When does "edgy YA" become NA?

I attended a conference session on NA, and they said beyond age, NA has to do with themes the protagonist is going through, too: transitioning from childhood to adulthood, starter marriages, first serious relationships and/or breakups, first jobs and/or job loss . . . I've also heard NA skews toward romance. I blogged the panel (note it was a few years ago now, and things may have changed): http://pepperwords.com/?p=4062

zmenthos is correct. Think about whether the problems the protagonist faces are more relatable to a 15-year-old or a 22-year-old. I'd add that plenty of novels that are solidly for adults have children as protagonists at least part of the time--everything from To Kill a Mockingbird to Room to The Goldfinch to Game of Thrones. So theme really is the important factor here.

Target audience is also important: who do you intend to have read this? The rule I've heard is that teenagers want to read about people their age or older. But in the end, I wouldn't worry too much, and would probably just go ahead and query it as both if I were you.

YA is never too edgy, in my opinion. Read LITTLE CHICAGO by Adam Rapp. That's the most adult MG/YA I've ever read.

While I don't think "smut" or gratuitous gore and violence is generally favorable, I agree with zmethos and samchapman. As I understand it, it's mostly about age of the protagonist and target audience. So if your MC is still in high school or just starting college and going through teenager stuff and never "ages up" over the course of the book (which some exceptions), it's probably YA.

I very recently had an editor who thought I should revise my book to be YA, from adult, on the grounds that she felt the ages of the characters (19/21) and the coming of age type themes better suited YA.

She also went through and indicated all the sections, topics, and discussions which she felt would need to be removed in order for it to qualify as YA. She felt those portions of the MS were too heavy (social/political/philosophical) for that market. She did agree that they'd be fine in an adult novel, however.

I keep hearing from people that YA has no limits, it can be anything, cover the same depth and material etc, but if that's so, then why would an editor make that recommendation? I think there must be a cutoff, or there'd be no point having such a marketing category at all. Of course, what that cutoff is, I couldn't say. It looks to be immensely fluid.

Harlequin said:

I keep hearing from people that YA has no limits, it can be anything, cover the same depth and material etc, but if that's so, then why would an editor make that recommendation? I think there must be a cutoff, or there'd be no point having such a marketing category at all. Of course, what that cutoff is, I couldn't say. It looks to be immensely fluid.

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Yep, this is my experience as well, Harlequin. And because it's so subjective, it's hard to determine good cutoffs (other than the obvious). I'm trying to tone some things down in my YA contemporary and I'm not sure where to draw lines.

Nightunderstars, if the MC is 15-22 in the story, I'd probably go with adult because both YA and NA seem pretty strict about ages and having that age range makes the story not quite fit into either category. Adult has more flexibility. I totally get that the labels are needed for marketing, but they're so frustratingly stifling for writers.

Harlequin said:

I very recently had an editor who thought I should revise my book to be YA, from adult, on the grounds that she felt the ages of the characters (19/21) and the coming of age type themes better suited YA.

She also went through and indicated all the sections, topics, and discussions which she felt would need to be removed in order for it to qualify as YA. She felt those portions of the MS were too heavy (social/political/philosophical) for that market. She did agree that they'd be fine in an adult novel, however.

I keep hearing from people that YA has no limits, it can be anything, cover the same depth and material etc, but if that's so, then why would an editor make that recommendation? I think there must be a cutoff, or there'd be no point having such a marketing category at all. Of course, what that cutoff is, I couldn't say. It looks to be immensely fluid.

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That's probably because as with most things, the cutoff depends on the execution. I've come across YA that deals with: rape, genocide, incarceration, kidnapping, murder, drugs, sex, swearing...and so on. But in general these topics are handled very differently from adult books that have the same stuff.

Harlequin said:

I very recently had an editor who thought I should revise my book to be YA, from adult, on the grounds that she felt the ages of the characters (19/21) and the coming of age type themes better suited YA.

She also went through and indicated all the sections, topics, and discussions which she felt would need to be removed in order for it to qualify as YA. She felt those portions of the MS were too heavy (social/political/philosophical) for that market. She did agree that they'd be fine in an adult novel, however.

I keep hearing from people that YA has no limits, it can be anything, cover the same depth and material etc, but if that's so, then why would an editor make that recommendation? I think there must be a cutoff, or there'd be no point having such a marketing category at all. Of course, what that cutoff is, I couldn't say. It looks to be immensely fluid.

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Well, just because one editor said something, it doesn't make it gospel.

And the fact this particular editor thought nineteen- and twenty-one-year old MCs would make it more suitable for YA makes me wonder how familiar she is with YA, which generally cuts off at eighteen (though admittedly there's some leeway, especially in fantasy).

So, why would an editor make that recommendation? Maybe because she doesn't know the YA market that well?

Putputt said:

That's probably because as with most things, the cutoff depends on the execution. I've come across YA that deals with: rape, genocide, incarceration, kidnapping, murder, drugs, sex, swearing...and so on. But in general these topics are handled very differently from adult books that have the same stuff.

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I think you are probably right. However... hypothetical question. Do you think there are some topics which *shouldn't* be included, if they aren't handled in an "adult" way (whatever that may be)?

Not rhetorical, genuine question. some of Cynthia Voigt's YA novels dealt heavily with child abuse, abandonment, broken families, but focused explicitly on how those children coped; perhaps that's part of the difference from how an adult novel would approach? Again, not sure.

be frank said:

Well, just because one editor said something, it doesn't make it gospel.

And the fact this particular editor thought nineteen- and twenty-one-year old MCs would make it more suitable for YA makes me wonder how familiar she is with YA, which generally cuts off at eighteen (though admittedly there's some leeway, especially in fantasy).

So, why would an editor make that recommendation? Maybe because she doesn't know the YA market that well?

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I think she probably does know it fairly well; she's mainly YA, some children and some WF. Worked with Leo Hunt as a recentish example.

The age is weird because nonhuman, so I don't know if she was right on that account or not. Her recommendation to pitch as YA fantasy was based on "the fact that all the main characters are teenagers and the central themes of coming of age and the quest narrative to find oneself are the central tropes of a YA novel", and suggested "not getting too caught up in the winder ramifications of the political and social ideas at play within the novel, which are a little far-reaching for a fantasy novel of this kind", etc.

Anyway, I don't want to get dragged too much into discussing my own stuff again--merely using it as an example. Right or wrong, an editor has in their head an idea of when certain content crossed a boundary from YA to adult, and so recommended removing it--and the content in question wasn't explicit or super violent, etc. Just, she felt, not YA appropriate. On the flipside, we had a long conversation about going the other way, and removing the YA stuff, and just in general how to make a book "more adult".

be frank said:

Well, just because one editor said something, it doesn't make it gospel.

And the fact this particular editor thought nineteen- and twenty-one-year old MCs would make it more suitable for YA makes me wonder how familiar she is with YA, which generally cuts off at eighteen (though admittedly there's some leeway, especially in fantasy).

So, why would an editor make that recommendation? Maybe because she doesn't know the YA market that well?

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Tru dat.

My first MS, which is YA Fantasy, has been subbed to ...I dunno, a ridiculous number of editors, both in the UK and US, by two different agents. The number of editors who's seen it by now is probably close to 50. *hangs head in shame* Anyway, one editor from a big 5 house said, "This seems better suited for MG". Which is probably the weirdest, most...off feedback I've ever received on my MSs. I lovelovelove MG. I read quite a bit of it and I'm writing one currently, but my first MS is very firmly YA in theme and voice, and in fact out of the 50-ish editors, 70-ish agents I queried, and gazillion beta readers I had, she was the only editor who said that, so I know she's an outlier. But the moral of this story is that outliers do exist, and that even editors working in Big 5 houses can make really strange comments at times.

Harlequin said:

I think you are probably right. However... hypothetical question. Do you think there are some topics which *shouldn't* be included, if they aren't handled in an "adult" way (whatever that may be)?

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Hruummm personally? Yeah, I *personally* think there ARE topics which shouldn't be included, but that's just me. I certainly wouldn't apply my own rules to other writers though.

Not rhetorical, genuine question. some of Cynthia Voigt's YA novels dealt heavily with child abuse, abandonment, broken families, but focused explicitly on how those children coped; perhaps that's part of the difference from how an adult novel would approach? Again, not sure.

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Yeah, the focus is pretty much always on the YA characters, since they'd be the MCs in a YA novel.

I think she probably does know it fairly well; she's mainly YA, some children and some WF. Worked with Leo Hunt as a recentish example.

The age is weird because nonhuman, so I don't know if she was right on that account or not. Her recommendation to pitch as YA fantasy was based on "the fact that all the main characters are teenagers and the central themes of coming of age and the quest narrative to find oneself are the central tropes of a YA novel", and suggested "not getting too caught up in the winder ramifications of the political and social ideas at play within the novel, which are a little far-reaching for a fantasy novel of this kind", etc.

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Oooh. Okay, so it sounds to me like the agent didn't necessarily mean like...keep the ages 19/21. If you were to change the MS to YA, I would suggest aging the MCs down. And the "not getting caught up" bit sounds possibly like...maybe narrow down the focus? I dunno, I'm just speaking outta my ass here.

Putputt said:

Oooh. Okay, so it sounds to me like the agent didn't necessarily mean like...keep the ages 19/21. If you were to change the MS to YA, I would suggest aging the MCs down.

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Yeah, there's a big difference between "these themes really suit YA, so how about we age the characters down a bit?" and "this character is twenty-one years old, so the MS suits YA."

Then again, not humans, so .

Hruummm personally? Yeah, I *personally* think there ARE topics which shouldn't be included, but that's just me. I certainly wouldn't apply my own rules to other writers though.

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Mm, me too, but I guess I would just avoid reading YA books which delve into "too much", and judge on a case by case basis.

I went the other way in the end, against her advice. But I did feel it was an interesting discussion into what was making the ms YA versus adult, and what elements needed to be removed or changed as a result.

An easier thing to pick apart--dystopian YA often have societal setups which either have my suspension of disbelief working very hard, or are too "simple" to be functional. The set up for Divergent is probably too simplistic, for example, even though conceptually it's really quite similar to 'bash families in Too Like the Lightning, and in some respects they explore *some* of the same discussions.

But it requires less explanation and general wordage to say people are chucked into five different groups, as opposed to hundreds of groups of varying sizes with varying rules who are loosely collected under certain philosophies. In an adult book I'd be frustrated by Divergent's set up, but in YA I accept it because the premise isn't the point, and we aren't there to take apart the societal structure; it feels, to me, more about exploring the impact on characters being restricted in certain ways. In contrast, Too Like the Lightning takes a wider scope approach, breaking down the facets of their crazy society for close inspection *and* seeing how it affects people, though again on a broader scale. The emotional depth is still present in both.

I had that kind of problem in mine. The societal set up was too straightforward, and required a suspension of disbelief not appropriate for the level of scrutiny we associate with adult SFF (and no doubt here is the point where befrank kills me with fire ). Maybe this isn't always the case with every YA, but in conjunction with other things, it was too much.

Rightly or wrongly, my expectations as a reader for setting deconstruction, are different for YA and adult.

Just to beat the dead horse again, there's complicated and simple YA just as there's complicated and simple adult.

FWIW, from memory (spoiler alert?), the setup of the Divergent community was revealed in the later books to be intentionally stupid, coz they were locked in the city as a societal experiment.

Sure, but even then you're still dividing YA and adult. I would imagine it's a combination of factors, not all of which need to be present or absent in every case, that determine what falls into where. For my own, I guess I'll see what the latest round of beta readers think, sans certain elements.

Yes, I stopped reading when they escaped their metaphorical snowglobe... fell very flat for me after that.

be frank said:

Just to beat the dead horse again, there's complicated and simple YA just as there's complicated and simple adult.

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Yea...I haven't read enough adult dystopians to make a comparison with YA dystopians, but when it comes to other genres -- say, contemporary -- I've found a lot of YA are actually um...deeper than adult? *ducks* Some are not, but overall, there is some beautifully complex YA out there.

I don't think you can compare just one YA title to one adult title. I can think of a few adult books which I found infuriatingly simplistic in terms of world-building. For example, I thoroughly enjoyed the rich world-building in GoT and TNotW. I was expecting equally great things from The Queen of the Tearling, since it was hailed as the "female-centric GoT", but I couldn't even get past the halfway point before I got bored and moved on to something else. I won't go into a rant about the book here, but suffice to say, I thought the world-building and the characters were...uhm, not great. I could use that as an example and compare it with, say, Harry Potter, and I would argue that Harry Potter is actually far more complicated and well thought-out, even though the first few books are MG.

Having said that, the word limit for YA is shorter than adult, so obviously it would be a bit tougher for YA authors to devote 200 pages into doing yoga in the woods a la The Wise Man's Fear.

I feel for you, Putputt; hang in there!

It's good to hear assertions that YA can be complex. I think it often is, and IMO it's better that way.

Re: "edgy YA" - I wish book categories were more similar to movies regarding ages and we could give ratings.

I mean, I can remember "Go Ask Alice" being in my school library in high school, and that book was pretty edgy indeed. But still, I'd classify it as YA.