Middle Grade, Young Adult, Adult: How do you categorize your novel?

Iambriannak

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I didn't realize Edgy Young Adult was a thing. I would have just considered it young adult. I guess I also though middle grade went up to about 14, so I guess there's a lot I don't know about genres for seemingly loving the young adult genre, haha
 

Grayson Moon

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I would place my book in the young adult category. The story has light humor, plus a plethora of action (where machine guns may or may not be whipped out from underneath the reception desk), and pyromania is heavily involved in the plot. There are no curse words to be found, mostly because I didn't feel like they were needed. I wouldn't really categorize my novel as middle-school level, since the protagonist is 15 and there are some less friendly scenarios (such as assassination attempts, and killer alien monsters wiping out a space station). Good thing the main character doesn't take deadly situations seriously. Since it's in first person, the MC gets to put their comical spin on all the danger they put themselves in. Chargrind Gargoliathan stepped on your house? Must have gotten one nasty splinter. And so forth. I debated with myself for the longest time what category my story fits into, since it's a paradox in writing (serious/hilarious). I've just decided to call it young adult, and stick with that.
 
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RonMF

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My finished novel follows the adventures of a 12 year old, and IT IS adventurous, fun, exciting and innocent...but also very sad, with death, loss, neglect and realistic consequences. That being said, since it has magical elements and monsters, and takes place in the present but in a 'parallel world' to our own, I've read that this kind of plot/environment is called CONTEMPORARY FANTASY.

Has anyone categorized their work the same or heard of this?
 

Cyia

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My finished novel follows the adventures of a 12 year old, and IT IS adventurous, fun, exciting and innocent...but also very sad, with death, loss, neglect and realistic consequences. That being said, since it has magical elements and monsters, and takes place in the present but in a 'parallel world' to our own, I've read that this kind of plot/environment is called CONTEMPORARY FANTASY.

Has anyone categorized their work the same or heard of this?

Is it solely set in this other world, or do kids from this world go to that one? If they travel between (like Narnia or Harry Potter), you're looking at a "Portal Fantasy."
 

RonMF

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Is it solely set in this other world, or do kids from this world go to that one? If they travel between (like Narnia or Harry Potter), you're looking at a "Portal Fantasy."

Cyia, that's an awesome categorization. I've never heard of it. Yes, the characters do go between the worlds, well at the beginning and the end at least. Thanks for the category name. I'm subbing now, and was going to use 'contemporary fantasy' but I'll research your idea because I'd like to represent my work accurately.

:)
 

RonMF

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Is it solely set in this other world, or do kids from this world go to that one? If they travel between (like Narnia or Harry Potter), you're looking at a "Portal Fantasy."

Cyia, Portal Fantasy is EXACTLY what my story is! I just looked it up and was nodding with everything I read. Thank you very much for your input. Now I know what to put on my queries. (also, your books look amazing)
 

Tchaikovsky

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Thanks for this topic.

On the topic of the blurred lines between MG and YA: if you're in that upper-MG, lower-YA echelon, is it a safe bet to write the voice "down" so as not to alienate the younger readers? My character's age is 13, so I tried to give her a distinctive middle school voice (being excited about pink fuzzy things, boys, etc.), but now I wonder if that is off-putting to the older readers.

On that note, I've read that MG books don't tend to feature romances, and the most you can write about is a 'crush'. So based on that alone, I guess my novel is pushed into the YA territory.

Any guidance?
 

RonMF

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Thanks for this topic.

On the topic of the blurred lines between MG and YA: if you're in that upper-MG, lower-YA echelon, is it a safe bet to write the voice "down" so as not to alienate the younger readers? My character's age is 13, so I tried to give her a distinctive middle school voice (being excited about pink fuzzy things, boys, etc.), but now I wonder if that is off-putting to the older readers.

On that note, I've read that MG books don't tend to feature romances, and the most you can write about is a 'crush'. So based on that alone, I guess my novel is pushed into the YA territory.

Any guidance?

Great Q, laserkey. I understand it as the age of the main character...thirTEEN-nineTEEN being teen/YA books, etc. I used to work in a library, and that was usually a good cut off when shelving books. The chapter books to MG transition is a little more of a blur for me. My MC is 12, but I tried to write it in my own voice and not worry about the reading level of the audience. Kids are smart. ;)

Then you have the Harry Potters of the world, which, in my library, were shelved in MG, YA and adult fiction. Crazy!!!!!
 

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13 is a tough age, and I watched two friends get their intended-MGs with 13yo MCs get put on the Teen shelves at B&N (although one was because the word "prom" appeared in the blurb).

I'd be more wary of alienating older readers by writing "down" than younger ones. Remember that tweens and teens read up.
 

Tchaikovsky

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Thanks. I am probably going to aim for YA then, especially since my character deals with issues of morality and justice. Will have the publishers come to their conclusions (younger YA / 'tween' category)
 

Jan74

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It's kind of leaning towards edgy YA but just borderline at this point....who knows it may be completely edgy by the time I'm finished
 

ww412

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Good information to know here!

I was sort of wondering myself where my story fits into. I thought it was MG-YA but leaning towards more YA.

Cheers
 

Night_Writer

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I write Adult Fiction. Just plain ole' Adult Fiction, about people who are old enough to vote, smoke, drink, and fuck.

ETA: Whatever happened to New Adult? Is that still around?
 
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RMLavender

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I'm writing YA, but as it's historical fantasy I have a slight complication as most late-teens were treated as adults. The teenager is a modern invention as a concept/age group - it was just childhood and adulthood for most of human history. The fun of writing YA in a historical setting is to imagine how young 'adults' were still struggling with the same issues of growing up even though many were expected to act as adults. My characters aren't married or parents, but betrothals and marriage plans are part of their personal journeys.

Does anyone else write YA set in a historical time period that wouldn't have recognised the characters as teenagers? As readers do you think it's generally more acceptable to treat 'teens' in history as we would treat contemporary teens - avoiding marriage and children? I'm mainly thinking hypothetically as my story focuses on a young girl who is trying to avoid an unwanted marriage, so it's not tackling marriage itself. I do want to continue the story of this family and I do see young marriage and motherhood as a possibility for one of the characters - would it be better to avoid that kind of story for YA, age it up into adult fantasy?

I don't read NA so I'm not sure if that's a possibility. I have the impression that NA is mainly for romance. I'm writing 'low fantasy' set in the 17th century, characters are 16-18.
 

Annmarie09

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I write Adult Fiction. Just plain ole' Adult Fiction, about people who are old enough to vote, smoke, drink, and fuck.

ETA: Whatever happened to New Adult? Is that still around?

I've categorised my book as 'new adult' since it's set at University and the MCs are all living independently from their families. From what I can tell it's a legit genre but pretty unknown at the moment. Makes marketing the book harder if I'm honest.
 

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I wrote a novel that had flashbacks in it, and when I decided flashbacks were tacky, I added a chapter to the beginning. Tragically, everybody decided it was a YA novel because they were young in that single chapter. So I gotta use this forum to DE-YA my book...since people will get the wrong idea.
 

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That sounds very odd, Creep. Who is this "everybody"?
 

RMLavender

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I wrote a novel that had flashbacks in it, and when I decided flashbacks were tacky, I added a chapter to the beginning. Tragically, everybody decided it was a YA novel because they were young in that single chapter. So I gotta use this forum to DE-YA my book...since people will get the wrong idea.

Hmmm....this does sound rather odd. Usually age of MC alone isn't necessarily the only genre-marker for YA, so having one chapter from the characters' teenage years wouldn't necessarily make it YA. All YA will have MCs ~13-19, but not all novels with teenage MCs are YA (think square-rectangle).

I'm not sure we're the best people to help De-YA a MS given our biases, but if you want to figure out what the difference is between the genres I would suggest reading books that could cross the genre barriers to see the differences - and hey maybe you'll end up liking YA more than you expected!

There are some publishing dynamics at play, deciding whether a book is 'literary' enough to be published in the general market as a 'coming of age novel' as opposed to a YA: Emma Cline's The Girls, Marisha Pessl's Special Topics in Calamity Physics and of course Donna Tartt. But there's also a growing movement of 'literary YA' so I even think those dynamics will be complicated now that YA is holding its own as a genre: We are Okay by Nina Lacour and Bone Gap by Laura Ruby, etc. For genre fiction things are getting murky now given how mainstream YA SFF is within the publishing landscape, and with writers like Sarah J. Maas adding plenty of 'adult' content into her blockbusters.

Still I think all YA will have very close, intimate POV, which is what allows readers to connect so personally to the characters and that's so important to actual teen readers. Think: Game of Thrones vs Throne of Glass, The Mothers vs The Sun Is Also a Star, Anne Tyler vs Sarah Dessen, etc.
 

pbandj

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I'd consider my novel YA verging on NA. My MC is eighteen, and her friend group ranges to being her age and older.
 

SheridanEF

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I've heard recently about (and seen interest from agents about) a (sub?)genre called new adult or emerging adult. Does anyone know some of the guidelines or what to expect out of this genre? Anyone have experience in it?
 

thereeness

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I'll describe NA the way one of my editor friends described it to me:

New Adult is where the protagonist/narrator of the book is in the late teens-early 20s, so more "college aged."

NA was meant to fill the gap between YA and adult novels, because with YA, the protagonist/narrator ages range from 15-17 and adult books usually have protagonists that are in their late 20s, early 30s and up. It was all about becoming an adult, learning new experiences as an adult, and having the age of an adult but not the experience and dealing with it. However, in mainstream/traditional publishing, NA has kind of been narrowed into one category: romance. It never really expanded to other genres, I'm not really sure why, but there aren't really any NA fantasies/mysteries/thrillers in mainstream right now. If an author wants to write an NA book (like myself) then if it's not romance, it's going to be a pretty hard sell.

Ava Jae, a published author and vlogger, released a video called "What Happened to New Adult" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0j5b60KUbsE that kind of explains what happened to this age rating that didn't really take off. It's a shame, because while I personally still love YA books, I feel like I'm growing out of them and need something more, but I'm still not entirely interested in Adult books yet.
 

Antipode91

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I'll describe NA the way one of my editor friends described it to me:

New Adult is where the protagonist/narrator of the book is in the late teens-early 20s, so more "college aged."

NA was meant to fill the gap between YA and adult novels, because with YA, the protagonist/narrator ages range from 15-17 and adult books usually have protagonists that are in their late 20s, early 30s and up. It was all about becoming an adult, learning new experiences as an adult, and having the age of an adult but not the experience and dealing with it. However, in mainstream/traditional publishing, NA has kind of been narrowed into one category: romance. It never really expanded to other genres, I'm not really sure why, but there aren't really any NA fantasies/mysteries/thrillers in mainstream right now. If an author wants to write an NA book (like myself) then if it's not romance, it's going to be a pretty hard sell.

Ava Jae, a published author and vlogger, released a video called "What Happened to New Adult" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0j5b60KUbsE that kind of explains what happened to this age rating that didn't really take off. It's a shame, because while I personally still love YA books, I feel like I'm growing out of them and need something more, but I'm still not entirely interested in Adult books yet.

This was useful, as I've been having a hard time finding info on NA, and was wondering why there wasn't NA fantasy... which is what I want to write. I adore the idea of someone who is older, and trying to discover what it means to be an adult. But also isn't still in the, "I like her, and I think she likes someone else, but I'm not going to ask about it, because I want three chapters of miscommunication to create false tension" phase of life haha. Something that looks more inward...

It's interesting, too, because if you look at other forms of storytelling media, like video games, YA, Adult, and NA are all pretty popular.