Is This a Good Idea?

[lisamarie]

I have an idea for a novel with two main characters. One is a 40 year old woman and the other is a teenager. I have two questions:

1. If I wrote one novel and used both the woman and teenager as MCs, this is NOT considered YA, right?

2. What if I wrote two novels from each woman's perspective? One would be stricly YA from the teenagers POV and the other womens fiction from the 40 year olds POV. They would each have things the other novel didn't in case someone read both. You'd know they're linked but you wouldn't be reading the same thing in each one. Just an idea.

[Kitty Pryde]

1. Doesn't sound like YA to me.

2. Could be done, I spose. One story, told in two viewpoints of two different genres. Intriguing. I know of 3 books telling the same story from 3 different POVs all in the same genre, but not in two genres like you are proposing :)

[DrummerGirl]

Hey,

#1. I would assume it's not considered YA, BUT Melina Marchetta's 'The Piper's Son' is currently in the best sellers YA charts in Australia. It's shelved YA, and in that category for awards, etc.

It's told from two POV's:

1. Tom -- 21 years old
2. His Aunt Georgie -- 40-something

Which, based on these facts doesnt seem to qualify as YA, but it is *shrugs* I'm guessing that sometimes a protags age isn't the only consideration when classifying a book.

#2. This sounds okay in theory, not that I'm aware of anything like this in the market atm.

I guess you'd have to make sure both stories stand alone well, as they may attract different readership. Also, I'd imagine you'd only query one at a time and then it'd be up to an agent about taking on the 2nd story/tie in. It'd be similar to a sequel situation, maybe?

I have read a YA novel by Rebecca Sparrow, 'The Year Nick Gowan Came to Stay' where the MC, Rachel, is 17. Then I checked out Sparrow's other work and found a stand alone book in Adult fiction, 'The Girl Most Likely' -- which has the same MC, Rachel, as 27. It was a ten years later type-thing, with many of the same characters in her YA novel. I really enjoyed readin it -- more so because I was already emotionally invested in the the character from the YA book.

While this is different to your second proposal, it has a similar premise, one book in Ya and a loose continuation in Adult.

Not sure how helpful my post is, hopefully someone more knowledgable will come along :) I just thought of these two examples which kind of tie in with your questions.

[lisamarie]

Thanks for the tip on Rebecca Sparrow. I love learning about authors I don't know. I'll definitely check those two books out!

[Tuuli]

I'm also thinking that it wouldn't be considered YA. But it might depend on the story and how much of it is told from the teen's pov.

Cornelia Funke's Inkheart triology was told from both the adults and teens' pov. However, it was mostly in the main character pov--16 yo Meggie.

[shaldna]

It's hard to say without reading it, but my initial reaction is that it's probably not YA

[inkspatters]

I'm thinking a lot of whether you can do this and still get considered YA is to do with how established you are as an author. Two examples mentioned in this thread that do this are Piper's Son and the Inkheart Trilogy.

Melina Marchetta has to be the most established YA author in Australia. So, you know, if there's a hint of YA to her books it's probably going to be pitched as such because that's where her established audience lies. Same goes for Cornelia Funke, she'd written stuff before Inkheart, I think eg The Thief Lord (which may possibly be MG, but still established as a children's author).

So yeah, probably not YA. But who knows? With the right tone and voice...Maybe.

[Danthia]

I think what the story is about will have a lot more to do with what market it's for vs the ages. There are YA books out there that also include adult POVs (Hoot and The Thief Lord are two that pop instantly to mind).

If the story is something teens are interested in, and it approaches a teen issue in a teen way, it's YA. If it doesn't, then it's not.

[Niki_G]

This has been said more or less in some posts above, but just to put it out there tangibly: I don't think you can know until you write it. Write the story you want to/have to write and worry about genre later. That's my $0.02 anyway.