Hi everyone! I'm new around here. I'm so glad I've found an active forum where writers can gab with writers!
I'm a university grad working on my first YA novel. I'm a bit troubled, though, because what I'd like to do is publish the true story of a girl dealing with severe suicidal depression. It's along the lines of Go Ask Alice, Ellen Hopkins' books (Crank, Glass, etc.), Patricia McCormick's Cut, etc.
There are lots of fictional journal-style YA works out there, but I find that sometimes they're a bit far-fetched - a depressed girl is distant from her parents, starts cutting herself, then takes drugs to ease the pain, gets hooked on drugs, goes out on the street, ends up in a psychiatric hospital, etc. I'm really hard-pressed to find something that is at all hopeful.
What I would like to publish is a true story - one that deals with a suicidal and depressed mind from the inside out. But not one that is just depressing - not at all. It would be a story about someone clinging to hope in the face of a vast, desolate darkness. A story about someone who makes it out alive. Because from what I've seen in researching this, there really aren't many who do.
That's a long-winded way of getting to the point: do you think something like this would be better suited to agents dealing with non-fiction, like memoirs? Or would it be better suited to agents interested in YA, given the fact that it's about a girl in her teens?
I wouldn't pull a James Frey and fictionalise the story just to make it more sensational... the thing that makes it so compelling, I think, is the fact that someone can actually survive such an intensely dark night of the soul and still be strong enough to tell the tale.
Anyway, what are your thoughts on YA written in this fashion? Overdone? Underwhelming? Annoying? Or poignant, given the right platform?
I'm a university grad working on my first YA novel. I'm a bit troubled, though, because what I'd like to do is publish the true story of a girl dealing with severe suicidal depression. It's along the lines of Go Ask Alice, Ellen Hopkins' books (Crank, Glass, etc.), Patricia McCormick's Cut, etc.
There are lots of fictional journal-style YA works out there, but I find that sometimes they're a bit far-fetched - a depressed girl is distant from her parents, starts cutting herself, then takes drugs to ease the pain, gets hooked on drugs, goes out on the street, ends up in a psychiatric hospital, etc. I'm really hard-pressed to find something that is at all hopeful.
What I would like to publish is a true story - one that deals with a suicidal and depressed mind from the inside out. But not one that is just depressing - not at all. It would be a story about someone clinging to hope in the face of a vast, desolate darkness. A story about someone who makes it out alive. Because from what I've seen in researching this, there really aren't many who do.
That's a long-winded way of getting to the point: do you think something like this would be better suited to agents dealing with non-fiction, like memoirs? Or would it be better suited to agents interested in YA, given the fact that it's about a girl in her teens?
I wouldn't pull a James Frey and fictionalise the story just to make it more sensational... the thing that makes it so compelling, I think, is the fact that someone can actually survive such an intensely dark night of the soul and still be strong enough to tell the tale.
Anyway, what are your thoughts on YA written in this fashion? Overdone? Underwhelming? Annoying? Or poignant, given the right platform?
