Authority-accepting teen protagonists: workable or no?

[fadeaccompli]

The latest novel idea to get lodged in my head is firmly in the realm of young adult: all the most important characters are teenagers, a big theme is about teens handling big new powers that they have to work out on their own, moral choices and growing up and all that good stuff...

Problem is, it's a spec-fic setting where, for various reasons... the adults are by and large "right". That is, the protagonist is going to be dealing with serious crimes committed by people in her own peer group, and trying to bring them in based on rules set down by society. She's not rebelling against her parents, culture, or government; she's tracking down teens who are.

I'm kinda worried that this violates one of the basic themes of YA fiction, in which teenagers grow up by rebelling against the restrictions placed on them by the adults. "Discover that the adults are part of an evil conspiracy" is pretty standard in this genre; "discover that the adults have put fairly sensible guidelines in place for good reason, and try to stop people who are rebelling against them" seems like it'd go over with teens like a bag of bricks.

This doesn't mean that all the adults are perfect, or that they're the ones solving problems. For various setting-based reasons, the adults pretty much have to sit back and let trusted teens deal with rule-breaking ones. But is the whole "Actually, those rules are there for a good reason" premise going to be a deal-breaker? Most all of the good YA adventure fiction I've read loves protagonists who break the rules, defy authority, and shake things up. I'm not sure "defend the status quo!" is going to work so well, even if it does end up being more complicated than that over the long run.

[kaitlin008]

I don't think teens necessarily have to rebel against adults, or that adults have to be wrong in order to fare well in YA. I think usually there's SOME conflict between teens and parents--I mean, that's just life. But sometimes rules do make sense, and I don't think someone has to be a wild rebellious kid to be interesting.

This sentence: "For various setting-based reasons, the adults pretty much have to sit back and let trusted teens deal with rule-breaking ones." makes me feel like you're really going to be just fine.

I mean think about Harry Potter--Harry & co break rules, yeah, but they respect and love the Weasley parents and other authority figures, and are ultimately good kids.

[fadeaccompli]

Thanks! This (and some pointed reminders from a friend about how a lot of Heinlein's juveniles went) is fairly reassuring. I think I've also come up with a way to make sure the protagonist doesn't have access to authority figures for a good portion of the story, so even if she's following their ideals in general, she's making her own choices about what to do. Which...should help, I think. I'm just a little wary of accidentally writing Miss Goody-Two-Shoes Does Everything She's Told, which even I wouldn't want to read.

[sohalt]

When I was a teenager, I found the concept of an obligatory rebellion as a necessary stage of my development very tiresome. I had seen my share of youthful rebels (with or without causes) only end in middle-aged complacency; it seemed like a pointless exercise. (Or to quote Frost: "I never dared be radical when young for fear it would make me conservative when old" - So far it seems to have worked out for me. I'm getting more radical with age.) I guess, I might have found a rule-respecting protagonist quite refreshing.

But no matter where you tend to place yourself on the "lawful vs chaotic" spectrum, if you are intellectually honest, you will find that there will always be rules worth questioning. No system is perfect. Every system needs occasional reform. No rules should be set in stone (apart from the ten commandments maybe, but even there you can argue). The question is not so much whether you are inclined to see the purpose of rules, but how you react when you feel they don't make sense - do you subvert them, bend them, campaign to have them changed, drop out of the game, overthrow the game table? Do you go for cheating, withdrawal, reform or revolution?

Your protagonist could well acknowledge the problematic aspects of certain rules without denying their overall necessity within the current system, and believe in a better way to organize things but prefer to change the system from within (because it might have more chances of sucess from a purely pragmatic perspective). The main conflict would not be between "rule defying vs rule obeying" but rather between "reform vs revolution".

Although I can also think of settings, where the rule defying youths rebelling against the old order are so clearly in the wrong that the rule-abiding protagonist would be an unambiguous hero. "Youth without God" by Ödon von Horvath for instance. It's about a teacher completly losing touch with his students, because they all turn into eager little Nazis. National-Socialism was also a youth movement and relied very heavily on destroying the influence of parents and other authorities in order to win impressionable young minds for its agenda. A lot of indoctrination was done within the peer-group.

Your rule-abiding protagonist won't come across as a puppet of the grown ups, when you can show that the rule-defying antagonists are not exactly free either - they might even be manipulated to a much higher degree. There is no social interaction without rules, but there are different sets of rules to choose from. Whenever you reject one set of rules, you (often, in my opinion: inevitably) subject yourself to another. Once you realize this, the thrill of "breaking the rules" fades quickly.

[shaldna]

I don't think it's rebelling as such that's the issue. I mean, rebellion is one thing, but what most teens are trying to do id to find their feet. I certainly know more sweet, respectful teens than I do rebellious ones.

That said, I know that I was a quiet teen, didn' get into much trouble etc, but I always had an issue with authority. I still do. If i am asked to do something then I'll do it, but if someone tells me to do somethingthen they had better be guarding their loins.

[fadeaccompli]

So I'm gathering that "following the rules" is not a deal-breaker, so long as it's clear that the protagonist is thinking about them, not just blindly following them without question, and acknowledging that they're not perfect/axiomatic. That, I think I can work with.

[vfury]

I'm kinda worried that this violates one of the basic themes of YA fiction, in which teenagers grow up by rebelling against the restrictions placed on them by the adults.

Not necessarily--I didn't properly start rebelling against adults until I was almost eighteen, which was a lot later than many of my friends and peers. Actually doing my homework and what I was told seemed like the easier route through life. ;)

Once the story is good and compelling, you can work through the smaller details in revisions. And like others have said, not every MG/YA book has teens rebelling against everything for every moment of the book. Once things are balanced, and your protagonist doesn't blindly accept everything she's told right to the end, you should be fine.

(I also have to admit your idea sounds really interesting. It would totally be something I'd pick up.)

[fadeaccompli]

It turns out that, as I wrote up more of the setting and started on the book itself... Not all of the adults agree with each other, either. Because if you have a city-sized group of people, there are going to be politics. It's how people work!

Which means that I don't have a teenager blindly following the dictates of adults in position of authority; I have a teenager who generally follows the laws agreed on by her culture, but who has her own distinct political views, not all of which are shared by the adults she works for. She can have a personal drive to be "responsible" without being an unthinking follower.

And, heck, I can always tweak some of how she thinks about the laws she's obeying once I'm done and it's going past betas. That's one of the things betas are for, after all.