Young Adults Only
Posted 10:21am Fri Mar 06, 2009 by Aaron DunlapI've finally come to the realization that I need to start calling Mind & Body a young adult novel.
I've resisted this for a long, long time. Just because the book's about a 17-year-old doesn't mean it's for 17-year-olds, even though in roughly 100% of the cases, when a book's about teenagers it's marketed for teenagers.
The number of rejection letters I've gotten from literary agents combined with some advice from actual authors and editors have finally changed my mind. From now on, query letters to agents will refer to the book as a young adult, or YA novel.
This dramatically changes its genre and potential place in the market. It also endangers the public's perception of it. I think the story is perfectly accessible to adults, and classifying it as YA will probably scare a lot of them away.
I don't like it, but it's something I have to do if I ever intend to get this thing published for real.
The thing is, most YA books are written with the intention of being read by teenagers. They come off like after-school specials, stories about teenagers written by guys in their 40s, filled with 10-year-old slang and awkwardly inserted life lessons or morality tales.
"Yo, dog, you want to like, totally get high?" asked Scooter, looking up from his portable digital entertainment device.
"I don't know," Daeryk said, hesitantly. "I heard that's not good for you..."
"Don't be a square," Scooter replied. "It's totally rockin'."
Stuff like that.
In my case, the only possible reason to consider it a YA title is because its two major characters are under 18. If the story were moved from high school to college, or the characters were 26, suddenly YA wouldn't be an option.
That doesn't change the fact that the above does make it more likely that young adults will appreciate the book than adults will.
I guess the book could be refreshing for young readers. A Young Adult novel that doesn't try to preach or talk down to them. A grown-up novel for teens.
And now I resign to the fact that I'll still never get published. And if I do, I'll never be taken seriously, for all I write is crummy books for teens.
Comments
hey! you dont write curmmy books! its a great book and im and adult!\n\n';">Quote | \n\n';"> Reply
"old"adult
I don't mean to insult you, but I have read targeted YA fiction that is higher quality than M+B. That being said, I think this is a very publishable book, especially if you spend some time on it with a good editor.
Best luck with those submissions!
I never really needed "just for me" books after I'd learned how to read. Maybe I just don't understand them.
I read Little Brother to make sure Cory hadn't psychically stolen any of my ideas, and it was in there that I found an offputting tone. Or maybe I just find the idea of trying to explain public-key encryption to 12-year-olds who a few chapters earlier had to be told how laptops work slightly ridiculous.
He's totally a ninja btw...
Dude. Stop spoiling the sequel.
Most YA novels are not written for 12 year olds. They're written for 12-20 year olds, which I think is an important difference, not to mention how many YA novels are very popular with adults.
Would you like to add a comment?
Just perform a humancheck below to prove that you aren't a robot.
Simply answer the question in the box below -- that's it! You don't need to register or provide any details about yourself.
This verifies that you're a real person and not a program or script that would be used to spam the comments. Nothing personal, I'm sure you're a real person.