I'm going to write a young adult novel filled to the brim with every young adult trope my friends and I can think of. It'll be very satirical and my target audience won't even realise it.
The following are things my friends and I have already brainstormed about and believe have their place in the definitive young adult novel:
- Someone dying of a terminal illness
- Two teenagers falling in love and facing various obstructions because of it
- One of the teenagers must have a strange affinity for nineteenth century poetry (romanticism... shouldn't even have to explain this)
- Parents are generally useless
- One of the characters must want to study veterinary medicine in the future because she 'just loves animals'
- All of the teenage characters have embarrassing nicknames given to them by their parents such as 'candyfloss' and 'margarita'
-no one "understands" them
- they're freakishly different and go against societal norms even those that are useful and important so they must be unique and superior to everyone else
- novel must reference bad music that no one really likes and claim that its great and people don't get it.
- glorifies decisions that would be stupid to make in the real world.
- all like able and well developed characters must be relegated to the most marginal positions in the story.
- There must be references to various David Lynch films because one of the character classifies himself as 'extremely cultured and unfortunately a hipster as cause-and-effect' and always name drops David Lynch film productions or the Talking Heads without realising they aren't underground at all
- One of the characters wants to join a jazz group and is in a local indie rock band and wants them to play New Orleans Funeral Jazz inspired songs. Said character only knows basic open chords and can only improvise in the keys of C and G major.
- The boy character views sex as something secular, temporal and carnal until eventually he actually engages in sexual intercourse with a girl and promptly falls in love, proving himself wrong in the process. There will be a soliloquy of sorts in which he invokes the spirit of Kanye West's Yeezus and speaks of his newfound humility and how difficult it is to juggle it with his dated pride.
- there must be a background character who is diagnosed with a terminal illness but it is only mentioned in passing and he receives no sympathy for it and his sole reason for existence is comic relief at his expense
- the girl who wants to be a vet only wants to be a vet because her per dog died in tragic and easily avoidable circumstances but they didn't have insurance. She is a socialist and aspiring veterinarian because of this harrowing series of events.
Please add to this list. I want to make sure I fill every niche so it appeals to everyone. I'm pretty sure it already has the makings of a number one international bestseller.