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Okay, I'm a highschooler, let's just get that straight.
I hate high school and I hate highschoolers. The only schooling I ever remember liking is middle school, and I'd also like to for other reasons. Mainly, it seems like with writing about highschoolers, there are certain things that I feel like I'm obligated to write about -- namely all the drama associated with it. I hate highschool drama, both in books and in real life, and run from it like the plague, prefering to stew and mull over similar problems peacefully and quietly, without as much of a fuss. Even though I may do that, I still have to deal with it once in a while, and if I write a book with a main character that deals in a similar way, they're still going to have to deal with other people running around like chickens with their heads cut off.
To make matters worse, what I'd like to write is urban fantasy, where the drama tends to be hyped up beyond the fantasy elements and simplified so that it can be jammed with the fantasy elements all at once, and it tends to be sloppy -- I'd like to bypass the drama alltogether, and I feel that if I write from a middleschool perspective, I'm not obligated to write in as much normal-person problem. Yes, I do understand that middleschool can be dramatic, but it just feels less obligatory.
If I write from the perspective of a middleschooler, is it still YA, even if I don't adress the issues of rape, drugs, etc.?
(Or maybe I should just go the whole nine yards and make it from the perspective of an elementary-age kid.)
I hate high school and I hate highschoolers. The only schooling I ever remember liking is middle school, and I'd also like to for other reasons. Mainly, it seems like with writing about highschoolers, there are certain things that I feel like I'm obligated to write about -- namely all the drama associated with it. I hate highschool drama, both in books and in real life, and run from it like the plague, prefering to stew and mull over similar problems peacefully and quietly, without as much of a fuss. Even though I may do that, I still have to deal with it once in a while, and if I write a book with a main character that deals in a similar way, they're still going to have to deal with other people running around like chickens with their heads cut off.
To make matters worse, what I'd like to write is urban fantasy, where the drama tends to be hyped up beyond the fantasy elements and simplified so that it can be jammed with the fantasy elements all at once, and it tends to be sloppy -- I'd like to bypass the drama alltogether, and I feel that if I write from a middleschool perspective, I'm not obligated to write in as much normal-person problem. Yes, I do understand that middleschool can be dramatic, but it just feels less obligatory.
If I write from the perspective of a middleschooler, is it still YA, even if I don't adress the issues of rape, drugs, etc.?
(Or maybe I should just go the whole nine yards and make it from the perspective of an elementary-age kid.)