YA or Adult - How to decide and any advantages to one over the other?

CJSimone · Jan 18, 2017

I know YA has to have a teen protagonist going through teen issues and not be too graphic (mine's ok in all these). But I am concerned about: the voice/style; mine being in third person while 37 out of 40 YA contemporaries I checked were first person; mine having a male MC while most are female in YA (mine's not intended more for a male audience, so could be ok with the majority female readers in YA); and while nothing is graphic, I could be pushing some content boundaries.

What matters more when deciding? Is it necessarily YA if it's a teen going through teen issues? And are there any advantages/disadvantages to YA versus adult?

I'm revising now and wondering if I should go one direction over another. Any feedback on how to decide would be greatly appreciated!

MaeZe · Jan 18, 2017

In my humble opinion, write the story, get an opinion on the genre after it's written.

CJSimone · Jan 18, 2017

MaeZe said:
In my humble opinion, write the story, get an opinion on the genre after it's written.

Thanks, MaeZe. I'm revising the story and wondering about any compelling reasons to go toward YA or adult, and benefits to querying it one way or the other.

KateH · Jan 18, 2017

Having a male MC and being written in third person is fine, imo, and it's okay to push content boundaries. The voice of the story will be what makes the difference between YA and adult. YA stories are targeted at teens, and the way they're told doesn't have the same feel of hindsight that an adult story about a teenager might. I don't think there are significant advantages or disadvantages to either age label, it's just about picking the one that fits your story and who it's aimed at. The best way to see whether your story has a YA 'voice' is to read a lot of YA. And if you get beta readers, find ones who read both YA and adult fiction, and see what they think.

CJSimone · Jan 18, 2017

KateH said:
Having a male MC and being written in third person is fine, imo, and it's okay to push content boundaries. The voice of the story will be what makes the difference between YA and adult. YA stories are targeted at teens, and the way they're told doesn't have the same feel of hindsight that an adult story about a teenager might. I don't think there are significant advantages or disadvantages to either age label, it's just about picking the one that fits your story and who it's aimed at. The best way to see whether your story has a YA 'voice' is to read a lot of YA. And if you get beta readers, find ones who read both YA and adult fiction, and see what they think.

Thanks, KateH, that's helpful.

amillimiles · Jan 18, 2017

Yeah, I've been asking myself the same question for my MS too. MC is 19 years old (though I could make her younger for something more marketable), but besides that, it fits YA.

I don't think any of the issues you mentioned are issues at all. Quite a few YA books push the boundaries of graphic content etc. -- if you've read Sarah J. Maas' Throne of Glass series, it's marketed as YA and it starts out quite PG ... but gets very graphic in the later books.

It all depends on the themes you're exploring in your story.

MaeZe · Jan 18, 2017

Between YA and NA is a fuzzy line, more of a continuum than a black and white divide. There are books that are clearly YA on one side and NA on the other. But there's a fuzzy middle.

My story is in the middle, lots of YA chapters and by halfway through the book it is in NA territory. I don't want genre or marketing to be part of my decision making as to the story. I have a clear idea what my story is.

But, as many folks remind me, some writers are indeed concerned with writing a sellable product. Some people enjoy writing romance or classic YA and write many books in those genres specifically because they are marketable. It's not what I want to write, but I have no complaint that is what they choose to write. I used to, but have since reconsidered. I love classic YA and romance books (and many other genres).

cmtruesd · Jan 18, 2017

IMO, having a teen going through teen issues checks all the boxes for YA. POV and gender wouldn't be enough to change genre.

CJSimone · Jan 18, 2017

amillimiles said:
Yeah, I've been asking myself the same question for my MS too. MC is 19 years old (though I could make her younger for something more marketable), but besides that, it fits YA.

I don't think any of the issues you mentioned are issues at all. Quite a few YA books push the boundaries of graphic content etc. -- if you've read Sarah J. Maas' Throne of Glass series, it's marketed as YA and it starts out quite PG ... but gets very graphic in the later books.

It all depends on the themes you're exploring in your story.

MaeZe said:
Between YA and NA is a fuzzy line, more of a continuum than a black and white divide. There are books that are clearly YA on one side and NA on the other. But there's a fuzzy middle.

My story is in the middle, lots of YA chapters and by halfway through the book it is in NA territory. I don't want genre or marketing to be part of my decision making as to the story. I have a clear idea what my story is.

But, as many folks remind me, some writers are indeed concerned with writing a sellable product. Some people enjoy writing romance or classic YA and write many books in those genres specifically because they are marketable. It's not what I want to write, but I have no complaint that is what they choose to write. I used to, but have since reconsidered. I love classic YA and romance books (and many other genres).

cmtruesd said:
IMO, having a teen going through teen issues checks all the boxes for YA. POV and gender wouldn't be enough to change genre.

Thanks amillimiles, MaeZe and cmtruesd.

I do think it can be classified as YA, but I'm not sure if it's an advantage or disadvantage given some of the differences from most YA (or most contemporary YA), and if it then might be better off as adult. I don't even know if it's generally advantageous to write in the adult or YA market.

I hear a lot about the style and voice being important with YA and wonder if that's going to make the difference.

Even with the issues, there are both teen issues and those less specifically teen.

I sympathize with you amillimiles also having the struggle, and you MaeZe being in fuzzy middle ground.

cmi0616 · Jan 18, 2017

I found myself in a similar predicament to yours after finishing a novel I wrote. The protagonist is a 17 year-old girl, and the story centers around her getting pregnant, which is decidedly a "teen issue." The problem was that the book's themes and structure had decidedly literary/"adult" ambitions, and I didn't feel as though the intended audience for the novel were young adults.

Ultimately, I let my agent decide how to market it to publishers (FWIW, he agreed that the book was best as literary/adult fiction). My advice would be to try not to worry about genre while you're still working on it--just try to do what feels right for the story. See what your first readers/betas say, and query accordingly.

CJSimone · Jan 18, 2017

cmi0616 said:
I found myself in a similar predicament to yours after finishing a novel I wrote. The protagonist is a 17 year-old girl, and the story centers around her getting pregnant, which is decidedly a "teen issue." The problem was that the book's themes and structure had decidedly literary/"adult" ambitions, and I didn't feel as though the intended audience for the novel were young adults.

Ultimately, I let my agent decide how to market it to publishers (FWIW, he agreed that the book was best as literary/adult fiction). My advice would be to try not to worry about genre while you're still working on it--just try to do what feels right for the story. See what your first readers/betas say, and query accordingly.

Thanks for the helpful comment, cmi0616.

Roxxsmom · Jan 18, 2017

cmi0616 said:
Ultimately, I let my agent decide how to market it to publishers (FWIW, he agreed that the book was best as literary/adult fiction). My advice would be to try not to worry about genre while you're still working on it--just try to do what feels right for the story. See what your first readers/betas say, and query accordingly.

This caught my interest, because as someone who has queried (and without success), I've been told the writer must know their story's marketing demographic (YA vs adult etc) and gene at the time they pitch it to an agent, because agents want to know that prospective clients know the market they write to and where the story fits into it.

Is this advice overstated, then? The whole process of querying was rather intimidating for me, who can't even come up with comparable titles of recent, bestselling adult fantasy novels by new talents.

To the OP, as others have said up thread, it's the voice and perspective, as well as the age of the protagonist, that makes a novel YA. Agents and publishers vary in what they're looking for , but there are plenty of YA novels that have an adult level of explicit content, swearing, gore etc. Of course, they can be rather controversial because of this content, but it doesn't seem to hurt their sales.

Chuck Wendig (who writes YA novels as well as adult speculative fiction) has a good rundown on YA. Note, I've been running across some YA fantasy lately that is in limited third person and in past tense. Maybe it varies with the genre of the YA as well, or maybe the first-person, present tense thing has peaked as a trend, and now the pendulum is switching back to other narrative styles (that also still present a YA voice and perspective)?

http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2013/06/04/25-things-you-should-know-about-young-adult-fiction/

CJSimone · Jan 18, 2017

Roxxsmom said:
This caught my interest, because as someone who has queried (and without success), I've been told the writer must know their story's marketing demographic (YA vs adult etc) and gene at the time they pitch it to an agent, because agents want to know that prospective clients know the market they write to and where the story fits into it.

Is this advice overstated, then? The whole process of querying was rather intimidating for me, who can't even come up with comparable titles of recent, bestselling adult fantasy novels by new talents.

To the OP, as others have said up thread, it's the voice and perspective, as well as the age of the protagonist, that makes a novel YA. Agents and publishers vary in what they're looking for , but there are plenty of YA novels that have an adult level of explicit content, swearing, gore etc. Of course, they can be rather controversial because of this content, but it doesn't seem to hurt their sales.

Chuck Wendig (who writes YA novels as well as adult speculative fiction) has a good rundown on YA. Note, I've been running across some YA fantasy lately that is in limited third person and in past tense. Maybe it varies with the genre of the YA as well, or maybe the first-person, present tense thing has peaked as a trend, and now the pendulum is switching back to other narrative styles (that also still present a YA voice and perspective)?

http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2013/06/04/25-things-you-should-know-about-young-adult-fiction/

Thanks much, Roxxsmom. I'll check out the link.

I have seen/heard that YA fantasy is written in third person more often than other YA. I knew YA tends to be in first person, but looking at the contemporary titles it was much more unbalanced than I expected. The 37/40 in first person was for the most read contemporaries that week (a couple weeks ago). So I started feeling like maybe I'm screwed having a YA contemporary in third person (with the added disadvantage of a male protagonist in YA), and I've already been unsure about the voice of my MS and possibly some of my content for YA.

My story could be classified as YA suspense instead of contemporary, but suspense seems to be MUCH bigger in adult than YA (except as a part of other stories). And YA suspense might be mostly all first person (and female MC) also.

cmi0616 · Jan 18, 2017

Roxxsmom said:
This caught my interest, because as someone who has queried (and without success), I've been told the writer must know their story's marketing demographic (YA vs adult etc) and gene at the time they pitch it to an agent, because agents want to know that prospective clients know the market they write to and where the story fits into it.

Is this advice overstated, then? The whole process of querying was rather intimidating for me, who can't even come up with comparable titles of recent, bestselling adult fantasy novels by new talents.

I had the incredible luck of knowing my agent personally before he represented me, and so I never had to query. But I don't know if it's great practice to write to the market before you're "playing for money" so to speak. At the very least, I personally do my best writing when I have no preconceptions about it getting published.

CJSimone · Jan 20, 2017

cmi0616 said:
I don't know if it's great practice to write to the market before you're "playing for money" so to speak. At the very least, I personally do my best writing when I have no preconceptions about it getting published.

I can see it might help in first drafts not to worry too much about genre and the market. But during revisions it's probably smart to make it fit into the desired genre for the sake of marketability. If I present my work as YA and most YA has X,Y and Z, and mine is too different, it could be an automatic rejection.

K.S. Crooks · Jan 21, 2017

I think Y.A. characters will have more self-discovery, lack of knowledge and experience. They will require more help along their journey and will make more or bigger mistakes. With Y.A. the writer may find times where it takes more effort to explain why or how characters are capable of going certain places on their own. This is also why parents or parental figures are often killed or in some other way removed from the picture. This forces the characters to grow up on their own. Another thing to consider is if you have a series will your characters age or will that never be mentioned. I tend to decide the age of the characters and write the story and let the genre and age group fall where it does.

WriteMinded · Jan 21, 2017

This:

MaeZe said:
In my humble opinion, write the story, get an opinion on the genre after it's written.

E.F.B. · Jan 21, 2017

MaeZe said:
In my humble opinion, write the story, get an opinion on the genre after it's written.

This^ x2

CJSimone · Jan 22, 2017

WriteMinded said:
This:

E.F.B. said:
This^ x2

Thanks WriteMinded and E.F.B.

CJSimone · Jan 22, 2017

K.S. Crooks said:
I think Y.A. characters will have more self-discovery, lack of knowledge and experience. They will require more help along their journey and will make more or bigger mistakes. With Y.A. the writer may find times where it takes more effort to explain why or how characters are capable of going certain places on their own. This is also why parents or parental figures are often killed or in some other way removed from the picture. This forces the characters to grow up on their own. Another thing to consider is if you have a series will your characters age or will that never be mentioned. I tend to decide the age of the characters and write the story and let the genre and age group fall where it does.

Thanks, K.S. Crooks. Helpful points. My MC's mom is mentally ill/ overmedicated and his dad is corrupt and distant (away on business trips a lot), so that goes with what you're saying for YA. MC definitely makes a lot / big mistakes.

CJSimone · Jan 23, 2017

Update: After trying a chapter in first person instead of third (thank you, Gringa, for your persistence), and getting much better response to that in SYW, it looks like I'll be switching the entire MS. I think the MS / voice seems more YA when in first person.

I'm still interested if anyone has thoughts on advantages and disadvantages to YA versus adult (and others here might benefit from learning that as well), but I do feel more comfortable going with YA now.

Thank you to everyone who took the time and effort to respond and give me helpful feedback!

YA or Adult - How to decide and any advantages to one over the other?

CJSimone

MaeZe

CJSimone

KateH

[insert witty title here]

CJSimone

amillimiles

MaeZe

cmtruesd

practical experience, FTW

CJSimone

cmi0616

CJSimone

Roxxsmom

Beastly Fido

CJSimone

cmi0616

CJSimone

K.S. Crooks

WriteMinded

Derailed

E.F.B.

Stories, stories everywhere

CJSimone

CJSimone

CJSimone