Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards is designed to honor the year’s best children’s books, authors and illustrators in North America. Teen author Jacob Parker’s Kestrel’s Midnight Song won a bronze medal this year! Congrats, Jacob! We at Novel Teen are so excited and proud of Jacob. If you haven’t had a chance to pick up Kestrel’s… Continue Reading
Heading Home by Renée Riva
Review by Jill Williamson After eight years in Italy, A.J. is coming back to Indian Island, Idaho. She can’t wait to see her dog Sailor and her old friend Danny. Sailor acts as if nothing has changed, but Danny—oooh. He’s grown up into a six-foot-tall real-life cowboy. He seems interested in A.J., but she has… Continue Reading
Try Dying by James Scott Bell
Review by Jill Williamson Lawyer Ty Buchanan is working on a high profile case when his fiancé is killed. The cops say it was a freak accident, but some strange occurrences lead Ty to believe she was murdered. As Ty investigates, his life falls apart. He trusts no one but an outcast priest and a… Continue Reading
First Draft of Book Three is Done… 168,000 words! Yikes!
After a long summer of writing, attending writer’s conferences, going to camps, and then more writing, I have finally finished my first draft of book three! Praise God! What a relief! But… it’s very long. 168,000 words! That’s as long as book two was. “Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness!” (Movie quote: Tessie from Annie.)… Continue Reading
Describing Characters Through Characters
Describing characters depends on one major detail: who your point of view character is. If you are writing a female, she might point out clothing, share fabric and designer details, and compare herself to the person she’s looking at, where a male POV might just think: She was a chick in a dress. When describing,… Continue Reading
What Is Your Standard?
What do you use as your moral compass? When you make decisions, what is your standard to help you make the right choice? And when you read a book, how do you judge the characters’ choices? When I was thirteen years old, I read Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte for the first time. It became… Continue Reading
Q & A: Any tips on describing characters and scenes?
Stephanie writes to ask: When I’m writing a novel I find it really hard to set the scene and describe characters. It just seems so plain and boring in my description. Any tips on describing characters and scenes? Writing instructors vary on their insistence that setting and characters be described fully. Some say leave it… Continue Reading
Caltrops: The Ideal Weapon
During my research of medieval battle methods, I stumbled upon the caltrop. A caltrop is a weapon with four spikes, crafted so that no matter how it lands, one spike always points upwards. It is easy to make, easy to carry, requires no training to use, requires no maintenance, and can be reused again and… Continue Reading
Solitary by Travis Thrasher
Review by Jill Williamson Chris Buckley moves to Solitary, North Carolina. His mom has divorced his dad and they are on their own, living in a tiny cabin in the woods. That’s a little weird for Chris, having lived in the suburbs of Chicago, but worse is having to make new friends at a school… Continue Reading
Why are you interested in writing?
So ya wanna be a fantasy/scifi writer. I can relate. I’ve read tons of scifi and fantasy. I used to sneak scifi and fantasy novels to the dinner table and read them in my lap while eating, or wolf my food down so I could run back and devour more of the worlds and stories… Continue Reading
Q & A: How to Finish a Story
Samantha says: Hi. I’m not exactly a teenager yet. I’m 12 and I’ve been writing a bunch of stories. Well the problem is every time I get really far into a story, I don’t know how to finish it. Sometimes my chapters are too short also. And when I try to come up with a… Continue Reading
Teenage Authors Q & A: Is My Story Good Enough?
I have attempted to write a novel numerous times but each time I always lose confidence in myself and give up. Writing a novel is something I’ve always wanted to do and I have so many great ideas. The problem is I always get paranoid that my stories are getting boring or that the reader… Continue Reading