The Official "Is This YA?" thread

Snowybunny12

Snowybunny12

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In the SYW section, in the Young Adult section there is almost always a thread asking- Is my book YA? Whether this is is because of excessive sex or violence or drugs or something else- the question always pops up. So instead of starting a whole new thread every time, how about we have one thread? I know this has been suggested in other threads- well here it is! Enjoy :)
 
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Sage

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We do actually have 2 or 3 stickies that cover this. It's just that nobody reads them or uses them to ask the question. Were I to sticky this, the same problem would occur.
 
missesdash

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I think the difference is that the other threads are "what makes YA" and most people just assume that their situation is super special and no writer in the history of writers has had such a grave dilemma.

But this is just a "present your case" thread with the exact title they're definitely going to use when they start their own.
 
Snowybunny12

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I get what you mean when it comes to the title- I changed it. Perhaps it will look better now?
 
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Actually, the title is probably better without that first question. It's like a query letter. Hook them at the beginning ;) (I know I had trouble refinding this thread)
 
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If a lot of people want me to sticky this, I will. However, a vast majority of the threads we get asking whether something is YA are answered by the stickies that we already have, whether it's the age thing, the "edgy" issues, or the themes. I added the sex, violence, swearing, etc. to Shady's edgy thread so that there was no question what it was about, yet we still get a new thread about those things every few days. But I will add this as a sticky if the forum wants me to.

I cannot add those threads already created, though, because they'll become the parent threads.
 

comped

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O.K., here's your first question (hopefully in a long line of them).

My story, Terrornet, is about a bunch of high school kids, and their crazy teacher who fight terrorists and other forms of evil with guns, and time travel. In the first book (of hopefully many), they are trapped on an island somewhere and forced to kill each other, kinda-hunger games like, except the kids (i don't have any names yet) figure that they don't need to kill each other, just outsmart the evil guy who controls the game. So they get to his giant castle, where some of them notice that they may all die. there is sex. teen preg as well (which would be the basis of the 2nd booK). they enter, and then most of them are killed, leaving the last boy to travel back and fix it, using a bit of Bill and ted type know-how (ex: the keys were there because they reminded themselves to go back after they fixed everything, and so they appeared by them reminding themselves to do it later). They get back to civilization, and then face the repercussions of their workings.

Is that YA? (and if so, what genre?)

comped
 
KateSmash

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Sounds like it definitely could be. And your genre would 100% be science fiction.
 
Miss Plum

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comped, I vote YA. As for the sub-genre, I'll leave that to others.
 
Channy

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That's definitely a YA book with large amounts of Sci-fi and Dystopian. It actually kind of reminds me of an older, co-op version of Lord of the Flies? Until you got to the part about finding/killing the man who controls the games of everything.
 

comped

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Channy said:
That's definitely a YA book with large amounts of Sci-fi and Dystopian. It actually kind of reminds me of an older, co-op version of Lord of the Flies? Until you got to the part about finding/killing the man who controls the games of everything.
Click to expand...

It kinda does. Although the time travel, i'm thinking, would be used sparingly.

Miss Plum said:
comped, I vote YA. As for the sub-genre, I'll leave that to others.
Click to expand...

o.k. :)

KateSmash said:
Sounds like it definitely could be. And your genre would 100% be science fiction.
Click to expand...

seems like a theme here. LOL :)

And BTW, I'm kinda thinking about a series of books starting with that one, but don't know where to head after that.

comped
 
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