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How I can I not alienate younger readers whilst using adult themes?

OGone

Troubadour
I was thinking up a back-story for one of my female leads (my thinking consists of pacing around a room or sitting on the toilet and then trying to make sense of it later...)

I'll keep it generic and brief but basically she's of royal lineage and as a matriarchal society she is prioritized to the throne over the King's two sons. She's kidnapped by bandits at a young age, has never met her mother and father, and lives in an underground city of thieves, pretty naively so. This is starting to sound really cliche but like I said I was keeping it generic :p

I've got the king (her father) visiting a different continent (~20 years before my main narrative starts), he needs to impregnate a slave girl unwillingly (her mother), she steals a ring off of him and he needs to track her down over the course of (however long it takes to find out you're pregnant 2000 years ago, does anyone know?) when he finds out she's with child and lets her keep the ring to sell, which becomes important later on.

I'm not sure how I'm going about this. How can I describe this happening without going into such explicit detail to stop the book being appropriate for, say, 14 year olds?

First of all I'm thinking of having him drunk or drugged or something then he needs to get this woman pregnant and find out she is pregnant before he returns back to his land. This happens before the book starts so I only need to mention it in passing (although I would like to write a short story about it eventually because one of my other characters ties into it) but I still need to imply what happened.

How do you write these kinds of details while keeping it strictly PG? I haven't read the Twilight books, but (SPOILER OMG) Bella gets impregnated by Edward yet it is a teen book. How did Meyer go around this?
 
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Steerpike

Felis amatus
Moderator
In Twilight, Bella and Edward wait until marriage to have sex. That probably reflects Meyer's mormon beliefs.

I can tell you, however, that in YA/Teen books I've read depictions of drug use, rape, suicide, murder, sex, and so on. Teen/YA novels cover the entire range of issues that affect teens, and sexual content certainly falls within that. As long as the descriptions aren't overly graphic, I don't think the subject matter will be an issue in and of itself (depending on the publisher). Given some of what I've read in teen novels, the line is much closer to the adult side than you might imagine.
 

OGone

Troubadour
I had no idea Meyer was Morton... Why are so many writers Mormons? :confused:

I don't need (or want) to get into the description at all just want to make it clear what happened. It can even be ambiguous to him they even did it (his memory hazy or whatever) but he needs to find her and figure out she's with child so I do need to reference them having sex somehow.

Is using being drunk or an aphrodisiac drug too... obvious? Could there be a better way of making it happen? I was thinking maybe the woman could be relatively antagonistic and plot to get pregnant so she could take advantage of the king...

+ I do really need to know how long it would take a woman in ancient Greece to find out for sure she's bearing a child. I have no idea about this.
 

MadMadys

Troubadour
It's definitely in the details that the distinction is made. YA would be "The king set upon the woman against her will and she bore a child" or something along those lines where as something more adult would be "The king *bleep* *bleep* then flipped her over and *bleeped* the *bleep* *bleep*". Refrain from graphic portrayals and nasty language and you'll be fine.
 

Steerpike

Felis amatus
Moderator
OGone:

I think either being drunk or using a drug of some sort, or having her plot it, would all be acceptable and it seems to me the choice would be dictated by what kind of characters you have. Which approach would be more in-character for them?

Teen/YA novels do actually get somewhat explicit at times, so if all you need to do is make a reference to the fact that sex was had at some point, I don't think you have to worry on that score.

I don't know the question to how early a woman in that time period could know "for sure" that she was pregnant. I know, for example, the Egyptians had certain urinalysis techniques they used, but I think they were of dubious scientific merit and not all that accurate. Someone with a better knowledge of ancient Greece than I can answer this.
 

Jamber

Sage
YA is still largely seen as a bridge between children's fiction and adult fiction, but a lot depends on which end of YA you're aiming at -- obviously ages closer to the mid-20s would cope with just about anything. Having said that, if date/drug rape is there just to suit the plot, and if sexual ethics aren't addressed thematically anywhere in the novel, then for me depiction of the rape would be best kept for an adult work.

Just my view, I know others will differ greatly on the topic.

cheers
Jennie
 

OGone

Troubadour
It's definitely in the details that the distinction is made. YA would be "The king set upon the woman against her will and she bore a child" or something along those lines where as something more adult would be "The king *bleep* *bleep* then flipped her over and *bleeped* the *bleep* *bleep*". Refrain from graphic portrayals and nasty language and you'll be fine.

I found that hilarious :p Maybe I was wrong to say YA, I'd like to think a child could pick the book up too. I don't actually need to describe the act at all in the story just that he went over and got a woman pregnant, the details are going to be saved for a shorter story which I may write before though as a prologue to explain some back story (a few main characters are fleshed out by the whole ordeal).

YA is still largely seen as a bridge between children's fiction and adult fiction, but a lot depends on which end of YA you're aiming at -- obviously ages closer to the mid-20s would cope with just about anything. Having said that, if date/drug rape is there just to suit the plot, and if sexual ethics aren't addressed thematically anywhere in the novel, then for me depiction of the rape would be best kept for an adult work.

Just my view, I know others will differ greatly on the topic.

cheers
Jennie

Well the problem is I need the King to be a likable character, I didn't want him to just go over and cheat on his wife so he needed to be intoxicated or manipulated somehow, and regret it.
 
"Likeable character" doesn't necessarily require "manipulated". It may not even require "regrets it". (One of my characters cheated on her husband for no better reason than that she was lonely, and readers don't seem to hate her.)
 
Just do the TV route. Keep the action "behind closed doors" and let the implication of what has actively happened be there for the adults to pick up on. Speaking as a person that's been reading adult fiction since 2nd grade, if I didn't understand what was being alluded to, I usually didn't even acknowledge an allusion happened. There have been many times where I've gone back to read a story or book from elementary school or middle school (or high school -_-) and been like, "WHOA, WHERE DID THAT COME FROM?!" It was always there, I just didn't pick up on it because it wasn't explicitly described.
 

Jamber

Sage
Well the problem is I need the King to be a likable character, I didn't want him to just go over and cheat on his wife so he needed to be intoxicated or manipulated somehow, and regret it.

Ah, I'm laughing at how badly I misread your original post. I read 'he needs to impregnate a slave girl unwillingly' to mean she was the unwilling partner. I barely noticed later who the recipient of the drugs/drink was... Sorry about that.

Oopsie,
Jennie
 

Addison

Auror
Your story sounds right in the category for a 14 year old. My only suggestion would be not to go over the top. Your story is clearly aimed for teenager readers. I've found books in the library in the teenage section but the prose and context was better suited for well-read adults. That's my only tip, other than that, great story and good luck.
 
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