The Typical Teenager?

If you write for teen readers, how do you imagine them? How do they interact with their peers, their parents, other students at school? What do they like to think about, what struggles do they have, what temptations do they face?

My first novel was published in 2017, with a male protagonist who was just shy of 18 years old. The Golden Hour was written in first person so we are in James’ head as he wrestles with uncertainty about how to relate to girls, his sense of being overlooked by his parents in favour of his younger siblings, and ambivalence about his work future. James is keen on graphic art, but his parents don’t value it, so he’s trying to study computing.

One of the few spontaneous reviews the book attracted was by a male reader who declared that James was not like he was as a young man and therefore the character was not credible. Apart from issues of males reading female authors’ work and whether or not I had managed to portray a male believably, I was struck by the assumption that we can know what all male teenagers/female teenagers are like by our own experience.

My adult daughter commented on how many of her friends had been recently tested for autism and/or ADHD. They perhaps had always felt ‘different’ from their peers and decided to find a non-blaming reason for it. My own children always felt ‘different’ too, but put it down to the family having Christian values, or not having grown up with a television. How many young people feel ‘different’? Are they any more different than their peers, or are they simply different from the common narrative we perpetuate in fiction and media of the ‘typical teenager’?

My latest novel, Evernow, has several characters who are atypical according to that narrative. Emilia is a ‘good girl’ and model student; her boyfriend Doran willingly stays within the boundaries set by Emilia’s strict mother; and Doran’s brother Bailey is an emotionally intelligent 15 year old. In an early version of the novel, a friend commented that no reader would believe Emilia’s lack of sexual temptation when alone with Doran. That may have been my friend’s experience as a teenager, but Emilia represented mine. My characters face all sorts of challenges and temptations but they are not necessarily the ones of  the imaginary ‘typical teenager’.

Teenagers struggle with as wide a range of issues as anyone else. They have in common the developmental and social challenges of moving between childhood and adulthood. But how that plays out will be influenced by a wide range of family, community, educational, spiritual and personality differences. How could they all be characterised in the same ways?

There are far more obvious differences between some teenagers than the ones my characters face, but I write what I am familiar with. There are issues-based stories that deal with ethnic stereotypes, gender bias, educational and social disadvantage, disability, atypical neurology and more. These stories give us the opportunity to become aware of the inside view of externally evident difference. I would also like to see more stories that challenge the narrative of the ‘typical teenager’ among characters who are otherwise indistinguishable from their peers – because all of us are unique, more different from our peers than we feel comfortable acknowledging. Wouldn’t it be great if every reader found more than one book which made them feel like someone understood them? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if they all gained freedom to be their unique selves because of the books we write and they read?

Claire Bell writes as Claire Belberg for her mainstream works of fiction and poetry. She is the author of two speculative realism novels for young adults (Evernow) and older teens (The Golden Hour). She has had shorter work published in inScribe journal, inDaily (Adelaide’s independent digital news service), and various anthologies. Claire lives in the Adelaide Hills where the abundance of native birds is a constant delight. She blogs occasionally at The Character Forge.