Ever since I started writing, I loved doing high school AU's.

So much so that 44% of my stories published on here are high school stories.

But if it's such a simple formula, why would I love writing it so much and why do people enjoy them?

Well let me walk you through my process.

High school stories are the same thing (with maybe a couple things added or changed along the way)

Two main characters, one's gay the other doesn't know they are. The best friends convince them to figure it out and the two love interests go out together on a "hang out". Maybe a kiss, one confesses, or fluff that enhances feelings. Enter angst (which I'll get to later), the angst gets resolved, enter last cutesy fluff scene.

..That's literally all that is.

Now, the reason why I love writing these stories is that they're simple, they're cutesy, and overall I've just always had a soft spot for realistic fiction. I enjoyed writing the characters in funny high school experiences way more than the life series and empires smp. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy doing the royal AU stuff but high school stuff just hits different to me.

Though I like to make sure mine aren't too similar to others and add something different to the formula.

So..how do you do that?

First off, the ship. It always depends on what characters you're doing because they're gonna act differently and you wanna make sure you bring some life to them. This becomes easier and you know the way you want them to act the more you write them, but at the beginning I mostly just had them make references.

Get to know them a bit, though, let your creativity go wild.

For example, I always make Martyn that guy who loves DDR and I really have no reason why I made him that way. It just adds something more to him and over the years and across the books he's been in, he's slowly grown to have more detail.

The best friend character is up to you. There's the obvious picks like Grian with Jimmy, but if you want you can make an OC. I made Tom just randomly be Scott's best friend and now it's hard for me to write Scott without him.

Again, kinda come up with maybe a backstory to their friendship or just add some more life to the side characters cause you don't want them to be forgotten later on.

Hang out scenes are the fluff. Now these are what I like to call the daydreams.

I can't be the only teen who's daydreamed of a perfect date or a hangout spot they always love to go to and maybe even wanna go with someone special.

There's many different ways to write fluff (and of course it depends on the characters) but it mostly plays out like this normal hangout scene that has some flirts and flustered moments between the two characters.

Now I don't know if I mentioned this earlier but the angst in high school AU's tend to be the same thing. Mental health, an ex, a misunderstanding, rejection (which kinda goes into misunderstanding when the character is questioning how they really feel), and then being scared.

These angst chapters are where a lot of high school AU's start to fall off. Mostly because I know dang well a lot of you guys have read Vinnie's APBAN and started going off the rails with dark stuff.

As I said earlier, I feel like the best writing comes from your experiences.

If you have experience in those things and want to talk about them, then great I have no problem with that. But if you don't and it seems really weird and wrong...chances are it is very awkward.

I'm not saying it's bad, I'm not saying people hate it, I'm just saying it can get messy.

I want you take the angst from The Struggle is Real and compare it to...let's say the angst in The Major's Cafe, Neighbors, and the rewritten version of We're Just Friends.

I have not gone through any of the stuff mentioned in The Struggle is Real. Are you able to tell? Can you see the stuff that maybe doesn't add up, or the awkwardness, or the parts where you think it's extreme?

Probably, yes. Because even I can remember how weird it was for me two years ago to write that.

Now take the angst from those other high school AU's where I put my experiences in them. I have gone through,

1) Feeling invisible to my classmates

2) Being trapped in a thunderstorm that always poured on me whenever I was with him and I simply ignored it thinking that his three words on the screen did really mean something

and 3) Internal homophobia and hearing my dad tell me that "You're probably not gay, you just think that cause your friends are. After all you just broke up with your boyfriend recently."

[NOTE: all of those things have been overcome and I am doing very well now. I know that I am not invisible to my classmates and many of them see me as a very smart person, I know that I should follow my gut when I do feel that doubt, and I am accepted by my family for being bi]

The angst scenes in these stories (to me at least) feel a lot easier to write and better than when I'm kinda just making stuff up because I know exactly how I felt and how to describe that.

I love writing goofy high school AU's because they're silly and honestly just living up to that High School Musical The Musical The Series dream, but I feel like you can really help someone by leaving those morals in them.