Writing is hard, and it’s hard to truly capture your genre. There are nuances, tropes, and clichés you have to be mindful of. Fear not! I have compiled the ultimate checklist. Follow this list, and I guarantee your book will probably almost match the book you want to write. Maybe.

 Cerulean/turquoise/amethyst eyes
 “I hate you!”
 Kisses
 “I love you!”
 Smooches
 A painfully hot vampire/werewolf/demon/angel boyfriend
 That beau is possessive and dangerous
 Kissing
 Like, he probably killed a guy
 Classical music (alternatively, piano dates)
 Rain kisses
 Covens or societies of the supernatural creature in question
 Pretty girls aren’t pretty until they get a leather-clad makeover
 Prophesied weapon of power
 Kissing in a romantic botanical garden with sparkly lights
 Your MC is “the one,” but not like Neo from The Matrix
 But Keanu Reeves would be a nice touch
 Give your MC absentee or dead parents
 If a parent is present, he or she is clueless
 And probably an accountant
 Rainy town in the middle of nowhere
 Kisses
 Jealous childhood best friend who becomes a jerk at the drop of a hat
 (It makes it easier to choose)
 Love geometry
 I recommend a dodecahedron
 Latin!
 Classes? What classes? You don’t need no stinking classes
 Stalking
 Marrying at eighteen because they are in such love. Much wow.
 Parents being OK with stalking angel boyfriends
 Magic. Babies.
 Parents somehow being more OK with stalking demon boyfriends??
 Not really kidding about Keanu Reeves, though
 Hot blood trickling from holes in the neck
 Decapitation
 Moan kisses, moan problems
 Raven hair

And most importantly:

 Shameless author self-insertion

In 1989, the world was officially introduced to Bill and Ted, two slacker teens living in the small town of San Dimas, California. With the hope their band the Wyld Stallyns will take the world by storm—and a promise their music will one day unite the world—they go on a, well, excellent adventure to ace history and party on, dudes. While Bill and Ted learned history, I learned everything I know about writing.

1. Make your main characters airheads. They’re more endearing that way.

In spite of the fact Bill S. Preston, Esq., and Ted “Theodore” Logan are flunking history, they aren’t stupid, just endearing. They have expansive vocabularies and show initiative by amassing large stacks of books to study. Every book seems to have a highly intelligent, capable heroine or hero with no social or common sense. Reverse it.

2. Work in Genghis Khan and Joan of Arc somehow.

You may not know it fits in your reimagined Sumerian myth romance war saga right now, but I guarantee they (and any other historical figures) will fit in at some point. Trust me, I’ve read, like, three books on how to write a book.

photo courtesy of MGM Studios

3. Find a catchy slogan that is your story.

Everyone knows the phrase “Be excellent to each other. Party on, dudes!” because it perfectly encapsulates everything that is Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. Don’t be afraid to write that first, because there are only seven plots in the universe anyway. That can be filled in later, but that slogan has to be unique enough to be your story. Perfect that, the rest will follow.

4. A threat of military school always adds the right amount of tension.

In the film, Ted is threatened with military school if he doesn’t pass his history final. The most sensible way to add in conflict to your story is introduce a strict authoritarian to threaten your main character with military school. If your characters are in the military, y’know with those teenage rebels and such, threaten them with art school. It is just as effective.

photo courtesy of MGM Studios

5. Reference rock bands from the 80s.

Kansas, Van Halen, take your pick from the bunch. This is especially useful if you’re writing some sort of tribute to the works of John Hughes. Or, if you are writing a sci-fi adventure, this also works surprisingly well, given the success of Guardians of the Galaxy. And if you can work it into your high fantasy or historical romance, critics will be impressed with your writing talent. Problem solved.

The important thing is to know is that even though multitudes of books have been written teaching people to write, aspiring authors could have just watched Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure and saved themselves time and consternation.

Editor too exhausted from Photoshopping the TMI cover onto clipart to write content.

YA as a genre is more popular than ever. Not only teens, but increasing numbers of adults are helping to remove the stigma from the genre and showing the literary world that the stories of young adults are meaningful, revealing, and, yes, quality literature. But at times like these, we can't help but be reminded of how far this newborn genre has to go.

We need a real conversation about the profound lack Blue Öyster Cult lyrics in young adult fiction.

At first it might not seem that obvious, but look at all the young adult books most people are familiar with. Twilight. The Hunger Games. Harry Potter. Even classic greats like Huckleberry Finn and The Catcher in the Rye. What unites all of them, and actually most of the YA market?

All these books contain zero lyrics from the timeless 70s rock band Blue Öyster Cult.

The great essayist Samuel Johnson once said on fiction: "the greatest excellency of art [is] to imitate nature; but it is necessary to distinguish those parts of nature which are most proper to imitation." What, we ask, could be more worthy of imitation than the multi-platinum powerhouse responsible for such masterpieces as "Astronomy," "Godzilla," and "Black Blade"? Is a YA book really a reflection of the real world if it excludes all mention of Blue Öyster Cult?

Without Blue Öyster Cult, can any book deserve the praise of being "absolutely righteous"?

Let's do a thought experiment.

Look at the covers of the following YA books:

Now turn your volume to its highest setting and play the video below. And ask yourself: is excluding this degree of facemelting from your books fair?

It's on you, YA. We're burning for change.

That's right; we went there.

Are you finishing your novel, but feeling that the resolution needs just an extra "oomph" to leave a reader feeling that your work has meaning? Are you worried that your violent saga of rebellion against a despotic future government has lots of action but falls short in substance? 

There's one thingamajig that usually works.

We recommend you look up Jesus.

Don't get us wrong - you don't need to include vestiges of Christianity in your story that is set in what used to be the fervently Christian United States. Nor do you need to  insert religious elements into the non-denominational marriage of your heroine and her pick of the love triangle, both of whom keep their religious lives out of the story. Nor does your protagonist need to have any similar tendencies to Jesus. You just need to add in a few details that will have a reader going, Woah! JESUS! But with WEAPONS!

LEVEL 1

Sacrificing life for friends

"No. I need to do this myself. This time, it's just them and me."

There is no reason for your characters' friends to sit out the final battle. Make it happen anyway.

LEVEL 2

Revealed as Chosen One

In the third book. Maybe prophecy? Sort of like, "OH! She's Jesus."

LEVEL 3

Death delivers an entire nation

Sin dystopia condemned to shadows.

LEVEL 4

Return to life

An authorial move known in publishing houses as "Full Yeshua."

LEVEL 5

Being a class-A snarker

Ex: "Are you the King of the Jews?"

       "You say so."

This should be the easiest to shoehorn in. Just don't overdo it, for Chrissakes.

1. Killer inciting incident

What could be better than love at first sight? For agents, it's that magical, first-sight experience or nothing. Think: if your reader was browsing at a bookstore, would they drop yours after the first few pages? 

Ideas to kick-start your story: picking the most exciting moment in your plot outline and starting there, an incident that will allow you to display your narrator's unique voice, leading the Korean People's Army across the 38th parallel.

2. Nonstop Action

By action, we don't necessarily mean physical. There are many types of action that make a story compelling: verbal, sensory, new revelations for the characters. "Action" could be anything, from moving to a new setting, introducing a new problem, or the involvement of UN coalition forces and the Chinese. 

Tip: make an outline that structures your story so that something important happens in every chapter.

3. Consistency

Nothing annoys a careful reader (or a professional reader, like an agent or editor) like imperfections and plot holes. Make sure that you have friends and beta readers check your story for inner contradictions. 

If you have a theme, make sure you hint at it repeatedly and never drop the thread. For example, if you want readers to think that your main character was born on a sacred mountain to the sign of a blessed star, learned to talk at three weeks old, has written 1500 of the world's best books, along with 6 incomparable operas, can see into their minds when they have unpatriotic thoughts, does not defecate, and is immortal, drive the message home with constant daily reminders and total control of the press.

Based loosely off Clickhole's George Lucas feature.