Is my story suitable for a YA audience?

I think it could be possible that your problem isn't your subject matter (teens deal with a lot more real life than people give them credit for), but the fact that your MC is over forty. They may have trouble relating to a forty-year-old. I could be wrong, of course, but I don't remember ever seeing any YA books with MCs that age.

I don't think it'd be suitable because of the MC's age. What if you made him a teen too? A teen psychic in a wheelchair? Or does that screw up the story too much?

I have to agree. Kids don't want to read about us old people.

justpat said:

I have to agree. Kids don't want to read about us old people.

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That's not true; we just don't want to read a story about an adult in a YA book. Generally speaking, of course.

But think of Robbin Williams in Flubber. And what about Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory? I know these are movies, but an odball MC can capture any kids interest. Age isn't important, it's the way the story is told.

M.A.Gardener said:

I'm thinking of him as a kind of mentor, like in the examples you mentioned, or like The Karate Kid. There is definitely an oddball sense of humor to the story. Plus I kind of want teens to get the perspective of what it's like to be in a wheelchair. But maybe I'm way off?

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I'm not sure where I read/heard this, but it was something along the lines of YA not being a genre so much as a POV. It would have such a bigger impact on teens if the MC was a teenager (or 20-something) in a wheelchair. I have never seen a YA book where the MC was middle-aged, especially not from their POV.

this is interesting... i just posted a question in the YA forum asking if people knew of any YA books with a adult POV character. i'm writing one now that has two POV characters- a teenage girl and her mother. so i hope it can work... but i'm not sure. the last time i tried to do multiple viewpoints i got about 50 pages in and then went back and rewrote it from a single viewpoint, which could happen again. i'd like to take a shot at it this way though. so-- is your 40 yr old guy the only POV character or are some of the teen characters also POV characters? since he was a teen runaway himself, how are you handling the backstory-- is much of his experience as a teen in this book and how are you incorporating that? just curious as i'm playing with this too.

I'm thinking of him as a kind of mentor

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Ah, well that's all right because presumably he's mentor to a teenager? Therefore the teenager is the main character, not the psychic. That would be absolutely fine.

And the main character in the Chocolate Factory is actually Charlie Bucket, not Willie Wonka. The main character in The Karate Kid is the Kid. Older oddball characters are fine, but in teen fiction you definitely need a main character that is close to your reader's age.

I agree with the pack, if the older character is a mentor / support character to the youner character then it could work at a YA.