Fresh FIction Box Not To Miss
Shannyn Schroeder | Kids in Romance
Author Guest / June 4, 2019

I’m a mom of 3 teenagers. I’ve taught middle school and high school English. I have experience with kids. As a writer, I’ve written some romances where the heroine gets pregnant or wants to. Babies are part of life. However, I know a lot of readers don’t like kids in romance. I’ll be the first to admit, kids can totally kill romance buzz. Smart Bitches, Trashy Books even coined the phrase plot moppet to refer to small children in novels who have no purpose other than to drive the plot forward. They’re not fully fleshed out characters. They do cute things and the adults around them react. I’ve had friends suggest that I write YA (young adult) because I know kids – I must understand them and what they like, right? Therefore, writing YA should be a breeze. I’m not going to tackle the whole “writing should be a breeze” aspect. But part of my reasoning for not even considering writing YA is that my experience with my kids would read like something fictional. My kids are snarky and irreverent and pretty open about what they think and feel. They have awesome vocabularies (hello, English teacher mom). I’ve always felt…