Um, what exactly am I writing?

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Sleigh88

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This is a silly question, and it's not really that important right now, but in the interest of potentially querying my current project, I thought I'd see what you folks thought.

Okay, so it's a YA Fantasy. I've got that much, at least. And I'd venture to call it "contemporary" fantasy, because it takes place in the near-now, and the main characters are two teenagers who are used to modern conveniences and having spats with their parents.

BUT.

But, they end up escaping into a world where the setting is your cliched high fantasy knights-and-dragons sort of thing. They get pretty snarky about everything and just want to go back home.

So I know it's not exactly contemporary, but it's not quite high fantasy, either. I guess what I'm asking is this:

If I say, "AWESOME TITLE is a YA contemporary/high fantasy and is available upon request," somewhere in my query, will potential agents want to beat me silly for being an idiot? Or does it sort of make sense?

(And I'm sort of freeloading with all these questions in one post, but could I possibly query agents who are okay with everything BUT high fantasy, considering it's not QUITE high fantasy? That's probably not a valid question and up to the agent's personal preference, but hey. I'm here. Might as well ask!)

Thanks, folks. Sorry for this crazy-long post.
 

Smish

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It's okay to just call it YA Fantasy. Seriously. It is. In fact, you can just call it YA if you want. Agents can figure out that it's fantasy by reading the query. It's not something you need to spend much time worrying about.

But don't query anyone until the novel is absolutely finished and polished.
 

Sleigh88

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Yeah, I'm definitely not going to query while writing the thing; I DO want to write drafts of potential query letters, though. Just to get the feel of it. Make mistakes early, that sort of thing. Also, I've seen agents that say things like, "Interested in DARK FANTASY but not HIGH FANTASY."

Okay........so......

That leaves me a little confused. But yeah, for agents who don't really care, I'd just bill it as YA Fantasy.
 

Shady Lane

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Just call it YA fantasy and query anyone who's interested in any kind of YA fantasy. If it's too high for them, it's too high, but if they like the story I bet guidelines that narrow won't stop them.
 

Danthia

Ditto the fantasy option. Everyone has their own idea of what contemporary or high fantasy is, so if you vary from what they think it could hurt you. But fantasy is nice and general and covers the basics.
 

cscarlet

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Ditto the others, though if you really want to put something more specific you could always say:

"_____, a YA novel with elements of contemporary and high fantasy."
 

Poetoffire

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YA fantasy sounds perfectly fine. Make sure that if the "eventually" when they escape to said world is after the 1/4 mark, you foreshadow this transition enough to not jar readers.

Otherwise, you're good.
 
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