Guest Blog- Heather Terrell

So my computer has been down for a couple of days.  I had no hard drive space left all of a sudden and it wouldn't let me delete anything.  It kept saying I didn't have enough space to do that (then how was I supposed to be able to get space??)  I finally got things working again.  I was supposed to post this yesterday, so I apologize for the delay.

I am honored to have Heather Terrell, author of Fallen Angel, writing a guest post for my blog!

Since you have written several adult books, how was writing a YA book similar/different from writing an adult book?

I explore similar themes in both my adult and young adult fiction – resolving unanswered historical mysteries and the truths lurking in legend and lore. Given that – and given that I know my young adult readers are every bit as intelligent, inquisitive, and imaginative as my adult readers – I try to write my stories the same way. That said, writing young adult fiction does present its own unique challenges.

One of the major difficulties I faced in shifting from the historical, adult realm to the young adult world was to make sure that my characters ring true to the readers. I tried to be so careful that the characters’ dialogue, their relationships, their concerns, the setting, and even the characters’ clothes seem authentic. After all, it’s been a few years since I was a teenager, and the world I inhabited as a teenager was a little different than the one young adult inhabit today.

Now, I had faced some issues in the character authenticity realm with my earlier books. In The Chrysalis, I wrote in the voice of seventeenth-century Dutch painter. In The Map Thief, I wrote in the voice of a fifteenth-century Chinese eunuch. And in Brigid of Kildare, I wrote in the voice of a fifth-century Irish nun.

But there aren’t any seventeenth-century Dutch painters, fifteenth-century Chinese eunuchs, or fifth-century Irish nuns reading my books. And hopefully, there will be young adults reading Fallen Angel. I hope I got it right!

I think you did, Heather!  Thanks for blogging on my site!