagina.

Go for it bro, I believe in you

>why not make the girl bisexual too?
That would be kind of gay desu

I don't know about the details, but so long as you have an eccentric Douglas Adams story character, like Ford Prefect or a doctor from Dr. Who, or something like Sherlock, basically any quirky British guy who thinks like 3 steps ahead and hardly romances the female lead, you will secure an entire slick-pantied shy teen girl demographic to defend your awful characters and abysmal plot until they draw their last pubescent breath

Don't do this. It would take off and the last thing we need is young adult movies based off of Greek legends.

1 and 2 definitely.
This character is “the funny guy”, this is “the drama queen”, this guy has “no dad”.
Come to think of it, these books read like cartoons. I’d probably like them as cartoons more.

If you manage to chuck in some criticism of society, such as the classic dystopian society or oh so mindless TV phone people, it could pass as required reading in middle school.

Some element of rebellion. This is why YA readers love dystopian fiction, it's intrinsically rebellious and teens are all about that shit.

You need at least a level of competence (just going ahead and doing it) to enter that lottery and OP clearly lacks it.

you need a new system of magic that is not obviously based on any of the existing forms, like, oh, i don't know, she can cast energy beams if she brushes her hair or something. the girls with the longest hair are the most powerful, and the outcasts from this magic society are shaved bald.

that's so the female lead can tease him, but is never threatened by the need to actually fuck him.

>If you manage to chuck in some criticism of society, such as the classic dystopian society or oh so mindless TV phone people, it could pass as required reading in middle school.
or just use the enemy faction as a blatant representation of trump supporters, it's what's cool nowadays

What if I write a book about a hikikomori and what she gets up to in her room and she's oh so quirky and cute just like you, the reader:3

Make her unwittingly become the leader of a revolution against a one dimensional totalitarian society while meeting witty and colorful secondary characters who don't really matter along the way. Make only her and main characters directly connected to her such as love interests and family solve all problems that exist in the society and story. Make a bunch of the B plots relating to her past and her missing fathers mysterious history working with the government and/or revolution which eventually lead to a big and unexpected if completely illogical plot twist. In every challenge you have her face make sure she finds an innovative solution that is kind of obvious in retrospect but that everyone else is too narrow minded or cowardly to notice or attempt, showing that she has a personal worth not limited by her only slightly above par intelligence.

Make sure each book you write ends on a big cliffhanger and add lots of wish fulfillment too! She has to get some form of revenge on everyone who slights or doubts her but make it indirect or accidental so the audience doesn't miss the obvious lack of realism. Also compliments, every scene that isn't action has to be a personal talk about your characters feelings and her relationship with the other less-important characters to show the deep internal she's suffering from being put under so much pressure. Make sure to give her a special weapon or pet or talking object that only works for her and becomes a staple to the series.

There's honestly way more bullshit you can do here people talk about that divergent crap and ready player one being great series you could basically shit on the pages and people would buy it as long as it made them feel good.

>like a Young Medusa series or something
while other user is right, greek legends HAVE been done to death, but a young Medusa would be very interesting, since modern consensus seems to agree that being turned into a monster was a political move by Athena to give a rape victim the means to protect herself on the down-low.

That's some pretty dicey stuff, but could be pretty amazing if done right. And if you end the story with her being beheaded, despite being the good guy? Holy shit, you'd be a hero.

Remember, if you can't think of a satisfactory ending that wraps up your supporting cast's various plot threads and personal motivations, you can always have Rocks Fall and Everyone Die except the protag who gets over it pretty quick because its the last book.

>Hunger Games actually did this and nobody said anything negative about it on release of the 3rd book.

>Rocks Fall and Everyone Die except the protag who gets over it pretty quick because its the last book.
How to make me hate a book series in ten pages or less.
This is why I never read past the first book in a series. Fuck you. If I liked the first one, I'm not going to let you fuck this up for me, author.

I don't mind if everyone dies as long as that death had purpose besides "gotta be dark and sad because last book".

I suppose. I'm not saying don't kill people at all, but I think that if everyone survives the book, then it's almost impossible to cram multiple deaths into the last few pages without it being incredibly contrived.
As far as I can remember, the last medium that did it well was Rogue One, and I can't think of a single book (although I do compulsively avoid sad stuff, so it would HAVE to be contrived for me to come across it).

>Rogue One
It makes sense there because it's a war, People die all the time so it's perfectly believable. It's also required for story reasons to hand wave why none of these people are around later in the franchise.

You aren't going to. Just save yourself the time.

Exactly. That they were all going to die was implied from the beginning (although I missed it, because I was one of those dipshits that thought it was the sequel to TFA) and about halfway through it became explicitly clear. The whole story was working up to their deaths, which was the culmination of their success and their struggles.

>while other user is right, greek legends HAVE been done to death, but a young Medusa would be very interesting, since modern consensus seems to agree that being turned into a monster was a political move by Athena to give a rape victim the means to protect herself on the down-low.

thank you for this

Thanks for developing the idea.
Yeah, come to think of it, that could be a Greek rehash with some actual substance in it.

C-can we have a new genre called "old-adult", where the main character is an old man who saves the world for his ugly waifu (bonus point if she is dead) even though everybody hates his guts.

Uh, we do, it's called "Jack Reacher" and "Anything by Tom Clancy"

The YA fad has passed for the most part

What do you think the next fad's going to be?

A resurgence of supernatural fiction with the werewolves and vampires goring shit to death again. Probably throw in some "ethnic" monsters too. Wendigos, that kind of shit.

Well that's the million dollar question is it not? You either stay alert to be the second or third of the next fad or identify it yourself.

If you want a theory (a guess), I'd say something with actually darker archetypes ("this is so Black Mirror") and a "really makes you think" twist to it might be where we are headed.

With millennials reaching the age of boomers when boomers "went boom" and realizing that their life sucks more than that of their parents at the same age, it's probably a time where stories dealing with actual grief while still being light enough will make the cut.

>t's probably a time where stories dealing with actual grief while still being light enough will make the cut.

This, but soon I'll bet we'll get a large influx of books about gender issues that are actually decent, and not just watered down cash grabs or from super small indie publication houses.

>Black mirror
Interesting that you point this out. I think you might be on to something, but I see Black Mirror having a larger effect on how TV shows operate. We'll get more of these "one story per episode" types like Electric Dreams or Black Mirror. I doubt that the bandwagoneers will be able to adapt to the dystopian visions of Black Mirror and the dystopia genre is much saturated at the moment.

Maybe. A lot of those sorts of books are written by total fucking idiots so maybe a talent injection will get it off the ground especially as more millennials enter the market. I also predict more WE WUZ shit in the coming years.

>especially as more millennials enter the market
millennials are closing in on 40

Whatever the fuck you'd call someone born in the 90s and early 2000s then.

he means gen z

be jewish or marry someone who is jewish

Most likely you'll run out of steam halfway through. Having the ability to pad while keeping things interesting is hard. Furthermore, one-shot bestsellers are the lucky ones, but the true bestsellers are those who can stitch together plots quickly and make multiple releases in a single year - like your Stephen Kings or Jeffrey Archers.

You won't make it unless you stick to a plan of writing King's standard 2k words a day.

The last book being that sort of thing made me glad I quit Animorphs fairly early on. Pendragon I also bailed on.

What's wrong with power fantasies?

Already working on it.
Just started chapter seven yesterday.

...

can't wait

I’m psyched about writing it. The ending leaves it open to be a trilogy (of course) and I’ve already planned it all out.
The teenagers and their bourbon and ecstasy fueled orgy in the family mausoleum has been the most exciting scene so far but there’s till lots to do.

actually sounds pretty rad.

I myself have a couple books lined up myself:
A horror comedy epic
a bizzaro western
and a YA that was inspired by Howl's Moving Castle, which is tonally completely different from my normal writing. Something soft and comfy.

I'd read it

You are really making me want to write some ultra pulpy ya fiction.
I'm thinking something sci-fi, but with a bit of an edgy existentialist bent. possibly an escaped clone living a slum and her search for meaning, while avoiding capture by the evil corporation that owns her. Lots of travel for sure, people love that shit. shes all awkward and autistic form being raised in a lab but her weirdness is endearing as she travels in space and meets exciting new exotic cultures on mars and space stations. Im getting The Expanse vibes here, reel in some of that cultural diversity thats so popular now. Mix it in with some John Green tier teen angst about knowing who you are. Perhaps she has a chip in her head that links her with a super AI thats makes her exceptional at something like flying spaceships or hacking. i think they fall in love through their brain link and she uses her link to stop the AI killing everyone becauses shes so humble and can control a godlike being through her feminine pure heart.

I'm digging it but you'll probably be tempted to make it deeper than it needs to be, remember that shallow=accessible.

everything is going to very surface level. Even the bits where it ventures 'deep and meaningful' will be banal platitudes.

Write that shit!

Write that shit!

What the fuck, that image is retarded on so many levels. Trigger discipline??? A fucking carabineer??? No vest??? Shitty makeup??? Why??? Fuck you

God bless, user. I hope you write such utter schlock it makes me boil in 15 years time when it's turned into a hit hollywood trilogy and has my daughters pester me to take them to see it.

Gaskun already did it.

a theory is not a guess

Or is it?

I've always wanted to write a generic dystopian YA series, but then go completely off the rails in the third book. Just fill it with crazy Pynchon type shit.

I have two ideas for a YA novel

one is generic and similar to something I wrote before but the characters fit and I actually have an idea of how to write it. Also I want to write it more
>boy goes looking for his father after his mentally ill mother dies
>slowly pieces together that his father was an eldritch abomination who disguised himself as a bake-off judge and then raped his mother into insanity because her pumpkin pie recipe made her worthy to bear his scion
>the only supernatural power he has as a result is the ability to create garlic
>this actually proves useful since this setting has vampires


the other is an original idea both to me and YA in general, but the characters don't fit right and I need to do a lot of fucking thinking it get it to work right.
>a boy and a girl get on the subway one night but due to unannounced complications their train gets rerouted into another dimension and then goes out of service, forcing them to go on a journey on foot to get back to reality
>the boy soon finds out he's the chosen one but he cannot give less of a fuck
>the girl finds out she's the only one who can navigate this weird dimension and cannot give more of a fuck

What do I go with?

First one sounds absolutely absurd
Do that one, I'd read it

Mix it up by doing femslash with a crypto-ethnonationalist plot.

>gay famgirl lives /comfy/ with gf in rural Europe

>muzzies kidnap gf

>quest to bring her back

>leads her people to freedom and becomes neocam queen of neo-Germanian Imperium

>no vampiric femslash

Dropped.

Wait, Rocks Fell and Everyone Died in Animorphs?

What in fuck's name?

I'll always regret not jumping on the animorphs train when I had the chance, but I wouldn't be surprised.
Animorphs is notorious for being fucked up.

Like, half of it is legitimate, unfiltered gore.

Unironically already done as a stageplay

>people talking about star wars on Veeky Forums
>people talking about NEW star wars on Veeky Forums
>people talking about how they LIKE new star wars and its "COMPETENT WRITING" on Veeky Forums

I say this with complete sincerity : the world would be a better place if you were dead.

Resurgence of horror/pulp as serialized installments. It fills the niche for flash fiction, tells a complete story, turns a genre into postmodern masturbatory fuel, and keeps people hooked.

shut the fuck up

Would it help if I told you the vampire uses mind control to make the “Lucy” of the story have sex with the MC so that she can feel it and then the Lucy girl comes apart at the seams and thinks she’s been raped because she doesn’t remember it?

This is Lucy

He's right though.

I found a scribd document - is that what you meant?
Because if yes, we still have a chance.

you cant sell out unless you were worth something to begin with

First one unless you have more ideas about the characters. "Doesn't give a fuck" doesn't tell us much

FEMALE
SHERLOCK
HOLMES

They're doing it. Lady Sherlock, or something.
God fuck, I hope they're not remaking Moffatt's late term abortion.

10/10 would read

lol wut about evolution tho trolololol

this triggered my fight or flight response

YA literature is literally television in book form. Why do you think that all of the 'nerd culture' consumers who spend all day watching rick and morty also love YA shit into middle age?

You know that second one kinda reminds me of a manga I once read where they are all on a subway and something crazy happens and nearly everyone dies except like 2 guys and a girl. The one guy slowly starts to go insane as the other guy and the girl start to form a relationship and soon hes trying to hunt and kill them and he painted his face.

It's gonna be schlocky space fantasy masquerading as thoughtful sci-fi.

The insane popularity of the new Star Wars movies are normalizing media more towards space fantasy and YA will just be the dystopian formula but in space.

the kids need to be divided up into houses/clans/classes

Like a YA version of Blade Runner or something, with a Special Girl teaching a replicant programmed to be SEXY how to love.

Also an evil corporation I guess

I meant rewrite all the stories with Shirley Holmes
Or we could kick it up a notch, Shirlequa Holmes, WOC detective, only speaks in ebonics and solves the mysteries of oppression

P K Dick influencing teenage culture could be interesting.
But who am I kidding, anything of value in sci-fi and cyberpunk will just be reduced to fads.

Or elements, everybody loves the warrior of fire, protector of wind shit.
Teenagers are all about identification, and giving them some groups to identify with really gets to them.
Ideally the book could be written from different points of view to further the “X is my fav character” effect.

I'd read it but I'd prefer it just stick comfy and gay rural lesbian life

The answer to that mystery is always yt

Epilogue my nig. Like that Roman dictator that went back to farming.

That's what the kids like these days desu

False: you have to TELL them what they like.

Jewish connections.