On Friday, December 18, author and proud Girls Write Now mentor Amy Zhang led us through prompts to write best-selling YA fiction and shared her journey as a writer who published her first novel with HarperCollins at 18! Amy also gave a sneak peek into her forthcoming novel, The Cartographers!
Opening Lines
If you wrote a YA book, what would the title be?
Prompt #1: OBSERVATIONAL NARRATOR
Write a short fiction narrated with someone who can only watch events unfold without interfering (ex: an imaginary friend, the toys from Toy story, a pet, etc).
Prompt #2: SURREAL-IOUSLY
Write about a setting where reality feels “off” or in some way surreal (like an abandoned playground, your school during summer break, airports late at night, an abandoned mall, etc.)
Amy Zhang is the author of Falling Into Place, This Is Where the World Ends and The Cartographers (forthcoming). She lives in Brooklyn.