The next big thing

Fuchsia Groan said:

OMG! I'm pretty sure Julie showed up at my launch this past summer. I heard about this deal but did not put two and two together until now. (I live in the middle of nowhere, so meeting other YA authors is a big deal.) Anyway, congrats to her.

I'm wondering if paranormal is really still off-limits. They may call it contemp fantasy or gothic horror, but it seems to be sneaking back in. It just isn't so strictly romance focused anymore. I'd love to write a ghost story.

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Whoops I accidentally deleted my post.
Anyway, just wanted to throw in that I'm querying a paranormal YA/submitting it to Twitter pitch contests and interest has been really good. There's definitely not the same "Paranormal is dead forever and ever!" attitude that we saw in the YA market after Twilight exploded. (For those of you who like specifics: I have a few fulls/partials out and have only been in contact with 20 agents (queries + #pitmad/#divpit requests). )



Back to the other trend: Science Fiction
I was at Frankfurt Bookfair last weekend. The ARCs I was able to pick up were mostly contemporary (mental illness and terror being dominant themes) but something in the Pan Macmillan Spring Catalogue picked my interest. Susan Dennard's new novel Windwitch was in it - and this is the last line in the 'About the Author' section: "as well as co-author on a serialized science fiction project with NYT bestseller Sarah J. Maas."
I think it's safe to say, between Veronica Roth, Marie Lu, Sasha Alsberg/Lindsay Cummings and Susan Dennard/Sarah J. Maas, science fiction will be everywhere by 2018.

Dancing, the seralized fiction they wrote together is free online and they never finished it (It was also VERY adult.) But I agree that science fiction is coming back. I'm still not finding the sci-fi I want (they all read too alike for me?), but I'm hopeful

And yes I agree I think fantasy is still going very very strong. I write contemporary and often get "it's too close to J@ndy N3ls0n" to sell or sign by agents/editors. Frustrating. *works on all my next projects and makes them separate from JN Lol*

On Science Fiction: I went through the list of YA books to be released in 2017 and 2018. I got bored, so didn't get all the way through, but there were definitely still more Fantasy than SF. And the SF that is coming is by big names that are already out there. Also, I don't consider Windwitch to be SF. I think it's Fantasy. And my latest editor rejection cited my lack of a big hook like in Illuminae or Veronica Roth's upcoming book, Carve the Mark. So I do think SF is getting stronger, but it has to be extra special to be purchased. (Or be written by a name that already sells.)

Sage said:

I think the NaNo queries in December and January are a myth.

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No, they really aren't. Literary agencies and publishers are flooded with NaNo books at the beginning of December.

Anyone who doesn't know to revise their novel before sending it out probably doesn't know to send to agents either. They also probably are easy rejections because they probably didn't craft a good query and their writing shows that they didn't revise after NaNo.

January's New Year's Resolution queries, though, may be a thing

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They are easy rejections for exactly the reasons you describe: but even easy rejections take time to work through.

Windcutter said:

I have a subtle feeling that space opera will be the new court intrigue fantasy.

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I feel like the evolution has been futuristic dystopia --> dystopian fantasy --> court intrigue fantasy (sometimes with dystopian elements) --> fantasy in space

Essentially the same plots but in different settings

Whatever the trend is, I'm pretty sure it's not 1 Direction fan fiction. : D

Please tell they won't make every SF story Dystopian again. Cyberpunk and Dystopian are inherently different. *twitches *has panic attack *feints * Gets up * Brushes off jeans

But it mean nice if something I could relate to were trending.

I remember trying to write dystopian, a weirdly traumatic time in my writing history. Would rather not go back there. And I'd rather not see Creepy (doesn't know boundaries) gas lighting, emotional manipulative, wind bag boyfriends novels as well trending.:/ That reeks way to true to an actual abusive experience I had.

Oh like Disability Dystopias, where a MCs PTSD plays an important plot element. Well been there done that, but would be cool to see others do.

But more disability novels please!

I hope it's something LGBT!

Why does it seem like court intrigue = YA GoT?

I kind of want cyberpunk to be the next big thing. This is the perfect time for it to come back because that type of atmosphere really mirrors what the world is like right now.

Long shot--but middle grade fantasy.

Reviving this thread because I'm actually really curious as to where the market is right now, what's considered a hard sell and what people are asking for.

Has anybody heard anything from recent book fairs?

Psychological thrillers, which have driven the market for some time, are either peaking or tipping over that peak, as far as sales to publishers go. So they'll continue to appear in the shops for a year or two but are dwindling now. No idea what's coming next.

There's still a very good market for memoirs from medical professionals: think of When Breath Becomes Air, and Do No Harm. This is a smaller market, but a more constant one as there's a lot of public fascination for complex medical problems set against a background of memoir.

ETA: Not that those are YA market trends, but both are applicable.

Old Hack said:

Psychological thrillers, which have driven the market for some time, are either peaking or tipping over that peak, as far as sales to publishers go. So they'll continue to appear in the shops for a year or two but are dwindling now. No idea what's coming next.

There's still a very good market for memoirs from medical professionals: think of When Breath Becomes Air, and Do No Harm. This is a smaller market, but a more constant one as there's a lot of public fascination for complex medical problems set against a background of memoir.

ETA: Not that those are YA market trends, but both are applicable.

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Very interesting. As a reader who loved Gone Girl and female-driven psychological suspense, can we STOP with the "for fans of Gone Girl" shit? I thought that trend would have saturated out like a year ago. I cannot stand anymore so I hope that's really peaked. It also seems to me that there's been a declining success in these over the past couple of years: G1RL ON THE TR@IN-->LUCKIEST G1RL AL1VE.

I'd argue that the Next Best Thing has definitely transferred over to the adult market, which to me has seen more of an expansion as YA has "levelled out" post-Divergent. The only think I can potentially see coming will be a lot of "like Big Little Lies" books (maybe) to replace the "like Gone Girl" books, so maybe they'll be less twist-oriented and more about a group of middle-class mothers/friends/something like that, possibly with a darkly comic vibe. That's a pure guess, though.

The only consistent theme I've seen in YA books being sold seem to me, at least, to be #OwnVoices and more...twitter-based? That's not meant to be a critique and there's only been one major success (THE H@TE U G1VE), but a couple of years ago, all the YA contemporary books coming out seemed to be focused on gay/bi characters. Then the focus seemed to be on more trans rep in YA. THE H@TE U G1VE seems to have ushered in more books about racism and Islamophobia, and the main thing now seems to be "other-culture-inspired" fantasy. I just read Publishers Weekly though so it's not an insiders' perspective.

I'm still seeing a lot of novels that are re-tellings of "classics", be they classic novels (IE works of fiction, Dracula, The Phantom of the Opera etc...) or fairy tales, (Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty, etc...) or mythology-but now there seems to be a flux of such re-tellings but with a "twist" on the main character being a representative of diversity. Such as a different race, or religion, sexuality and the like. It's certainly nice to see such representation. But I too wonder if the "next big thing" has moved on from Young Adult? If so I hope so, because I understand trends and while I don't resent them as some do; it does get tiring as a reader looking for something new to read and you see four or five books with a similar theme. It especially is frustrating if you're just not fond of that theme, or genre.

I have been noticing a trend towards "Darker" secondary world fantasy and Game of Thrones may well be responsible for this. As well as fantasy that takes place outside of the usual "Western Europe" setting that plagues fantasy and see them moving further east. Lots of fantasies that are focused in places that resemble Eastern Europe settings as well as Asian settings (and I mean all of Asia, south eastern jungles, Mongolian Steppes or stories that are based in societies that are similar to China or Japan or Korea).

Also Windcutter said this last year I noticed:

I have a subtle feeling that space opera will be the new court intrigue fantasy.

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And with that you were right, I am seeing a HUGE flux of Space Opera on shelves now.

I'd personally love some Young Adult Adventure stories to be a thing (That could be because I'm replaying the newer Tomb Raider Games )but something with that spirit of adventure that isn't Steampunk. You know?

I think the next big thing is going to be metaphysical and spiritual teen reads. I think with this new focus that millennials are putting into reconnecting with our spiritual roots, those ideals are going to trickle down into our youth. I think stories that focus around meditation, chakra, and spiritual development will be on the rise. I think there are important philosophical arguments to be made abut the nature of enlightenment, ego death, and our place here. If this can be properly woven into a storyline and prettied up with fantasy magic as a buffer I think a lot of people will eat it up since it wouldnt read like a philosophy textbook.

I think our youth are past that technological phase where video games and gadgets are the MOST important thing they can have. I was born in '92, I grew up with walkmans and tapes, and sit here now jadded as all hell with literally any new tech that presents itself. Personally, I've spent the past few years shedding all of that and finding myself back in anture and spirituality.

I don't think our youth is far behind, and if we can give them a fun, new perspective on our purpose here- I think it would end up in everyone's hands.


A question I raise in my last novel was what it means to be human in a society driven by technology. Has mankind (d)evolved to a point where we are beginning o branch off into a new species. Place a modern inner city kid next to a child from an untouched tribe. Id argue the tribesman is still human to the core- while the inner city kid has evolved into something else, or is at leats beginning to when we look out how our brains and behavours would be mapped out at that point. In my novel, those who were still "human" were rewarded, but thats another story entirely.

Either way, I think novels that question humanity, spirituality and show us "the way," are on the rise.

I tend to ignore the trends entirely, because what I write is so utterly absurd that it will never neatly fit into any kind of trend. The best thing I can compare it to on the market is right now is Gork the Teenage Dragon, which is a great, quirky book that gave a serious middle finger to trends, what people expect in a YA novel or hell, prose fiction in general. Gork is blatantly rebellious in that it does not shy away from being silly and over the top, and my stories are rebellious in that exact same way. Of course, what I write is stilll quite different and a lot darker than Gork..Gork is stubbornly positive, while what I write tends to wallow equallly in positivity and negativity...I guess you could say my writing is Gork's crazy, manic-fun but slightly-deranged and sometimes uncomfortable to spend time with sister. If Gork is like the tight-knit, passionate, quirky forum community to the mainstream's Facebook, I'm aiming to be it's 4chan. So yeah, not all that close to Gork, but just as "screw you" to what people expect of YA fiction.

However, despite the plentiful differences, Gork is really the only thing even vaguely simmilar on the market now, so that's the best comparison I can draw.

That being said, I find the following of trends fascinating, and trying to be ahead of them an engaging but largely pointless mental excersise. Writing for trends is bad...write for yourself, always. I spent six years of my life worried that what I wanted to write was too absurd and over the top for the mainstream, but now I stopped worrying and embraced the fact that the odds are stacked against me.

No fight worth fighting is ever easy, so I embrace the fact I'm blaitantly spitting in the face of what people say you should and should not write. I wave the flag of rebellion with pride, and see followning the trends as little more than a fun game that's not to be taken seriously. We can all choose. We can choose to be the drones who fall in line and write ok stories that follow the trends but inspire little passion in us...or we can choose to be rebels and trailblazers who write stories that speak to our hearts and souls, regardless of how absurd or unmarketable the publishers think they are. Follow the trends, or be the one to create the next trend...the choice is yours, writers. Choose well.


With that out of the way, one trend I am all for is diversity...but with a caviate. As a person with high functioning autism and ADHD, who is fairly involved in my local autism community, I'd love to see more books witt autistic protagonists.,.but I don't want all of them to be contemporary "issue books." I find a lot of what's in the market RN that has neurodiverse protagonists tends to make the protagonist's mental issue more or less the plot of the book. I want fantasy heroes who sling spells, throw fireballs and save the world, but also have autism. I don't want autistic protagonists to be limited to contemporary drama books; we can be fantasy and sci-fi heroes too, and I want to assure that we are portrayed in that light as well as a more down to earth, contemporary one.

So I'm writing a YA book about a high functioning autistic teenage girl who teaches herself how to hack reality and goes on to play a twisted quantum videogame with an evil catgirl to wrest God's brain from her control and save everybody. Along the way, she grows up, learns to manage herself better and ultimately comes to live with, and not "cure," the neurological differences which both hindered and helped her on her journey.

Yeah, the plot is absurd as it sounds, and I don't care. Myself, my story and my protagonist are unapologetically weird, and I embrace that fully. I'm nowhere near good enough to get it out there right now, but I hope with work and effort I can be one day.

So I now embrace my place as a defiant and proud rebel in the writing world instead of running from it, and there is nothing more rebellious, subversive and absolutely needed than getting diverse books into speculative genres..where they are seen least.