Let me see if I can make my question make sense.
I have a manuscript that I shopped around to only about 3 publishers and then shelved for a while because I want to change it. This revision isn't what I'm working on now but it's simmering away in the back of my mind so that I'll be ready to tackle the manuscript when the time comes. The MC is 19 and struggling with anorexia. But I don't see that as the real crux of the story. Without getting into a whole synopsis here, the story is one of her claiming a right to her own feelings and viewpoints. It's about her relationships with the people around her as well...and basically it's a coming-of-age story. Along the way, she sets herself on the road to recovery from her eating disorder.
Would this automatically be categorized as a "problem novel" because she happens to have anorexia? The ED is really just an external manifestation of what's going on inside. (I didn't know any of this in advance, by the way. Just wrote it as it came to me and then later on was able to see what it meant.) Basically, is it possible to have something like anorexia, which is a hot topic in the media, show up as part of a book and not have readers immediately see nothing but "book on anorexic teen" when they look at it? I thought about removing the eating disorder from the book entirely so the deeper themes don't get lost...yet the struggle with the disease illustrates her personal growth so well, and she has such lucidity regarding her experience while being embroiled in it, that I'm not sure losing that entire aspect of the book would be the way to go. Thoughts?
I have a manuscript that I shopped around to only about 3 publishers and then shelved for a while because I want to change it. This revision isn't what I'm working on now but it's simmering away in the back of my mind so that I'll be ready to tackle the manuscript when the time comes. The MC is 19 and struggling with anorexia. But I don't see that as the real crux of the story. Without getting into a whole synopsis here, the story is one of her claiming a right to her own feelings and viewpoints. It's about her relationships with the people around her as well...and basically it's a coming-of-age story. Along the way, she sets herself on the road to recovery from her eating disorder.
Would this automatically be categorized as a "problem novel" because she happens to have anorexia? The ED is really just an external manifestation of what's going on inside. (I didn't know any of this in advance, by the way. Just wrote it as it came to me and then later on was able to see what it meant.) Basically, is it possible to have something like anorexia, which is a hot topic in the media, show up as part of a book and not have readers immediately see nothing but "book on anorexic teen" when they look at it? I thought about removing the eating disorder from the book entirely so the deeper themes don't get lost...yet the struggle with the disease illustrates her personal growth so well, and she has such lucidity regarding her experience while being embroiled in it, that I'm not sure losing that entire aspect of the book would be the way to go. Thoughts?