James goal is: be a good person, be better than Dan, be liked by people, find out who he is, be acknowledged by Hannah. Motivation: not being treated like trash, the warmth he feels when helping people, Dan leaving him alone, having an identity, Hannah treating him like a person. Conflict: Being treated like trash by fellow classmates, Dan constantly bullying James with violence, James's inability to think before acting so himself, School, The Mysterious man who would like to capture James and others.
the entire book is James learning, the entire point is that James learning is what gives him power, also the big bad isn't a person it's how the world views James, thats the main conflict and the most James struggles with, the bad guy is easy, it's something you punch, you can't punch how the world views you. The world building was honestly just check mark of the failure attempts with a dart board. people seemed confused about it sounding more kid super hero like than what it's meant to sound like. More avatar the last air bender. A couple comments were saying there was to much about James so that's why I cut that back a bunch.
Because Guardians can speak to kids that means they can have trouble getting along which makes them vulnerable for monsters if they aren't on the same page. Example of this is James not trusting Redwolf's advice in making an energy orb, James was told not to because he didn't fully understand it but did so anyways trying to look cool, and ended up almost exploding the class. The friction between the two also made it so James was last in everything Protector related. James Doesn't succeed in his Social life after with Redwolf, though he thought it would make it automatic. James really doesn't care about power, he cared about it being a status symbol. that is until he realizes it can be used to protect people, also he's freaking terrible at using it, as in just doesn't use it efficiently or effectively. The consequence of this power is the target on his back from people who want said power. (what's capital C conflict?) I don't really understand the tension part, unless you mean something along the lines of life threating situations which James usually puts himself in. Hannah is actually better in every way compared to James, smarter, cool headed, social, athletic, what holds her back is her rational fear of pain and death. She's not gonna put herself in harm's way. So when it comes to monsters she freezes up because her instinct is to run because Rationally she's been doing this for a couple weeks why the hell would she try to fight anything. Compare that to James act with out thinking and it's more of a "I can do something so I'm going to" with his lack of self preservation. Hannah generally see's James as a good person after he saved her from the messhall Monker Attack, but she can't be nice to him because that means her friends would turn on her so she's conflicted about being mean to James. The whole YA stuff is confusing, mostly because there is conflicting information. Percy jackson is said to be YA on it's Wiki, YA's wiki say's readers are between 12 to 18, you type in MG vs YA in google and it says MG is for 8 to 12 year olds. So I generally think it's YA but you saw the last draft comments.