How did you pick YA as your genre?

Ren · Dec 17, 2008

I ask because it seems to have chosen me. I always thought of myself as an adult writer, yet the more I actually sit down an do it the more I see my WIPs as falling into the YA category. I can't seem to help it even if I try.

Not that this is bad, just wondering if that's how it is for others.

KTC · Dec 17, 2008

When I read the thread title I was going to answer that it chose me, but you said that yourself. I came up with a story idea and wrote it. That's when I found out the story was YA...I didn't really consciously decide to write a YA.

Shady Lane · Dec 17, 2008

Adult books scare me.

Plus they're about adults. Ew.

The Grump · Dec 17, 2008

The first fantasy series I wrote (unplublished) is adult. But, my son thinks the second and third drafted manuscripts should be rewritten as YA. So, I tried it with another "world".

My current WIP is YA, and my small group of "pre-readers" seem to think I have found my "voice", as a snarly adolescent. Given said son is almost 40 gives me pause. Since I doubt if I'll ever be published, it doesn't really matter.

I don't really have an answer to your question. But, it may well have to do with attitude rather than years.

Do what you most enjoy writing and don't worry about who is going to read it. YA is basically a publisher's category.

wandergirl · Dec 17, 2008

Shady Lane said:
Adult books scare me.

Plus they're about adults. Ew.

lololololol
look back on this in a few years
years that will rocket past you....
I promise.

That said, I'm 25. I write YA because I simply have more experience being a young adult than being an adult. Plus, I just love the genre-bending qualities of YA, and its ultra-enthusiastic audience.

Mostly, though, I just love writing about characters who are still so new to certain freedoms, and relationships, and other things that become usual once you're an adult. Being a teenager is so exciting. Sure, it can suck too. But at that age, the world is just starting to burst open with possibility. You begin to realize your own power. And it's so, so, so exciting... you realize it even more in retrospect. That's why I write YA.

Shady Lane · Dec 17, 2008

haha, I'm four months to 18, so the life of my "i hate adults" motto is coming to a close...

KTC · Dec 17, 2008

Well, I'm an adult...so I am ascared of myself (misspelling intentional).

Yeshanu · Dec 17, 2008

My first wip could be either--I'll have to consciously choose for that one at some point in the future.

Next one decided for itself it was going to be YA, and I'm thinking that YA is where I'm going to end up mostly writing.

wandergirl said:
Mostly, though, I just love writing about characters who are still so new to certain freedoms, and relationships, and other things that become usual once you're an adult. Being a teenager is so exciting. Sure, it can suck too. But at that age, the world is just starting to burst open with possibility. You begin to realize your own power. And it's so, so, so exciting... you realize it even more in retrospect. That's why I write YA.

I think that's the real story behind the huge appeal of YA stories, even to adults. Harry is discovering that he's not a helpless child, subject to the whims of a crazy aunt and uncle. Bella is discovering a world of males, and has to choose between them.

The best of times, the worst of times...

I'd never, ever want to be a teenager again. But I work with them a lot, and I have three that have just grown out of that stage themselves, and I find their lives fascinating.

Whether written for adults or a YA audience, all of my novels so far have young adult protagonists, and I can't see that changing.

eyeblink · Dec 17, 2008

Wrote a novel at age 17 (revised seven years later) about two seventeen-year-old girls. Agent took it on as a YA novel - I had naively assumed it couldn't be one because of sex and swearing content. (It didn't sell and when my agent left the company, I ceased to be agented.)

Twenty-seven years on from age seventeen, I still find myself writing about characters in late teens or maybe early twenties, so I guess YA is inevitable for me. I also like the freedom to write in different genres and not needing to pad out to adult wordcounts if the story doesn't need it.

MLC23 · Dec 17, 2008

For me, I like Young Adult novels. I used to teach English before I had kids and I think that the YA genre is quite strong, and the stories are good. I still enjoy YA more than most other genres excluding fantasy which honestly is not that different. I've always thought of writing YA when I've thought of a story idea. My characters are the right age, the stories fit.

johnnycannuk · Dec 17, 2008

Completely by accident.

I usually write adult stuff and even still have two or three WIPS and ideas for adult themed novels.

But my 9-year-old and my 7-year-old asked me to write a story with them as the main actors and my style combined with them as characters seemed to make a YA happy medium.

I friend who is a published YA author is beta reading for me, so we'll see if it worked.

I think this particular WIP is not just YA, but good for older kids too, but i tend not to treat my kids like idiots, the way some of the formulaic books for their age do.

Maprilynne · Dec 17, 2008

I consciously chose to write my YA, but I kind of fell into that choice on accident.

Ciera_ · Dec 17, 2008

I have a hard time writing from the perspective of even a sixteen-year-old, I'm unfamiliar with any differences there are between high school and junior high (which are respectively grades 7-9 and 10-12, separately, here), and kissing scenes frankly flummox me. So I have to say that writing adult books would be awkward and difficult for me.
So, in a way I chose YA, but I chose it because there was no other reasonable option, so does that mean it chose me?

Claudia Gray · Dec 17, 2008

I started out writing for adults and my agent suggested I try YA.

TrickyFiction · Dec 17, 2008

I wrote a novel with a protagonist that just happened to be a young adult. It also deals with a twisted kind of coming of age. I tend to read a lot of YA also, though. Maybe that had something to do with it.

Alexandra Little · Dec 17, 2008

Shady Lane said:
haha, I'm four months to 18, so the life of my "i hate adults" motto is coming to a close...

I'm twenty and I still hate adults...

Anyway, for your question it's actually a bit of both for me. The only authors that I read with regularity are YA. I've always preferred younger characters, and so my writing followed that. But when I was wavering between writing YA and writing adult (which was about the same time my reading tastes shifted), I took a look at the books on my shelves and compared the fans of adult books to the fans of YA books, and what books I reread over and over and over again. I consciously told myself "stick to YA."

Blind Writer · Dec 18, 2008

For me, it just sort of happened. You're always influenced by what you read, and, as a teenager, I read a lot of YA. I read literary fiction, too, but I've always found YA fascinating (credit goes to Judy Blume, though she is more middle grade, for inspiring me). I tried multiple genres for years and years, but I wrote a YA book last year, and it just clicked. I realized that it was easiest, most fun, and most satisfying to write for teenagers.

Ren · Dec 18, 2008

I suppose I've ended up on YA because of my reading tastes then. I started reading it when I was probably 8 and continue to do so now. I read adult stuff too though.

Kathleen42 · Dec 18, 2008

By accident, I suppose. My first book centered on characters in their late twenties and thirties.

A few years ago, I had a scene and an idea pop into my head. It recently started fluttering in my brain and I realized that I really, really wanted to tackle it.

The characters all happen to be 18. I tried making them a bit older but they're quite stubborn.

Danger Jane · Dec 18, 2008

I rarely set out with any categories in mind, unless the story starts bugging me from the perspective of "damn, I want to write steampunk today!" Within a few hours of conception the idea has evolved considerably, anyway.

Ray Veen · Dec 18, 2008

I have no idea why I write YA, all my books just came out that way. Hope that don't make me an idiot.

Inkspill · Dec 18, 2008

After several failed novel starts of "adult" novels, I tried writing YA and found my voice. It makes sense to me now, because I'm a teenager, but I've always loved the coming-of-age aspect and confusion as well as surprises and understanding that come with being a teenager in fiction. YA owns my bookshelves, and it owns my writing heart as well.

As I grow older, I don't believe I'll stop writing YA and move on to adult. YA's voice and common themes appeal to me as universal and fascinating.

C.bronco · Dec 18, 2008

I write whatever genre appeals to me at the time. My first novel was YA, and my second (graphic) novel wasn't. I've written all sorts of stuff, and want to continue to try new things.

Ciera_ · Dec 18, 2008

Danger Jane said:
I rarely set out with any categories in mind, unless the story starts bugging me from the perspective of "damn, I want to write steampunk today!" Within a few hours of conception the idea has evolved considerably, anyway.

Okay, this is majorly off-topic, sorry! But I was wondering if someone could tell me quickly what exactly 'steampunk' entails. I have a vague idea...but it's been bothering me for a little while now and I don't exactly want to start a thread about it.

And this style/genre/whatever-it-is can be used within YA, yes?
Thanks a bunch ^.^

Danger Jane · Dec 18, 2008

Ciera_ said:
Okay, this is majorly off-topic, sorry! But I was wondering if someone could tell me quickly what exactly 'steampunk' entails. I have a vague idea...but it's been bothering me for a little while now and I don't exactly want to start a thread about it.

And this style/genre/whatever-it-is can be used within YA, yes?
Thanks a bunch ^.^

It's kind of a subgenre of fantasy/sci fi, basically a spinoff Victorian-esque world full of grimy sooty (probably impossible) machines and magic. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Phillip Pullman's novels, and maybe the Mortal Engines quartet by Phillip Reeve all are examples of steampunk.

How did you pick YA as your genre?

Did you choose or were you chosen?

I consciously chose to write YA

I wrote and it just came out YA

I'm not clever enough for this...

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