Adult vs Young Adult

[sanctuary6284]

What is it that clearly makes each of these stand out from the other? I don't mean in the themes or subject matter. I mean in the writing. There is a clear difference in the tone or voice when you read an adult novel than when you read a young adult one. What is that distinct difference?

[Cathy C]

What most clearly stands out to me is the age of the protagonists. In YA, the hero or heroine is mostly commonly the same age as the intended audience. I don't think that the tone really matters -- it can vary widely depending on the subject. But the issues dealt with are those understandable to the age group: a new awareness of their body and the opposite sex (but not generally having sex), struggling against a flurry of unfamiliar emotions as puberty sets in, etc., etc.


At least, that's my take on YA. :)

[Maryn]

In my limited experience, the word count is shorter and the vocabulary smaller in YA, too. (Although I think Cathy's nailed it about the protagonist being someone the young reader can identify with.)

Maryn, who was still reading to the kids when they liked YA

[fallenangelwriter]

YA is whatever the publishers have decided to market as YA, because they think teenagers will like it.

there are a lot of things it tends to hav,e like teenage protagonists, as noted above. in my experience, there are anumber of thigns it cannot have- the sex, violence, and page count are all kept under control.

but there's no feature that automatically turns anything into YA. it is my opinion tyat the ebst YA could be marketed as a book for adult,s and adults would read it and enjoy it.

of cours,e my viewpoint on this one may be a little weird, since i've been reading "adult books" since before I became a "young adult," and so I discovered YA books after adult books, not before. (i began reading YA when good YA books were recommended by teenage friends, around when i became a teenager. prior to that, i'd jsut ask librarians "where's the fantasy section." sometime,s they'd show me the YA section, sometimes the adult, sometimes I asked for adult [when i was young enough that i needed to emphasizse that i wasn't looking for children's], and frequently i wandered form one to another, not being able to tell the difference)

[DamaNegra]

I think that the difference in voice only happens in 1st person POV. As said before, YA books generally have a YA protagonist, therefore the narrator narrates (oh, the redundancy) as a teenager who's going through confusions and problems derived from that period. At least that's my guess.

[Mistook]

Young adults are obsessed with becoming adults. Adults are obsessed with either recapturing their youth, or becoming powerful middle aged people. Middle aged people are obsessed with telling you what's wrong with every group, including the old farts. Old farts write about the war.

[alisonbruce]

there are a lot of things it tends to have like... and page count are all kept under control.


Where would that put the Harry Potter books?


but there's no feature that automatically turns anything into YA. it is my opinion tyat the best YA could be marketed as a book for adults and adults would read it and enjoy it.


I agree, and the best stuff is (or should be) free of the formulas that say a YA book has to be only so long, without complex themes, and only use simple language. Breaking into the field, however, you seem to have to fit a certain set of guidelines based on the assumption that young adults aren't too bright. (Even the first Harry Potter book was Americanized for the US market.)

[alisonbruce]

But the issues dealt with are those understandable to the age group: a new awareness of their body and the opposite sex (but not generally having sex), struggling against a flurry of unfamiliar emotions as puberty sets in, etc., etc.

Except that most young adults have to deal with choices about sex, drugs etc. and many young adult novels deal with teen pregnancy . . . albeit, not generally the main character. In fact, the contemporary novels that address teens dealing with these issues, offering moral and practical insight, may be the only true young adult novels. They are the adolescent equivalent to Timmy Goes to School for preschoolers.

Otherwise, the designation "young adult" seems to me to be mostly a marketing tool since the lines between children's (excepting readers), YA, and adult fiction tend to blur.

[egem]

I heard one time that YA fiction is many times submitted as Adult, but the publisher will move it to YA. This seemed to mean that some times writers do not intend for their novels to be YA, and they don't know they are writing a YA novel until their publishers tell them. Does anyone know if this is true?

[Maryn]

It's also interesting to me as I troll different library branches in the area that the same book is categorized YA in one library, yet in with adult stuff at another, classified as science fiction at yet another.

I'd have thought the slot the publisher put it in would have pre-determined its classification. I'd have been wrong. (Not the first time.)

Maryn, who may even be wrong in the future

[popmuze]

Having published three YA novels (which I knew would be YA going in), I can tell you that I never intentionally wrote for a specific age group, only that my main characters were teenagers (actually, some were in their early twenties).

However, when one reviewer remarked of the third novel that its primary audience was "Literary, sophisticated and cynical 16-20 year olds," I realized I had created a new category, somewhere in a limbo between adult and young adult, where few readers existed.

That was a while ago. If I were doing it again today (something I've been thinking about) I'd have to simplify the language and sentence structure considerably (and fill the plot with lots of Afterschool Special type moral twists).

[historian]

This is something I have been struggling with. An editor told me the first volume of my historical trilogy should be YA ( teen protag) and, as such, needed to be shortened. I did that and, in the process, realized it should also be written in first person. Did that.

Now what happens to the following novels which are definitely adult and third person. Do I market the first without reference to the trilogy or assume by the time the teens have read the first one and the following ones are published they will have grown up enough to read the adult ones? Are the next two a bilogy (trilogy-1):ROFL: or should they be separate, too?

historian

[alisonbruce]

How old is a "young adult"?

[WriterInChains]

I heard one time that YA fiction is many times submitted as Adult, but the publisher will move it to YA. This seemed to mean that some times writers do not intend for their novels to be YA, and they don't know they are writing a YA novel until their publishers tell them. Does anyone know if this is true?

I know of one instance where it's true -- Laura Whitcomb's A Certain Slant of Light. I heard her speak about it, and her WIP on being a first time novelist, and she said she queried it as an adult book but it's published as YA. I can't remember if her agent or the publisher decided on that, though. The book is wonderful & surprising, & I really enjoyed her reading.

[blacbird]

How old is a "young adult"?

Dunno, but I wonder if we don't need a category for "old adolescent." You know, those arrested-development twenty-somethings (even older, sometimes) who are still mentally in junior high school.

But . . . nah . . . none of them read anything.

caw.

[popmuze]

That's who all those high school prom night/slasher/gross out movies are aimed at.