The premise of 'Secret Coders' is reminiscent of 'Harry Potter.' An intrepid band of tweens stumbles upon a secret school, only instead of teaching magic, the school teaches coding.
The whole point of 'The New Mutants' was that the oldest of them, Sam, and maybe Dani Moonstar... they're 15. Rahne is 13. They are kids still. The whole point of being kids is half, if not two thirds of the time, they're making mistakes.
I didn't 'decide' to write YA, per se. But every time I thought of a story, it featured characters 15, 16, 17.
I started reading Dickens when I was about 12, and I particularly liked all of the orphan books. I always liked books about young people who are left on their own with the world, and the four children's books I've written feature that very thing: children that are abandoned by their families or running away from their families or ignored by their families and having to grow up quicker than they should, like David Copperfield - having to be the hero of their own story.
The key to writing successful YA is to keep the adults out of the story as much as possible.
As Jane Austen might have put it: It is a truth universally acknowledged that young protagonists in search of adventure must ditch their parents.
I have always been drawn to coming-of-age stories and books and movies featuring compelling young characters.
All of my main characters have been under 30.
Usually my characters, though young, tend to be street-wise.
