YA Cliches?

Tottie Scone · Feb 3, 2016

Twick said:
If you ask a random group of people, 90% of them will swear they were always the last ones chosen for teams during gym class, no matter how mathematically impossible this is.

That is startlingly true.

Speaking for myself, I clearly remember feeling isolated and ridiculed at school, and in a very cruel way; at the time it felt that I was singled out and I certainly never felt that I could relate to most of my peers in any kind of "neutral" fashion. They were either my friends (there were about three of those) or they were likely to say something cruel and crushing at any moment.

I now wonder how much of this was fact, and how much perception? What is undeniable is the taunts and rejection; what I am now mulling over is whether it was not me versus everybody else, but everybody versus everybody else. I always felt like I was near the bottom of the food chain, but maybe there was no food chain, just one big mob of piranhas chewing on each other.

I certainly struggle to identify with the classic "High School" setup and cast of characters. None of those characters or situations resonate with my experience at all. I don't remember specific "mean girls" or "queen bees", nor "jocks" (some people were into sports, others weren't, and it had no bearing on their personalities otherwise). I don't even recall there being "nerds" - I was not mocked for being into science.

So if I were to pick a YA trope that annoys me, it would be that whole "High School" thing because it seems to me to be a set of stereotypes that are being pushed onto the whole world in a kind of induced-memory way ("remember when school was like this? Yes you do! Yes you do! Admit it!"), when I'm not 100% convinced they even apply in America.

But I'm not an editor. Are there any replies here that are from editors? I don't know how to tell.

LSMay · Feb 3, 2016

Yeah. I think the whole high school thing is an oversimplification. I mean, I could maybe point to one or two 'jocks' who had nothing going for them but sport, one or two girls who seemed to thrive on being popular and pretty, and perhaps a nerd or two, but most people were just people - or people who were both smart and good at sports, or smart and popular, or liked music and sports, etc.
It's like what's wrong with the premise of Divergent - normal people don't fit into those narrow ideas.
We do sometimes use them for our stories, because they provide a quick base for a character - not a good idea if it's a major character, but enough for two seconds of hallway conflict.

Latina Bunny · Feb 3, 2016

I was never bullied or felt like a total outcast. Sometimes I felt socially awkward, but there were other teens who were also socially awkward. (As well as adults, lol.) Maybe a bit weird, but not a shunned or bullied outcast. Just...quiet, introvert, and socially awkward, (but still friendly).

I felt more outcast as an adult, actually.

The cheerleaders and jocks were friendly to everyone and people mingled among different "groups" and stuff like that, but it was a diverse school, so I wonder if it depends on the school/community or something?

I could never relate to the teen cliches of mean cheerleaders/jocks, nice nerds, etc.

fitzdiaz · Feb 3, 2016

There are enjoyable YA novels that engage in my pet peeves, and I still like them. But...

1. Love triangle taking a really large amount of headspace in the plucky heroine, despite the fact she is saving the world/her city/her corner of dystopia
2. parent/guardian killed in front of plucky heroine

Will Collins · Feb 3, 2016

When the main character's best friend is obviously in love with him/her and the main character has never realised.

giraffes 33 · Feb 4, 2016

I was a complete and utter outcast, ostracized by near everyone I met and suffering greatly for it...in primary school. High school was easy socially, though not in general because organized standardized education and I don't get along.

(Though primary school in my area includes what in the US is known as middle school, and that comes with its own can of worms. To my understanding, a lot of high school stereotypes are much more applicable to middle school. If somehow it dawned on me to write something in the style of Mean Girls -- or, more accurate to my style, Heathers -- I'd set it in middle school.)

davidjgalloway · Feb 4, 2016

I'd agree with Psychorase--middle school seemed to be where a lot of the fractures occurred and were, well, institutionalized. (And thanks for bringing up one of the best movies EVER (Heathers). Mean Girls is great, but Heathers just is so much more dark. Can't ever understand how it got made--but it's obvious it couldn't be made now.

Tottie Scone · Feb 5, 2016

Will Collins said:
When the main character's best friend is obviously in love with him/her and the main character has never realised.

But this happens. Mr. Scone was a close friend in University. He had to ask me out about three times before I realised he was asking me out, as in asking me OUT, as in, like THAT. It's amazing he didn't give up on me.

Claudia Gray · Feb 7, 2016

Tottie Scone said:
But this happens. Mr. Scone was a close friend in University. He had to ask me out about three times before I realised he was asking me out, as in asking me OUT, as in, like THAT. It's amazing he didn't give up on me.

First -- yay for Mr. Scone!
Second -- this is one of those things that works in YA that wouldn't be plausible in most adult fiction. When you're just starting out, don't have as much relationship experience, etc., it's harder to tell friendship-vibe from romance-vibe. (And, let's face it, even as adults we sometimes botch this.) I'd say it depends largely on the character in question. If your MC is supposed to be more worldly, to have had other relationships in the past, etc., that cluelessness may be harder to justify. If this is First Love, I can more readily believe it. Same goes for the Best Friend in question: Is the Friend sending clear signals, or being extremely contradictory and confusing in the way lots of teenagers are?

Pingling · Feb 28, 2016

I never read much YA anymore. I've moved on from it. But somethings I found cliche was the fact that a lot of the time the main character was female, had only one parent due to a death or a breakup, and was extremely shy.

My own pet peeve: Schools in general. It's just too over-worked by now. (In my opinion.)

Latina Bunny · Feb 28, 2016

Pingling said:
I never read much YA anymore. I've moved on from it. But somethings I found cliche was the fact that a lot of the time the main character was female, had only one parent due to a death or a breakup, and was extremely shy.

My own pet peeve: Schools in general. It's just too over-worked by now. (In my opinion.)

Umm... Maybe I'm misunderstanding you. The existence of female protagonists/characters should not be considered as part of the list of "cliches"...

(Also, a lot of the reading pop. is female...so obviously a female protagonist can be more relatable to a lot of us female readers than male characters.)

Pingling · Feb 28, 2016

Well perhaps that would be considered my own opinion instead. As a young adult myself, I prefer MC diversity.

gingerwoman · Mar 1, 2016

bunny-gypsy said:
Umm... Maybe I'm misunderstanding you. The existence of female protagonists/characters should not be considered as part of the list of "cliches"...

(Also, a lot of the reading pop. is female...so obviously a female protagonist can be more relatable to a lot of us female readers than male characters.)

I was in the teen section of the library wondering if I could grab a book for my son. Nearly every book had a lone girl on the cover.

I read once that part of the reason JK Rowling's agent got those twelve rejections was publishers saying "Oh the main character is a boy, and boys don't read."

Of course there are teen books with male protagonists, they're just kind of buried under mountains of female focused books I think.

Cyia · Mar 1, 2016

Boys don't read is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Editors believe that boys don't read YA because they go straight for adult lit, so they don't publish much in the way of boy YA (though that's changing). Boys go to the YA section to find a book, but all the books are "for" girls, so they look elsewhere. "See? Boys don't read YA," say the editors and pat themselves on the back.

You can walk the same circular logic path with [insert ethnic group] doesn't read [insert genre], so therefore we don't publish [genre] with [insert ethnicity] MC.

Harry Potter, however was MG, and those are traditionally more evenly spaced between girls and boys. Adventure books are usually male characters in MG.

Roxxsmom · Mar 1, 2016

gallowayprof said:
Mean Girls is great, but Heathers just is so much more dark. Can't ever understand how it got made--but it's obvious it couldn't be made now.

It raised some eyebrows (and worse) back then too, but it was before the era of mass shootings at upper-middle-class high schools (or at least they were a trickle back then, rather than a torrent). You're right. I don't think a movie like that would fly today, or at least it would have to be very different. I enjoyed it when I saw it, even though some people were howling about how wrong it was even back then. There was just so much acerbic humor there, for all it dealt with a very dark, and serious, subject well ahead of its time.

I don't know how one can get away from a focus on school for YA stories set in the contemporary world. The life of the typical teenager sort of revolves around school these days. Unless it's a story that takes place during summer vacation. I remember reading a few of those when I was a teen. I remember loving horse stories when I was a teen too. I don't know if those are a thing anymore, but they were popular for junior high and even high school age girls back then. Many of them were British, though.

MLayton · Mar 1, 2016

I don't like the dystopian novels that have Bottom-Rung White Chick and Bottom-Rung Rag-Tag Team overtake the evil dystopian government for no reason. It's boring now.

Latina Bunny · Mar 1, 2016

Pingling said:
Well perhaps that would be considered my own opinion instead. As a young adult myself, I prefer MC diversity.

Oh, yes, I totally understand that there are more female MCs in teen books than males. And I totally understand the frustration. (Though I would think that would pale in comparison to people wanting more POC/Hispanic/Latino/LGBT/people with disabilities/etc as protaginists. At least you can find some male, usually white, protags...)

I was pointing out that being female in itself (in general) shouldn't be a cliche. We females do exist and are half of the human population, last time I checked. Our existence in general shouldn't be a cliche, and we shouldn't feel the need to justisfy our existence and the existence of female protagonists.

Now, stereotypes of female characters? That is more understandable.

The rest of what you said I totally understand, though.

The problem is more cultural/societal. There is a stigma about reading books (and maybe teen/YA books), and the American male teen peers I knew were either reading adult books and/or enjoying other sources of entertainment like video games, etc, over YA/teen books.

Even as a (female) teen myself, I preferred MG and adult books and other entertainment, such as anime and tv shows over those teen/YA books, lol. XD For me, teen/YA books have a different feel to them, and I can't put my finger on why that is. Maybe it's teen angst? Cetain tropes? The love triangles? Some passive or annoying female protagonists in the handful I've read? I don't know, but they always felt different than the other age categories for me. Hmmm...

Taylor Harbin · Mar 1, 2016

I'm no expert on YA, but I wish dystopian would take a break. The last YA book I read was written in present tense, and the youths in the book were doing things so unbelievable in a contemporary setting that it was impossible to suspend disbelief. Everyone else already said something I agree with.

lenore_x · Mar 1, 2016

The idea that books about girls vastly outnumber books about boys in YA is one of those things everyone "knows," but I've never seen any actual evidence for it. Only anecdotes. I'm not convinced. There are books about boys all over the bestseller lists and award shortlists. (There's my counter-anecdote.)

Latina Bunny · Mar 1, 2016

lenore_x said:
The idea that books about girls vastly outnumber books about boys in YA is one of those things everyone "knows," but I've never seen any actual evidence for it. Only anecdotes. I'm not convinced. There are books about boys all over the bestseller lists and award shortlists. (There's my counter-anecdote.)

Hmm...

Maybe it depends what books you see in your bookstore?

Or maybe it's just a first impressions thing?

In my local B and N, the teen bookshelves sections (especially teen romance) have a lot of female protagonists. A lot of the books have female protagonists in the front cover or on the blurb.

Back when it was just one small teen section, you would think it was all girls loving vampire boys (and the occasional were) after Twilight became a big deal...

So I can see why a boy or any person would think it's a lot of female characters in those teen sections. There are boy YA stuff, but in my B and N, you usually see a ton of girl YA and it had more than one teen romance section (one for Contemporary, and one for paranormal romance, and I can't remember if there was a SFF romance section), which had mostly female protagonists.

Luckily, the B and N have recently been adding various types of YA, such as an occasional LGBT YA, and YA with male protagonists. They even put in some old classic books, like Ender's Game, The Outsiders, Hatchet, etc.

I usually see female customers in those teen sections, while I see boys (and other girls/women) go to the comic books/graphic novels/manga sections nearby.

ETA: When I shop online on Amazon or Bookbub, the YA section has a lot of books with female protagonists showing up...

edutton · Mar 1, 2016

Pingling said:
But somethings I found cliche was the fact that a lot of the time the main character was female, had only one parent due to a death or a breakup, and was extremely shy. Is that a cumulative list (i.e., all three elements together is what you find cliched)? Cause if so, I can see it...

My own pet peeve: Schools in general. It's just too over-worked by now. (In my opinion.)

Yes, but given the age range of the target YA readership, school is a huge part of their life... hard to get away from completely, most of the time.

Emermouse · Mar 1, 2016

Is it wrong that every time I hear someone talk about how YA shelves seem to be dominated by female protagonists/writers, I fight the urge to say, "Even though the other genres are generally represented by male writers and protagonists, in popular culture, no matter how many awesome female writers/characters exist out there, people apparently feel that women achieving visibility and stature in a genre outside of Romance, is persecution."

I know, unnecessarily harsh, but get tired of that argument that somehow having more stories with female characters, is somehow persecution, but men's stories dominating is just the way things are and it's totally not sexism for entertainment to believe that someone has to have a penis to be worth reading about or watching. Why would you think that?

Besides, I agree with a lot of y'all that probably if you crunched the numbers, there are more males writing YA than you think. Seriously someone crunch some numbers, because I'm tired of John Green being presented as such an outlier, because he's a white dude who writes YA fiction. I've never really seen why everyone's so hyped about him; suffice to say, I don't think he's the novelty everyone paints him as. :eyeroll:

Getting entirely too tired of articles about YA lit written by people who took a cursory glance at the shelf and maybe read one or two books published in the past decade. Believe it or not, things change as you get older, including trends in literature, and you really shouldn't judge a book by its cover. That and YA is a wide field, comprising frothy teen romances, coming-of-age stories, post-apocalyptic, dystopian, and vampire romances.

edutton · Mar 2, 2016

bunny-gypsy said:
There are boy YA stuff, but in my B and N, you usually see a ton of girl YA and it had more than one teen romance section (one for Contemporary, and one for paranormal romance, and I can't remember if there was a SFF romance section), which had mostly female protagonists.
Wow, you must have a huge B&N! My local ones have relatively small YA sections, although they do now have the YA Romance shelf. All straight, of course... not as useful for my market research. (And don't even get me started on LGBT Interest - five dusty pop-psych books? Really?) Thankfully we have an awesome library system here, still, despite the Republican state legislature's best efforts.

Luckily, the B and N have recently been adding various types of YA, such as an occasional LGBT YA, and YA with male protagonists. They even put in some old classic books, like Ender's Game, The Outsiders, Hatchet, etc.
Hatchet was one of my daughter's absolute favorites when she was in middle school. She still loves Paulsen and wilderness survival stories in general. (IIRC she also liked The Outsiders, so there's some hope for this generation yet... )

Emermouse said:
Is it wrong that every time I hear someone talk about how YA shelves seem to be dominated by female protagonists/writers, I fight the urge to say, "Even though the other genres are generally represented by male writers and protagonists, in popular culture, no matter how many awesome female writers/characters exist out there, people apparently feel that women achieving visibility and stature in a genre outside of Romance, is persecution."
Ruth Bader Ginsberg: "People ask me sometimes, when — when do you think it will it be enough? When will there be enough women on the court? And my answer is when there are nine."

.

Twick · Mar 2, 2016

Emermouse said:
Is it wrong that every time I hear someone talk about how YA shelves seem to be dominated by female protagonists/writers, I fight the urge to say, "Even though the other genres are generally represented by male writers and protagonists, in popular culture, no matter how many awesome female writers/characters exist out there, people apparently feel that women achieving visibility and stature in a genre outside of Romance, is persecution." I know, unnecessarily harsh, but get tired of that argument that somehow having more stories with female characters, is somehow persecution, but men's stories dominating is just the way things are and it's totally not sexism for entertainment to believe that someone has to have a penis to be worth reading about or watching. Why would you think that?

Besides, I agree with a lot of y'all that probably if you crunched the numbers, there are more males writing YA than you think. Seriously someone crunch some numbers, because I'm tired of John Green being presented as such an outlier, because he's a white dude who writes YA fiction. I've never really seen why everyone's so hyped about him; suffice to say, I don't think he's the novelty everyone paints him as. :eyeroll:

Getting entirely too tired of articles about YA lit written by people who took a cursory glance at the shelf and maybe read one or two books published in the past decade. Believe it or not, things change as you get older, including trends in literature, and you really shouldn't judge a book by its cover. That and YA is a wide field, comprising frothy teen romances, coming-of-age stories, post-apocalyptic, dystopian, and vampire romances.

I think part of the problem is that for younger readers, and even older ones who should know better, it's acceptable for girls and women to read stories with either male or female protagonists. But boys and men (it's said) only read stories about boys and men.

So, if you write a female protagonist, it's felt (perhaps unconsciously) that you're deliberately excluding the male readership. While a man writing a male character is writing for everyone.

I remember as a young woman being very shocked when some well-educated men of my acquaintance explained that none of them had read Little Women. Because it was, you know, about women. Although I'd read Treasure Island and all those boy-centred stories and never once thought it was supposed to be outside my comfort zone.

taraesque · Jun 17, 2016

I'm really tired of the MC turning out to the most special, most powerful, queen/king of the world character that has everyone's attention. Sure, you can find out that you're actually a magical being, but does that mean you have to be THE ONE. Why can't you just find out you're a witch or a fairy and just join the new world?

YA Cliches?

Tottie Scone

LSMay

Latina Bunny

Lover of Contemporary/Fantasy Romance (she/her)

fitzdiaz

Will Collins

Will Collins

giraffes 33

davidjgalloway

Opus is my guy.

Tottie Scone

Claudia Gray

Pingling

Latina Bunny

Lover of Contemporary/Fantasy Romance (she/her)

Pingling

gingerwoman

Cyia

Rewriting My Destiny

Roxxsmom

Beastly Fido

MLayton

Latina Bunny

Lover of Contemporary/Fantasy Romance (she/her)

Taylor Harbin

Power to the pen!

lenore_x

Latina Bunny

Lover of Contemporary/Fantasy Romance (she/her)

edutton

Ni. Peng. Neee-Wom.

Emermouse

edutton

Ni. Peng. Neee-Wom.

Twick

taraesque