> I've never written a story before You need to read and write more fiction if you want to tell an effective story. Just a description of the differences isn't

> I've never written a story before You need to read and write more fiction if you want to tell an effective story. Just a description of the differences isn't a story. A story usually has a plot, character development, and worldbuilding in addition to themes. You can get away with not much character development or plot, but doing so in middle-grade/YA is not really viable. A hard sci-fi book with cardboard characters can work if it's pitched at nerdy, tech-literate adults. Likewise, a book without a cohesive plot but with good characters, themes, and emotional resonance is usually pitched at adults and is enjoyed by a fraction of the audience of popular literature. A good middle-grade/YA book needs to be accessible to a population which is not well-read and that needs the scaffolding a more conventional story structure provides. Also if you've never written before, you should know that the younger your audience, the harder it is to write for the unexperienced author. Writing for an audience you're a part of (e.g sci-fi fans, romance fans, etc.) is much easier than writing for one you're not a part of. For children in particular, you need to have at least some idea of child development, appropriate vocabulary and topics, and what a child wants out of a story. 10-16 is a really wide range; I'd recommend either shooting for middle-grade (~9-12 YO) OR proper YA (14/15+ YO). There is a lot of difference between a 10 year old and a 16 year old. Most 16 year olds are not going to want to read things that are 'for babies' or that is too simple for them. Things to consider while writing: - Why should the readers care about these AIs? I think using them as POV characters is an interesting idea, but you need to develop the AIs and give them goals and things they care about. These things can be alien, but there needs to be something there that makes readers identify with/sympathize with them. Do they want to play Monopoly, for example? Or those age groups are often wrestling with realizing that the adults in their lives aren't infallible - maybe one of the AIs realizes it's poorly programmed for its objective or even (in the case of the ML AI) comes to mutually incompatible conclusions and has to come to terms with that before it self-destructs. - What are the stakes? Why do we as readers care about this Monopoly type game? - How do the characters develop over time/what lessons do they learn? Fiction isn't non-fiction - just lecturing and stating your point is boring and sloppy. (I'm looking at you, recent Orson Scott Card). You develop your themes and make your points through the lens of character development. This is less straight-forward but fiction is powerful because doing it in this way allows the lesson to embed in both the thinking brain and the emotional brain.