Help needed! YA or MG?

Link is here:

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=142318

I'll take a look

The tone has a bit of a reflective voice to it that suggests YA, and the narrator feels older to me. But it's hard to say for sure without knowing the overall story. That's what really determines it. Who the publishers think the readers will be.

The main differences between MG and YA are subject matter. MG tends to be more adventure oriented, romance is sweeter and more innocent. YA is usually grittier, sexier, with more adult issues. Then there's the upper MG that crosses over right in the middle. Adventure with some more adult-ish themes. And then there's the YA that fits a MG requirements perfectly but is still classified 14+, and the darker MG that feels more YA.

Your safe just saying YA, and letting the editor who buys it decide where within YA it goes.

I think it would matter more on what the overall story is about.

How funny! To me it felt totally like MG. Very sweet age 13ish (?) MC without any hard-core problems, an innocent crush, secretly being a sea creature of some sort...

Thanks! I queried it as YA, but when my agent submitted it, all the editors who read it saw it as MG. When I sold it, we lowered the ages and tweaked a few things.

Sometimes you just never know with some stories.

I'd like to point out though, that while Danthia's experience is totally relevant, not every author sits back and waits for an editor to tell them what their genre is. As in the other thread, there are agents out there who will rep YA but NOT MG. And vice versa. I have not read the excerpt, but from what everyone has said so far, it seems there is a consensus with the MG thing. If that is the case, then I would advise shopping it around as MG.

Danthia's situation was unique to her because she thought it was a YA from the beginning, as did her agent, until the editors suggested otherwise - thus her shopping a YA to YA agents made sense, but if you know it is MG from the beginning, take advantage of that and don't risk rejection from people who simply don't rep MGs. I did, and that's how my book was shopped. There was never any doubt what I was writing was MG.

To piggyback on toothpaste's point...

I think with kid lit it's more important than with any other genre to really know who you are writing for. Kids change quickly, and the difference between a 10-year-old and a 12-year-old can be amazing. If you want to write for readers under the age of 12 or 13, you are going to make some very deliberate choices in how you build your story. For example, in Toothpaste's first book, she's got some grim stuff--murder, torture, kidnapping, mayhem. But the tone is always light, cozy, zany. It's like Tom and Jerry violence, with a comforting adult narrator firmly in charge of what we see. It keeps it clearly in the safe zone for a 10-year-old reader. If she'd been aiming for a 14-year-old, I'm sure she'd have made it far more scary and the danger much more realistic and given even the "good" characters some darker shades of gray.

If you know you want to write for a younger crowd, then you make sure it suits them. You're the storyteller. You get to stay in control of these things.

Let me clarify since I obviously did a bad job explaining...

What I meant was that on some books that really do sit on the fence, you could probably be safe with a YA label since it could go either way. One agent would say this is MG I don't rep that, while another could say, this is so YA. (Same as with editors. Other editors who liked mine said it was YA. Same book different opinions)

If you know for sure you're one side or the other, obviously query that way. And if an agent says they don't do MG, then don't query them. But if they say YA and don't say no MG, you could probably try them if you think your story is on the fence. If your story is about a 10 year old and falls strongly into the MG range, again, don't query YA only agents.

I never meant to imply to let editors decide your genre or market. I meant that even when you and your agent think one thing, an editor could still think another. So do the best you can to decide where you fit and try not to worry too much about it past that.

And I just want to add that in re-reading my post I could see it could maybe be a bit dismissive of Danthia (not in content, but tone). That was not my intention at all. I totally agree with her, I just wanted to add my perspective onto the whole thing! Sorry if it came across otherwise.

Man, isn't the publishing world a confusing place?

Yes, Danthia, I apologize, too, if I seemed to be dismissing your point. I know you've read my other posts ranting about how fuzzy the line is between YA and MG. Your point is absolutely, 100% spot-on. The author has her intentions, does her best to carry them out, but once the book is in the world, there are so many other people who get to define what it "is": agents, editors, marketers, bookshop owners, librarians...

As you say, all we can do is write the best book possible, and then be willing to bend a little with what happens next.

No worries, Toothpaste and JudScotKev, I didn't take it that way. I just realized I wasn't clear and wanted to fix that