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I just had an epiphany a couple weeks ago that I do believe I'm writing YA work and all of the clues that I've found not only here but on agent blogs seem to point to that as well and while my current WIP is in the process of changing tone, I still have one little hurdle.
At the beginning of the book my MC is around 13. By the end she'll be somewhere in the 18 to 20 range. Originally I was going to have her marry another character that was significantly older, just under 20 years her senior. This was when it would end with her in her mid 20s (this is fantasy, by the way). But since the ages of the characters are shifting (not due to outside sources but because that's what the story demands, as my pen tells me), the situation is changing a little. No marriage but I want her to crush him like there's no tomorrow (and not in the "I will crush you" Ahnold way either).
I know when I was younger I had the hots for men old enough to be my father. I was 8 when I was writing fan letters to Kevin Costner (25 now). That has since stopped. I've been a Kiefer Sutherland fan since I saw him in Flatliners when I was about 10. When I was 20 I dated a guy 12 years my senior (skeeved my parents a bit), my last boyfriend was 20 years my senior and even in high school I jonsed for some of my (student) teachers. The thing is just because I did it doesn't make is acceptable so how it would it be viewed to have a girl crush on a guy no less than 10 years older than her from the age of 15. Will I have a pitchfork wielding mob of parents after me for that?
An equal mob churning event, in another WIP one of the characters is going to fall for another. She'll be 17 and he's going to be early 20s somewhere, at most 23. I know it's fiction but she is 17, under the age of legality and he's not. I'm not concerned of the ramifications in the book's world. I'm not concerned about it at all. I'm concerned about the perceptions of parents and how they'll perceive a 17 year old girl dating a guy who's college age. I know it happens all the time but lets face it, people get their knickers in a bunch over this stuff. It's going to get written regardless because, at the moment, that's the way the story is and I'm not going to alter it out of fear but would parents be up in arms about something like this or has my brain pruded up since I was a teen?
At the beginning of the book my MC is around 13. By the end she'll be somewhere in the 18 to 20 range. Originally I was going to have her marry another character that was significantly older, just under 20 years her senior. This was when it would end with her in her mid 20s (this is fantasy, by the way). But since the ages of the characters are shifting (not due to outside sources but because that's what the story demands, as my pen tells me), the situation is changing a little. No marriage but I want her to crush him like there's no tomorrow (and not in the "I will crush you" Ahnold way either).
I know when I was younger I had the hots for men old enough to be my father. I was 8 when I was writing fan letters to Kevin Costner (25 now). That has since stopped. I've been a Kiefer Sutherland fan since I saw him in Flatliners when I was about 10. When I was 20 I dated a guy 12 years my senior (skeeved my parents a bit), my last boyfriend was 20 years my senior and even in high school I jonsed for some of my (student) teachers. The thing is just because I did it doesn't make is acceptable so how it would it be viewed to have a girl crush on a guy no less than 10 years older than her from the age of 15. Will I have a pitchfork wielding mob of parents after me for that?
An equal mob churning event, in another WIP one of the characters is going to fall for another. She'll be 17 and he's going to be early 20s somewhere, at most 23. I know it's fiction but she is 17, under the age of legality and he's not. I'm not concerned of the ramifications in the book's world. I'm not concerned about it at all. I'm concerned about the perceptions of parents and how they'll perceive a 17 year old girl dating a guy who's college age. I know it happens all the time but lets face it, people get their knickers in a bunch over this stuff. It's going to get written regardless because, at the moment, that's the way the story is and I'm not going to alter it out of fear but would parents be up in arms about something like this or has my brain pruded up since I was a teen?
