On the Subject of YA...

[DragonOfTheAerie]

I have two questions. I also have a lot of kind of pointless rambling that some of you might nonetheless find interesting.

(By the way, most of you probably know this, but YA stands for young adult and means stuff written for people ages 12-19 or thereabouts.)

First, does anyone here write YA (or consider writing it?) What about reading it?

I haven't seen any discussion of YA and I'd like to start some. I know YA probably has bad connotations around here, among actual adults...seems to be viewed as "less than" other literature, or otherwise not legitimate literature. (Not true...) But, even despite that, it seems to be one of the largest markets out there, and is still booming. I want to know if anyone writes YA...and if not, what DO you write? I've heard y'all talk about your ideas, but who do you write for? Who do you imagine reading your words?

Second, what exactly makes a book YA? No, I should rephrase: what makes a book good for the YA market? Here's my predicament...(Y'all might have noticed I have a lot of those...)

I always assumed the book I am writing is YA because I AM a YA. (I'm well within the range of the target audience.) I thought the audience would be, basically, people my age, people like me. People who like the things I like. Now I'm thinking a book like mine will be HARD to publish in the YA market. (In any market.) I figure the YA market is the best market for my book, so this question is more hypothetical than practical, but, what works in the adult market vs. the YA market?

In YA fantasy the trends and expectations are thus:

>A romance subplot, which involves a love triangle 95% of the time (not hyperbole, that is a serious estimate)
>"Strong female characters" (usually fails)
>Lite or non-existent world-building
>We've FINALLY gotten away from the dystopia phase, now high fantasy with princes and queens and court intrigue is everywhere and will doubtless be just as annoying
>Space opera is getting popular too
>Antiheroes, grey-vs.grey morality, and unhappy/bittersweet endings. I don't know, maybe this is everywhere, and not just YA. I'm seeing a lot of heroines that can't really be called "good guys" and endings where the main character dies. (It's not just Divergent. It's everywhere.)

And don't forget:

>First person present tense narration with simple language and no description of anything. That's not me at all.

Basically, I'm a bit frustrated at the annoyingly limiting expectations placed on writers and the apparent difficulty of publishing stuff that diverges from the standard...

 

[Ireth]

I write YA, and my main WIP only follows a few of these "rules". XD It does have a teenaged female protagonist in a fantasy setting (no dystopia for me, kthx), but there is no romance whatsoever and DEFINITELY no triangle. I'm not sure what level my worldbuilding is at, bu I'd guess more toward medium than lite. Morality-wise, it's mostly white and black, though a few characters do dip into grey at times. The ending is mostly happy. Oh, and it's written in third person past tense, with a decent amount of description. ^^

 

[TheKillerBs]

This post just really made me feel old. While I was reading it I went, "Wait a minute, Harry Potter breaks a lot of these trends and expectations and in terms of recent success, I'd consider it the gold standard of YA fantasy". And then I realised that Deathly Hallows came out almost a decade ago. I need to lie down.

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

This post just really made me feel old. While I was reading it I went, "Wait a minute, Harry Potter breaks a lot of these trends and expectations and in terms of success, I'd consider it the gold standard of YA fantasy". And then I realized that Deathly Hallows came out almost a decade ago. I need to lie down.

Harry Potter has been around longer than I have. I hope it will be around longer than I will. They're great books. I'm working on rereading them.

 

[La Volpe]

Disclaimer: I used to read some YA (but these days the plots and characters just annoy me). Other than that, I have no expertise in the matter.

My opinion: I think a lot of the stuff that YA needs comes from the main characters' ages. E.g. the romance subplot is present in almost every YA, simply because the characters are teenagers, and that's a huge part of their lives (and very much in the forefront of their lives). Similarly, I'd expect you'll see a lot of coming-of-age stories, and learning responsibility, and probably a lot of school-related elements (i.e. learning new skills along with a group of other people). I.e. it deals with problems similar to problems real teenagers deal with.

And you won't see a lot of YA books that have elderly people as the protagonist(s) for this reason. Old people don't have the same kinds of problems and experiences as teenagers, and teenagers don't care about old people problems.

Other than that, the language tends to be more immediate and less descriptiony simply because most teenagers don't have a lot of patience for books. They could be doing other teenager stuff like watching TV or getting their cousin to buy them beer. Or whatever it is that teenagers like doing these days. So the writing needs to be a lot more exciting (or something?) for them to be interested enough to forego the regular teenager lifestyle.

 

[Holoman]

You can get away with a lot of tropes in YA fiction imo because the audience isn't as well read and wont see them as cliché, they'll just think they are great stories.

I'm a bit over the old anti-hero thing now, I'm back to liking the good guys. The Supermans and Xmen type protagonists.

 

[Gryphos]

I struggled in deciding whether or not one of my novels was YA or not, and eventually came to the conclusion that it is, though it doesn't include many of the typical tropes like a romance subplot. It's just a 17-year-old girl going on a quest and reaching some kind of apotheosis.

 

[Miskatonic]

My focus is on writing for adults. That being said, there are plenty of teens that read books aimed at adults.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

I don't do YA, might have one in my head, but.. Who knows if I'll ever write it... That said, from what I've heard YA is:

Age of MC
Limited POV count... Typically one or two. A chicken and egg thing here with FP POV so popular.
Theme

Get used to the lit world looking down on YA, heck, if you write any genre you'll be looked down upon by the arteests, LOL. California fought a reputation for being jug wine for decades before being recognized for quality vino, and now they look down their noses at other states, art movies look down on tent pole movies, etc etc.

Never worry about what's considered literature... If you're worried about that, don't write genre at all. Depending on how you define literature, of course. Rowling and McCarthy will never meet on equal terms in the literary world, nor would GRR Martin and McCarthy. If Tolkien still battles against literary walls... Well, it's a tough fight, LOL.

But in general YA is written to a different standard than literary fiction, that's just a fact based on target audience. Whether that makes it lesser or not is a worthy argument, maybe, but it's a matter philosopical POV on the subject. But the problem is comparing apples to oranges just because they happen to be books, doesn't make it apple to apple.

There's a reason both Hollywood and now books are heavily targeting these younger age groups, and it doesn't speak well to the snootier arteest level of thinking. And when you're 25, 30, 40, 50... Your opinions change.

 

[Heliotrope]

There are not any actual rules for YA. YA can pretty much be adult fiction but with kids instead of adults. Lord of the Flies comes to mind. I do not see YA as being "less than" literature. There are many great YA books that are absolutely Literature. A Wrinkle In Time, The Giver also come to mind.

I write YA and Middle Grades (Which does have a lot of rules).

Here is a great little video showing the difference:

 

[K.S. Crooks]

I write YA and read some among the mixture of things I read. I'm also a high school teacher so this gives me some other perspectives on the age group. What I enjoy about YA stories is the unknown nature the characters have. They don't know everything, even though they often think they do. The struggle they have to go through in terms of their world and the events is complicated by their own immaturity, lack of skill and knowledge in some areas. What they do have is a willingness to learn as they are not stuck in their ways yet. Relationships tend to be as much learning about themselves as they do others.

Seeing growth in YA characters tends to be greater than adults. It's the growth I think what I enjoy the best. Though not a novel, the best example I can think of was the show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Buffy, Willow and Xander all undergo tremendous growth each season, because the challenge each season is that much harder.

 

[Holoman]

I'm beginning to wonder if my current WIP is actually a YA. The protagonist is 32 but could easily be 18, I never mention his age and he doesn't act like an adult tbh. His friend that is helping him is 35 and kind of needs to be older as she has 2 estranged kids which are vital for her motivation.

Apart from that, I don't use big words so it is easily read by a teenager. It is a classic 'group of people try to take down the world' type series with the first book as 'this crazy powerful guy is after us, we need to stop him'. The world and how stuff works is fairly straightforward and easily accessible for a younger audience.

The only thing missing is the love interest really, which doesn't come in until the second book.

So I'm not sure where it will end up. Most of the characters are older though, so I guess that would be a hard sell as YA.

 

[Caged Maiden]

YA is a hot market right now. I've considered whether some of my books couldn't qualify as YA, because agents are begging for edgy YA that'll sell well in a very hot and sometimes deceptively adult-themed market.

I recently did a little reading about what qualifies as YA (because a friend is writing a mid grade book and I didn't understand the difference), and I was really surprised to see that many concepts I thought were "too adult" actually fit perfectly well into YA fiction. I think the main difference between YA and adult fantasy is in the ages of the characters and their relationships with "adults" though that term just means people my age, rather than younger adults, HA!

Sex, foul language, drugs, violence, all are welcome in YA books (I was surprised) and many of the concepts of current YA top-sellers are way more edgy than I ever anticipated. But the thing they usually have in common is a general distrust of older adults. The young adult characters are a separate thing from other adults, in a way. And that seems to define the genre more than PG ratings.

Also, my friend drew my attention to the reasoning behind this. In mid grade, kids aren't buying books, their parents are. Or libraries at school. But YA readers have their own money and therefore, what's published for a young adult market has less "gatekeepers" standing in the way of older teens and the adult-themed stories they devour.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

YA is a broad region of maturation, huge difference between 12 and 18 as a market. The movie rights market has an influence on the level of hot for sure. Now they've got new adult... Marketing and statistics can get evil, heh heh. But there are differences in theme (from what I understand) between YA and Adult. But I can only go what others have said because I flat out can't read anything YA, at least that I've sampled.

Sanderson in one his BYU lectures does a section on YA, and I'm sure he knows more than I do, LOL. But it was YA, so I fast forwarded.

I read Thomas Covenant when I was 12 or thirteen, at that age I enjoyed Narnia, but wasn't thrilled, having already read LoTR. A lot of adult themed Piers Anthony followed. My parents were blissfully unaware of some of the things going on in some of the books I read before 14, LOL.

 

[Miskatonic]

Sex, violence, drug/alcohol use, foul language, etc. can all be considered superficially "adult" in a lot of books. I don't necessarily consider that to be what makes something adult or not.

I consider the depth into which the author delves into the themes of the book to be a better indicator of who the intended audience is.

 

[valiant12]

And don't forget:

>First person present tense narration with simple language and no description of anything. That's not me at all.

When I was at the young adult demographic I hated descriptions. I still don't think that first person narrative mix wel with exesive descriptions.

 

[skip.knox]

I have sneered at the designation myself, having grown up on old-school SF writers who never dreamed of making special accommodations for their readers. Even Heinlein's "juvenile" fiction (the old designation) was on that shelf simply because the protagonist was a kid. Otherwise he wrote pretty much the same as he did for his adult fiction.

That said, there are places where it is important to understand the terminology. For self-publishers, it means you need to know which keywords to choose and how you phrase your summary. For trad-pub, it means understanding which agents to query and which to avoid. So it's a legitimate issue.

For myself, I do have one story that has four kids as lead. But I do not intend to market it (I'll self-pub that one) to YA. It's just a fantasy tale that happens to have kids in it.