Writing Diverse Mental Health Themes in YA Fiction

If you’ve queried in the past five years, you’re familiar with the plea for diverse books. Publishers and readers alike are searching for stories that reflect the world in all its colours, orientations, beliefs, and abilities. We are searching for connections. We want to be seen.

But not all diversity will be as obvious to spot on the cover of a book.

Diversity goes deep—down to the core of who we are and how the neurons in our brains allow us to think. But, as a society, we are less likely to recognize or celebrate this deeper neurodiversity.

Each of us process and react to the world differently.  Our life experiences also play a role, leaving unique internal scars and mended pathways. For a growing majority of teens today, this internal milieu feels like a battlefield and it comes out as mental illness.

Right now, more than ever, these differences in neurological wiring and life experiences will affect how teens react to fear, anxiety, grief, and confusion. And if they can’t find themselves in the stories that they’re reading, we risk letting them feel alone in their experiences. Which we all know is false.

As YA Authors, mental health themes need be high in our considerations for diversity. But how can we do this authentically?

1. Write #OwnVoice – Mental health stories written from lived experiences offers a genuine and raw lens. If you’ve lived it and feel comfortable communicating the everyday struggles, along with the big plot turns of life, do it.

• Write Deep – Don’t include mental health as an afterthought. A person is more than one aspect of their diversity. Our characters need to be seen this way as well. Ask deep questions of your characters. Know their wounds and back stories. Empathize with them before starting to write.

• Write Educated – If you haven’t experienced the themes present in your story, spend time researching what they are and how they present. Look to respected resources (i.e. The DSM-V) rather than arbitrary blog posts.

• Write Relationally – Even with the best research, there is something powerful about speaking with a person who has experienced mental illness first-hand. If you will listen and come with empathy and encouragement, odds are you will find someone who will share. Please be considerate though. Never approach someone who is in crisis and stick with friends and family.

With my novel, FADE TO WHITE, I wrote from both personal experience, research, and over 10 years of relational conversations with teens. Some of those conversations were painful to hear, but there was also mutual healing and hope gained through sharing our stories.

Mental illness is a hidden disease, despite its ever growing prevalence. By considerately sharing diverse mental health experiences, we are giving young people a chance to be seen. A chance to be recognized as broken but not lost. A chance to be represented within the diverse and unsettling world we now live in.

Tara K. Ross lives with her husband, two daughters, and rescued fur-baby in a field of cookie-cutter homes near Toronto, Canada. She works as a school speech-language pathologist and mentors with local youth programs. When Tara is not writing or reading all things YA, you can find her rock climbing the Ontario escarpment, planning her family’s next jungle trek, or podcasting at www.tarakross.com.