YA Genre Cliches...

There are too many to name, but as I'm sure most of the folks around here will tell you, a good writer can turn a cliche into an excellent book, all you have to do is make your book stand out among the others with similarities.
Even so, I've been worrying lately that Vampires are becoming, if not a cliche, a fad. Still working on making my query make an agent think anything besides 'another Vampire book aimed at teenage girls. Yippee.'
As for little cliches within the plot, I often actually like them, if they're exaggerated just the right way, if the author seems to know they're using a cliche but they can just make it work. It's usually funny. I think I've done (/tried to do) that a few times myself.

As for things that actually make me groan...
Orphans, sometimes.
Love Triangles. I hate, hate, hate them. You can only TRY to avoid them, sometimes they're necessary.
That's all I can think of right now.
Good luck!

Here's a great list by Joelle Anthony (I'd link to her actual post, but it's gone; I got the list via pub rants). During my YA binge in the last couple months, I ran across many of these, again and again. And because of this list, I have edited out all instances of numbers 5 & 7 from my WIPs.

Anyway, enjoy!



A countdown of 25 things that show up repeatedly in young adult fiction:

#25 – Vegetarian teens with unsympathetic meat-eating parents

#24 – Shy or withdrawn characters that take refuge in the school’s art room/ compassionate art teachers

#23 – A token black friend among a group of white friends - usually it’s a girl, and she’s always gorgeous

#22 – A tiny scar through the eyebrow, sometimes accompanied by an embarrassing story

# 21 – Using the word ‘rents for parents, but not using any other slang

# 20 – A beautiful best friend who gets all the guys but doesn’t want them

#19 – The wicked stepmother who turns out to be simply misunderstood and it’s all cleared up in the climax

#18 – Authors showing their age by naming characters names they grew up with (i.e. Debbie, Lisa, Kimberly, Alice, Linda, etc.)

#17 – Parents who are professional writers or book illustrators

#16 – Using coffee, cappuccino, and café latte to describe black people’s skin

#15 – Main characters named Hannah and making a note of it being a palindrome

#14 – Younger siblings who are geniuses, adored by everyone, and usually run away during the book’s climax, causing dramatic tension

#13 – The mean-spirited cheerleader (and her gang) as the story’s antagonist

# 12 – A dead mother

# 11 – Heroines who can’t carry a tune, even if it were in a bucket

# 10 – Guys with extraordinarily long eyelashes

# 9 – The popular boy dating the dorky heroine to make his former girlfriend jealous, and then breaking the heroine’s heart

# 8 – The diary, either as the entire format, or the occasional entry

# 7 – Fingernail biting

# 6 – Characters who chew on their lip or tongue in times of stress – usually until they taste blood

# 5 – Raising one eyebrow

# 4 – Main characters who want to be writers

# 3 – Calling parents by their first names

# 2 – Best friends with red hair*

And the number one thing found in YA novels…
#1 – Lists

*While lists rule in teen fiction, red-haired best friends are amazingly predominant in both MG and YA, and certainly gave “lists” a run for its money. It might be an easy way to quickly identify a secondary character, but it’s a lot more common in books than red hair actually is!

© Joëlle Anthony, 2007
Originally published in the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators Bulletin, July/Aug. 2007

What is meant by 'lists?'

Like top ten lists. See Meg Cabot's all american girl book for great uses of lists. Framing devices (including lists) are pretty popular with YA readers.

darzian: just that. When the MC (always in 1st person) literally makes a list, plugged in the middle of the narrative. Usually something like, Top 10 Reasons Boys Are Insane. Cute, but apparently overused.

Best example: The Boyfriend List by E. Lockhart. The entire book is written around a list. Her sequel, The Boy Book, also contains tons. There are tons of others, but they're evading me.

I am so guilty of 'eyebrow raising.'

I love how many of these fit into my real life.

My name is hannah.
My best friend has red hair.
I bite my nails.
I have a tiny scar through my eyebrow.
I raise one eyebrow.
I want to be a writer.

lmao @ #18.

Yay, I only have committed one of these cliches: eyebrow raising. But it only happens once in my book, so I should be okay.

Shady Lane said:

I love how many of these fit into my real life.

My name is hannah.
My best friend has red hair.
I bite my nails.
I have a tiny scar through my eyebrow.
I raise one eyebrow.
I want to be a writer.

Click to expand...

But Shady, you ARE a writer.