We’re having a blast over at Eric Gates’ fabulous blog, Thriller-Writer, today. Please come on over and find out which clichés to avoid in your next Young Adult Dystopian Paranormal Urban Fantasy Romance blockbuster.

REBLOG from Thriller-Writer:

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My Guest this week caused people throughout the World to succumb to attacks of hysterical laughter when last on this blog. Today she’s going to reveal the secret… No wait, I’ll let her tell you. Ladies and Gentlemen…

Barb Taub

Want to write that next Young

Adult Dystopian Paranormal Urban

Fantasy Romance blockbuster?

Who doesn’t?  Of course you might be worried about all the YA tropes that have become cliches. Or not. (Certainly the writers who have been flooding my inbox with their latest YA opus are not the least bit concerned with cliches…)

But that gave me an idea. Why shouldn’t I be the one to pen that next best-seller and get the TV and licensing deals? I already know most of the tropes involved. I’d just have to be careful to avoid a couple (okay, a lot) of YA cliches.

I’ve totally got this one!

My de-Clichéd YA Paranormal Urban 

Fantasy Novel – Draft 1

Susie Smith is a sixteen-year-old girl whose family disappears for two months. Nobody notices because it’s summer and school is out and she isn’t really all that popular.

Tragically, her parents don’t die and leave her an orphan compelled to excel at martial arts while concealing her dark secret identity. (Heartlessly, her parents even make their mortgage payments, hold down normal jobs, and contribute regularly to her college fund, making it impossible for her to take on the adult role of paying bills and taking care of the house and her younger siblings.) Instead they all go on vacation together to her grandparents’ house, where Susie does not meet a sexy boy with a devastating secret and bizarrely pale skin. She has a good time, and comes back at the end of the summer with her virginity and all her blood volume intact. Oh, and she still has her soul. Plus she is not secretly revealed to be the love child of a powerful member of the fey domain. Or a princess.[Check out the rest of this post here!]