As we celebrate International Women's Day, it's important to recognize the diverse experiences of teenage girls. Writing teen girl characters can be a challenge as it's essential to avoid harmful stereotypes and clichés while accurately portraying their personalities, motivations, and struggles. As a writer who has primarily just written teen girl characters, I have a lot of advice. So I compiled a list of my best tips to help you create realistic and relatable characters that resonate with your readers on a deeper level. So, let's dive in and explore some tips on writing realistic teen girl characters.
Avoid Clichés
Avoiding clichés when writing teen girl characters is essential because it helps make sure your characters are realistic and relatable. Plus, it ensures that you aren't perpetrating harmful stereotypes or misinformation. Clichés often rely on superficial stereotypes that aren't realistic, as a result by using clichés you may be reducing your characters to one-dimensional cartoons. For example, portraying a teen girl as being obsessed with shopping or gossip perpetuates information that isn't truthful. This harmful stereotype fails to capture the diverse range of interests and experiences that real teenage girls have. Instead of relying on the use of clichés, you can delve into the nuances of the personalities, motivations, and struggles of your teen girl characters. Ultimately, this will allow you to create more realistic and compelling characters that resonate with your readers on a deeper level. By crafting characters that defy clichés, you can challenge traditional notions and offer a fresh perspective on the diversity of teenage girls.
Make Them Diverse
Connecting to the previous point, it is critical that you make the teen girl characters in your story distinct. Most adult writers fail to portray teen girls as being diverse, rather they tend to rely on stereotypes or generalize their experiences. While some teen girls do fall in line with certain stereotypes, it's still important to remember that these stereotypes don't define all teen girls. To avoid this, you must give each of your teen girl characters their unique voices, personalities, and backgrounds. For example, instead of depicting all teen girls as just being interested in fashion, consider creating characters with a range of interests, goals, and struggles. One of the girls might be passionate about science fiction and dreams of becoming an astronaut, while another might be an amazing swimmer, but struggle with academic pressure. By crafting these distinct personalities and narratives for each of your characters, you not only avoid stereotypes but you also create a richer and more authentic representation of teen girls.
Don't Make Them Dumb
One of the main stereotypes surrounding teen girls is that they aren't smart. But this idea is far from the truth. While a teen's brain isn't as developed as an adult's, that doesn't mean that they should be depicted as being dumb or stupid. When writing teen girl characters, make sure that you are not portraying them as being brainless. Just because your teen girl characters may make mistakes doesn't mean that they aren't smart! Teens are much more intelligent than they are given credit for. As you outline your teen girl characters, make sure that you balance what they don't know with what they do know. To do this, consider giving your characters hobbies and skills that they are intelligent in. Whether it is gymnastics, basketball, or chemistry, giving your teen girls passionate hobbies that they are visibly good at will add layers to your story and make it three-dimensional. Illustrating these strengths will highlight their abilities and show their intelligence.
Embrace Insecurities + Inner Conflict
Everyone experiences inner conflict, but inner conflict and insecurities are especially prevalent in teenagers. The hormonal changes that occur during puberty lead most teens to feel high levels of uncertainty and insecurity. But while these feelings may be difficult to understand, let alone write about, don't shy away from them! Internal conflict is essential when writing about teen girls because it is relatable and can help your readers feel seen. If you are writing about teen girl characters, make sure you include their inner conflict. Embracing the teen's inner conflict will make your characters realistic and authentic for readers. Teens want to feel accurately represented in the books they read and showcasing inner conflict is a great way to add realism. Plus, inner conflict can provide a bundle of interesting plot points. There is no one insecurity that every young girl faces, but some common things that teen girls may be insecure about are friendships, romantic relationships, physical appearance, schoolwork, and social media. As you write about teen girl characters make sure you include some type of internal conflict.
Don't Rely Just on Slang
Relying solely on slang when writing teen girl characters can be problematic because it can quickly become outdated, plus it can also reinforce stereotypes. While incorporating some slang can add authenticity to your dialogue, overusing it can make the writing feel forced and unrealistic. For example, if a teen girl character starts every sentence with slang terms like "OMG" or "totes," it may distract from the story and make the characters seem shallow or caricatured. Additionally, not all teen girls use the same slang, so it's important to consider factors such as region, culture, and social circle when deciding which terms to include. Instead, focus on capturing the overall tone and mannerisms of teenage speech while also using a mix of language that reflects the character's personality and background.
Consider Their Schedule
School and busy schedules are two of the main things that writers often forget about when writing teen characters. Teens are busy, however, most adult writers often overlook the demands of high school, extracurricular activities, part-time jobs, and other responsibilities. But teen readers will notice the absence of these elements in your story, which is why it is so crucial to depict a realistic, busy teen. Ignoring the busy schedules teens often face can make your characters feel unrealistic and disconnected from the everyday experiences of teens. For instance, a realistic portrayal might show a teen girl juggling homework, sports practice, and a part-time job, all while trying to maintain relationships with friends and family. By incorporating these elements into your story, you can create a more relatable and authentic image of a teen's life. So when you are crafting your teen girl characters, take a moment to consider what their schedule looks like. Schedules look different for all teens with some teen girls doing only one extracurricular and other teen girls trying to balance a million things at once. Ask yourself, does this character play a sport? Play an instrument? Do they have any after-school responsibilities? How much time do they spend doing homework? In the end, plotting out a schedule for your teen girl characters will make your piece much more realistic.
Explore Social Dynamics
Social dynamics are another central aspect of being a teen. Social dynamics can include things like peer pressure, social hierarchies, and cliques, which all have a significant impact on teen girls. By examining these dynamics, you can create characters that reflect the complexities and nuances of teenage life, which can help readers better understand and empathize with the experiences of young girls.
Determine Their Morning Routine
Relating to the previous tip, you should also take a moment to determine the morning routines of your teen girl characters. There is a trend in media to showcase teen girls as always being fashion and appearance-focused in the morning, but in reality, each teen girl's routine can vary widely based on her personality, interests, and daily schedule. For instance, one of your characters might prioritize comfort and functionality, throwing on jeans and a T-shirt before rushing out the door for school. Another character might spend hours experimenting with their makeup and styling her hair with bows and butterfly clips. Overall, when writing about teen girls make sure you understand their morning (fashion) routine because it adds depth and realism, allowing readers to connect with them on a more personal level. Plus, exploring the morning routines of your teen girl characters lets you delve into their inner thoughts, motivations, and insecurities. For example, a character who meticulously applies makeup may be seeking validation. Or a character who dyes their hair a different color each week may love to be creative. Click on the link below for more tips on how to describe the physical appearance of each character!
Incorporate Major Milestones
When writing from the perspective of a teen girl, make sure they think about all of the milestones that occur during their teenage years. There are a lot of milestones that you celebrate as a teen, some being: birthdays, first jobs, graduations, and driving tests. For your fictional teen girl characters to feel authentic make sure that they are often anticipating the future. Your teen character should have some milestone or goal that they are looking forward to. This goal could be as simple as obtaining an object, but it could be more complex. Some examples of milestones/goals are graduation, a new responsibility, advanced learning, and moving to a new location.
Allow Them to Grow
Part of being a teen girl is maturing and growing up. As a teen, you are in a state of transition from being a child to being an adult, and this adds up to a lot of growth. Of course, there is physical growth at this time, but there is also a lot of emotional growth. Like humans, your teen characters should evolve and grow as the story progresses. If your characters don't grow, readers may become bored.
From graduating high school to crushes to learning how to drive, there are a lot of fun elements of being a teen, and teen readers enjoy seeing these elements portrayed realistically in books. Plus, readers love seeing teen girls depicted authentically in writing. This is why it is so important that you craft teen girl characters that are 3D and relatable. Thankfully, even though writing teenage characters is complicated, it isn't impossible. If you are writing a young adult novel or about teenage characters, these tips are sure to help. Even though writing teenage characters is complicated, it isn't impossible. Happy International Women's Day!
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