Now well into reading my 2,063rd YA novel, I’ve discovered that nearly all the love relationships use one or more of the following conventions.

1. Protagonists seemingly unhappy about being forced to work on a school project together.

2. Incredibly dangerous and/or bad boy to whom the female protagonist is drawn to in a ‘The lady doth too much protest, methinks’ sort of way.

3. Male protagonist who pretends he doesn’t like female protagonist, because he thinks he will be bad for her

4. Female protagonist who has secret power that could hurt male protagonist. Neither of them is aware of this, natch.

Even before I finished reading a single YA novel, I had managed to use everyone of the above conventions in one or more of my three novels. YIPPEE!