Ah, so you want to write about the trials and tribulations of the teenage years, huh? You want to cash in on all the {{Angst}} and [[DramaTropes drama]] that always seems to come with it, huh? You have come to the right place!

First, be sure to check out SoYouWantTo/WriteAStory for basic advice that holds across all genres.
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!'''Necessary Tropes'''

Teen dramas are all about choice.

The archetype of childhood is that they do what their parents tell them. They put their trust in Mom and Dad, obey whatever rules are handed down, and don't tend to question those rules. This is why childhood is so often characterized as an idyllic refuge from the tyrannies of the world: children aren't responsible for themselves. They have FreedomFromChoice and can simply hang out and play with their toys. They are who their parents made them.

But as you grow up, you start taking more and more responsibility on yourself. You realize that some of what your parents told you to do and be is... well, it doesn't sit right with you. You don't want to be your parents' PeoplePuppets anymore--you want to make your ''own'' choices. You want to have your own hobbies and personality and talents and motivation. You have realized that, in the words of the venerable Creator/{{Socrates}}, "The unexamined life is not worth living." You want to, in short, be a person.

And that's where the drama starts. First off, GrowingUpSucks. Being your own person is ''scary''. TheEvilsOfFreeWill mean that you can very easily be led off the garden path, and make mistakes that will haunt you for the rest of your life. Navigating the pitfalls of society is not easy, and can only be learned by TrialAndErrorGameplay. Second off, your parents love you and don't want to see you hurt. So they may go into overprotective mode, trying (with all the best intentions) to control your actions ForYourOwnGood. (Your parents, unfortunately, have facts on their side: the frontal lobe of the human brain, where the faculties of judgment are primarily stored, don't finish developing until your 20s. This does not mean that teenagers ''can't'' have good judgment, it simply means that there are physiological factors that make it hard for them to do so.) And thus we get the business of teen rebellion, in which a teenager overreacts and throws tantrums--not just because s/he wants to be his or her own person, but also because s/he needs the freedom to ''try''.

Does this all sound like interesting drama? Well, good, because you've come to the right place.

!'''Choices, Choices'''
* The [[CastCalculus number of characters]] in your cast is ''very'' important. A lot and you'll have a great variety for your audience to identify with. Too much and the audience may get confused. If you are just starting out, maybe start with a small cast of [[FourTemperamentEnsemble four]] or [[FiveManBand five]]. Enough so you won't overwhelm yourself but still have the possibility for drama.
* Related to the above, will your show focus on one person in particular or a whole group (Or groups of people)? Why should you focus on this character instead of say, their best friend?
* HighSchool seems to be the most common setting in this genre. Why not a mall? Or someplace where the main character works with their coworkers? There are plenty of options. (You don't even need teenagers for it! ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes'' was essentially a teen drama starring a precocious six-year-old. And his tiger.)
* ComingOfAgeStory. Teen drama is arguably a SubGenre of it, which is part of why they often star multiple characters: by splitting the narrative arc up amongst several people, you can cover it all without having to do {{Time Skip}}s. This lets you keep a relatively compressed time frame, which seems to be a genre staple, particularly on film where it's hard to guarantee your young stars will age the way you want them to.

!'''Pitfalls'''
* The TeenPregnancy trope has been used in this genre time and time again, so much that most audiences expect it. By now it's almost an UndeadHorseTrope: there was a time when most teenagers, save for those living in isolated areas and being raised by overprotective parents, knew about condoms and birth control, but since then we've had MoralGuardians push something called [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstinence-only_sex_education Abstinence-only education]] (link to Website/TheOtherWiki) into service, which resulted in some teens ''not'' knowing about condoms and birth control because educators were forbidden to teach about them. By strange coincidence, places where abstinence-only education was instituted saw a spike in TeenPregnancy, bringing you right back to your potential trope.
* {{Wangst}}, and angst in general. Yes, teenagers can be angsty, but there's a fine line between being upset about personal problems and doing nothing but whining incessantly. If a plot point requires your character(s) to be emotionally overwhelmed to the point of breakdown, keep in mind that you have to make the audience actually ''sympathetic'' to the character's cause. And try not to pull out the "angst" card too much in general, or else the audience will get so used to it that they simply won't be able to care about the characters.
* Sex. Teenage-dom is linked to physical maturity, which is linked to sexual maturity (if it's not "''identical'' to sexual maturity"), and SexAsRiteOfPassage is a natural evolution of that fact. (Heck, if you go to the pr0n sites, you'll notice that the ComingOfAgeStory is a time-honored plot structure.) The problem is, there are a lot of MoralGuardians out there who don't want their teenagers thinking about sex, on the grounds that discussing it gives tacit permission to have it. Regardless of the wisdom of that position, this means that if you want to address sex in your teen drama, you will need to do it carefully. Notice that one of the most popular TeenPregnancy films in recent memory, ''Film/{{Juno}}'', still glosses over sex a great deal, even though anyone with a brain knows that, to get knocked up, Juno's had some! It's dangerous to present a sex-positive message in any media that people under the age of 18 are going to be exposed to. (Even though, of all people, teenagers are who most ''need'' such an aesop.)

* Characters acting far too old for their age is a common pitfall of the genre. Combined with DawsonCasting, this easily breaks the audience break suspension of disbelief.

!'''Potential Subversions'''
The original TropeName for "teen drama" was Pretty White Kids With Problems. That should suggest a few subversions right there.

Much has been said in the last twenty or thirty years about [[UsefulNotes/{{Depression}} clinical depression]], anxiety disorders, SelfHarm and UsefulNotes/{{suicide}} in the teenage population--''Film/TheVirginSuicides'', ''Film/ProzacNation'', ''Film/GirlInterrupted''. You'd be forgiven for thinking that, from TheEighties onward, the business of growing up has just mysteriously encountered a DifficultySpike. In reality, that's probably not true. It's partially that science was [[ScienceMarchesOn desperately behind the times]]; UsefulNotes/{{psychology}} itself as a discipline was only invented in the 1870s, and depression as a ''physical'' ailment--as opposed to a spiritual malaise, or a misalignment of [[FourTemperamentEnsemble the four humours]]--was only "discovered" in the TheFifties; even if teens ''had'' gotten depressed before then (and they probably did[[note]]Think about all the other imbalances you encounter growing up--one leg taller than the other; all your limbs too long; getting light-headed when you stand up because your heart hasn't caught up; one boob bigger than the other; hormones surging around giving you acne; etc. Why on earth should neurotransmitters be exempt?[[/note]]), it wasn't recognized as such. But it's also that America wholeheartedly embraces the TherapyIsForTheWeak trope, and anyone who ''has'' mental illness is automatically flawed and defective. It's only very recently that media have started to broach this topic--''Film/GirlInterrupted'' was considered ''extremely'' ground-breaking when it came out in 1999, because it dared show its protagonists as fundamentally normal people who just happened to have different challenges than, say, not having legs. Of course, that ''is'' what a mental disorder is--lacking something physical--but fat chance on getting Hollywood to catch up with that fact, since the missing element (neurotransmitters) is too small to see. The point is, ''you'' could have a field day with this topic, and there's plenty more to say on it.

!'''Writers' Lounge'''

!!'''Suggested Themes and Aesops'''

Some common messages of the genre are:


!!'''Potential Motifs'''

!!'''Suggested Plots'''

!'''Departments'''

!!'''Set Designer''' / '''Location Scout'''

!!'''Props Department'''

!'''Costume Designer'''
This depends on the characters. Shirts, jackets, and jeans in general will fit any character.
* For the AlphaBitch, check the latest fashion magazines as often as possible and design something similar. Short skirts and high heels are recommended.
* Sweaters (particularly turtlenecks), glasses, and vests are typically used for nerdy and otherwise geeky characters.

!!'''Casting Director'''

!!'''Stunt Department'''

!'''Extra Credit'''

!!'''The Greats'''
* Part of the trope definition of a "Teen Drama" is that it's a ''series'', but that doesn't mean one-shot dramatic stories with teenage leads can't inform you. [[JustForFun/TheZerothLawOfTropeExamples Start with]] ''Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet''.
* Getting into modern TV series;
* ''Series/DegrassiJuniorHigh'', the TropeMaker. ''Series/DegrassiTheNextGeneration'', too although YMMV on certain seasons.
* ''Series/BeverlyHills90210'', the TropeCodifier.
* ''Series/MySoCalledLife''
* ''Series/FreaksAndGeeks''
* ''Series/{{Skins}}''

!!'''The Epic Fails'''