Literary YA

Torgo said:

Literary YA has two main qualities: well-written and not many laughs. If you've written a depressing story in beautiful prose, congratulations, it's Literary!

Adult Li-Fi is generally recognisable by the fact that it's about middle-aged people having existential or relationship breakdowns. YA Li-Fi can't really do the mid-life crisis, so some sort of terminal illness, drug addiction, abuse legacy, war, or other doomy doomedness can stand in.

Be sure not to include rocket ships, dinosaurs, gorgeous femmes fatales, or any combination thereof. (Actually, please would someone write a book in which dinosaur femmes fatales fly rocket ships?)

Remember: too much genre will drag you out of the Li-Fi arena. Don't impose a mystery structure on the book unless it's kind of obvious and underwhelming: you might accidentally find you've written a compelling detective novel. Don't set your book in the future, unless it's a dull, post-apocalyptic wasteland that gives you plenty of opportunities to remind us what a bad thing climate change/genetic engineering/nuclear war is (but no opportunities for the thrilling interstellar adventures of Tallulah T-Rex, the Mata Hari of the Mesozoic, natch) - you can even call it a 'dystopian fable' if you like. And the past is OK, because 'historical fiction' isn't really a genre.

Hope that helps!

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Dude.
Please respect literary writers, and we won't hate on you.
LOOKING FOR ALASKA is literary. It was simultaneously beautiful, well-written, and funny.

Can YOU do that?

Torgo said:

I can't comment, not having read them.

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Exactly. Don't comment.
What qualifies you to make that argument about literary if YOU HAVEN'T READ MANY LITERARY BOOKS?
I read 1984 in 7th grade, Animal Farm in 8th.
This is ignorance. You're a writer; you should at least acquaint yourself with the different styles and genres before making a judgment.

tilt190 said:

Exactly. Don't comment.
What qualifies you to make that argument about literary if YOU HAVEN'T READ MANY LITERARY BOOKS?
I read 1984 in 7th grade, Animal Farm in 8th.
This is ignorance. You're a writer; you should at least acquaint yourself with the different styles and genres before making a judgment.

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Everything tilt said.

Shady Lane said:

So are books divided into boring literature and meaningless airport reads, then?

You've gone from insulting one to insulting the other.

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Come on Shady. I was contrasting 1984 with a hypothetical book whose primary quality is that it is gripping.

I do not regard literature as boring. I regard Literary Fiction as a constructed sales category which deprecates the flashier trappings of genre.

tilt190 said:

Dude.
Please respect literary writers, and we won't hate on you.
LOOKING FOR ALASKA is literary. It was simultaneously beautiful, well-written, and funny.

Can YOU do that?

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I would scarcely try. I am primarily an editor. Oh: I failed in my bid to buy the UK rights for Looking For Alaska; I would have been proud to publish it though.

tilt190 said:

Exactly. Don't comment.
What qualifies you to make that argument about literary if YOU HAVEN'T READ MANY LITERARY BOOKS?
I read 1984 in 7th grade, Animal Farm in 8th.
This is ignorance. You're a writer; you should at least acquaint yourself with the different styles and genres before making a judgment.

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I haven't read Perks of a Wallflower, The Kite Runner, or the third one I hadn't read (can't be bothered to check back sorry.) I have read every other book Shady has mentioned. Suddenly I can't have an opinion?

I kind of get the impression torgo came in here trying to be funny and stepped on all sorts of toes inadvertantly (including my own, particularly when this was said "middle-aged people having existential or relationship breakdowns"), so I'm not really going to join the debate -- the scope and range of literary fiction is oh-my-god vast. although, admittedly, depressing books like Atonement and The Road are on my list of personal favorites, much of the best literary fiction contains action and humor and sex and all the rest of the above. It's just crafted, not splashed onto the page for a zoom-fast read.

In particular, my all-time favorite Lolita has more (poignant) humor than any crash-bang kablaam genre novel I've ever read. Although it certainly fits into the "middle-aged people having existential or relationship breakdowns" category. But so funny.

hell, my own book has jackalopes.

Torgo said:

I would scarcely try. I am primarily an editor. Oh: I failed in my bid to buy the UK rights for Looking For Alaska; I would have been proud to publish it though.

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Being an editor doesn't mean you have the right to step on genres/styles of books. You might have colleagues who work on literary books--perhaps you might want to tell this to them, gauge their opinion?
If you won't say things like this person-to-person, in real life, then don't say it over the internet.

tilt190 said:

Being an editor doesn't mean you have the right to step on genres/styles of books. You might have colleagues who work on literary books--perhaps you might want to tell this to them, gauge their opinion?
If you won't say things like this person-to-person, in real life, then don't say it over the internet.

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Someone else can have the floor now, but: I'm primarily employed to have an opinion on books. Why would you assume that I don't have exactly the same sorts of discussions with my colleagues? Why would you assume, in fact, that I don't work on 'literary books'? The only reason I didn't end up as the UK editor of Looking for Alaska was that the acquisitions meeting thought it wouldn't work on this side of the pond. Same for the excellent King Dork. (They were wrong then, and they're wrong now.)

Hell, I'll PM you my phone number. Ring me up and I'll say exactly the same things to you on the phone. I think in fact you'd find it easier to judge my intent.

Yes, I came into this thread with what was probably a misjudged piece of satire. But no, I wasn't trying to disparage 'literary fiction'. I was trying to get across that it's mainly other people who decide whether your book is literary or not.

'Literary' is rather an elusive quality, isn't it? Apart from the fact that literary fiction tends to be well-constructed, it seems to me mainly to be defined by what it is not. If something is too much like well-constructed detective fiction, or well-constructed SF, or if it's too light-hearted, you might find that it is sold as detective fiction, SF, or humour. Don't stray too far into genre, and write well, with gravitas, and you'll probably get sold as 'literary fiction'. That's the most you can do.

Back to the original question, The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan is also described as literary YA. It's a great read (literary zombies!), one of my recent favourites.

Torgo said:

Yes, I came into this thread with what was probably a misjudged piece of satire. But no, I wasn't trying to disparage 'literary fiction'. I was trying to get across that it's mainly other people who decide whether your book is literary or not.

'Literary' is rather an elusive quality, isn't it? Apart from the fact that literary fiction tends to be well-constructed, it seems to me mainly to be defined by what it is not. If something is too much like well-constructed detective fiction, or well-constructed SF, or if it's too light-hearted, you might find that it is sold as detective fiction, SF, or humour. Don't stray too far into genre, and write well, with gravitas, and you'll probably get sold as 'literary fiction'. That's the most you can do.

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It is very hard to come across as witty or sarcastic across the internet, I hope you've learned.
Literary fiction can be depressing, but that's stereotyping and pigeonholing. Literary fiction can be all things, as long as it is well-written and provides a unique viewpoint.

Now that this debate is over, I highly recommend you check out the Perks of Being a Wallflower, and other literary works mentioned on here.

Yeah... original question. I guess I tend to see literary books as a kind of writing style more than a genre. For example, when you see books seperated in book stores there isn't a 'literary' section- it is mixed into the fiction section and not seperated like romance or horror or SF/F.

alainn_chaser said:

Yeah... original question. I guess I tend to see literary books as a kind of writing style more than a genre. For example, when you see books seperated in book stores there isn't a 'literary' section- it is mixed into the fiction section and not seperated like romance or horror or SF/F.

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I think the literary section is the literature section. So here, the Time Traveler's Wife or the Handmaid's Tale are more likely to be in literatature section than sci/fi fantasy. Same section where the classics are.

An excerpt from Wikipedia's definition of Literature: "Critics may exclude works from the classification "literature", for example, on the grounds of a poor standard of grammar and syntax, of an unbelievable or disjointed story-line, or of inconsistent or unconvincing characters. Genre fiction (for example: romance, crime, or science fiction) may also become excluded from consideration as "literature".
The 20th century brought demands for symbolism or psychological insight in the delineation and development of the characteristic of literature."

There are many things to learn and to avoid when writing YA fiction or any fiction. Many of these can be taught, although some techniques, for instance, dialogue, isn't easily learned except through the practice of writing. One rule for dialogue is to keep it natural, but not overdone.

YA literary works I've enjoyed are The Giver, Catcher in the Rye, A Wrinkle in Time and The Chronicles of Narnia.