Historical YA Fiction - Is it or not?

hopper0001

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Hi All,

This is my second post in a few days. I had another and got some good advice, but I decided to make a new one to further explain my question because my first posting may have seemed a little vague so I wanted to clarify.

I've written a book (yes a lazy person like me actually spent 5 years writing the thing through blood, sweat and tears). It is a story that predominantly takes place in a college atmosphere set in the late 1950s. I purposely chose the 1950s because it seems to be a very charismatic decade, one where America was more prosperous and things were a bit simpler. We live in an age nowadays where kids run into schools and gun people down. I wanted to bring the reader AWAY from that. Although I'm sure the 50's were fraught with their own issues (nuclear war being predominant amongst them), I view this as a more idyllic decade, perhaps partly because of the nostalgic element.

I'm trying very hard to figure out how to label this for an agent. Although it is SET in the 50s, there is no particular social issue the story revolves around. I just wanted to put it in the 50s, so I do. It's not like it's tied to contemporary issues of that time like the red scare or the Korean war or any of that. I just have a fondness for the 50s (even though I didn't live through them, so I am probably idealizing them-although I probably wouldn't have like all the smoking).

I've heard of the category YA - Historical fiction. Does anyone think that would be accurate? Like I said, it isn't tied any particular historical event, just set in that time. The best comparison I can think of is something like Stephen King's Stand By Me in that it is just set in that time frame, though that story is more of a first person retrospective. My book isn't told from first person, and isn't as if a person who has become older is looking back on his youth and telling the reader about it. It's told from 3rd person omniscient. It starts in 1959 and ends in late 1960. You read it as if you are living in that time.

I'm racking my brain trying to figure how to classify it. Historical fiction or not? Came upon an agent online who seemed to describe what she wanted and it had so much in common with the material I'd written, until her last line said: no historical fiction! Doh! If I sent it to her I could just imagine getting a flaming rejection saying:"I said no historical fiction, can't your read?". I guess every writer has nightmares of such a response.

So what do you think? How would you categorize it? I'm giving myself an ulcer because I truly feel that I put a huge amount of work into this thing and I've gotten it to the best state I know how to, to only be flummoxed by a little detail like categorizing. Such is the writing life, I suppose. Any thoughts are welcome. THANKS!
 

Marissa D

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Umm, if it doesn't have a reason to be set in the 1950s--if it isn't tied to historical events or specific cultural elements of the time, then it's probably going to be a hard sell. And the mention of nostalgia gives me pause; the majority of YA readers are NOT going to feel nostalgic for that time. Segregation? Institutionalized misogyny? The Cold War? That's what the 50s are remembered for by a lot of people, NOT for Things being Easier and Safer.
 

SarahJane

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I have a young adult novella called My Sanctuary that's set in the 50s. My publisher listed it as YA lit, or just YA fiction.
 

hopper0001

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Did you have an agent? Congrats! How long has your book been out?
 

SarahJane

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No, agents don't generally go for novellas unless you are already an established author. My Sanctuary came out in 2012 with Vagabondage Press. Sales have been sad. Just sad. Like Marissa said, YA lit is a hard sell.
 
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KBooks

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I recently read "Lies We Tell Ourselves" by Robin Talley which is both YA and Historical Fiction, set in the exact years as your book (1959-1960), but like Marissa D said above, this is definitely not a light, nostalgic book, depicting the institutionalized racism of the time through the horrors the black students experienced trying to integrate the schools of the south, the misogyny the two female narrators (one white, one black) experienced on a daily basis from male classmates, boyfriends, and fathers, and the attitudes towards LGBT students during the time period.
 
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hopper0001

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I prefer writing uplifting things. The world has too many horrors already. EVERYTHING is a hard sell. If you start making exclusions you'll never publish anything. There's a market out there for most anything well written. Not everything I've written is well written...maybe fifty percent. But I busted my ass on this one. I really put forth a lot of effort. I mean a LOT of effort. I don't intend to let 5 years of my life be spent for nothing.
 

BarbaraSheridan

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I prefer writing uplifting things. The world has too many horrors already. EVERYTHING is a hard sell. If you start making exclusions you'll never publish anything. There's a market out there for most anything well written. Not everything I've written is well written...maybe fifty percent. But I busted my ass on this one. I really put forth a lot of effort. I mean a LOT of effort. I don't intend to let 5 years of my life be spent for nothing.

Marissa who has a lot of practical experience publishing YA books and KBooks who has published a book set in your era are giving you advice based on their experience. You haven't given enough information on your book to get a response that's more specific to your project.

All you've told us is that it's set in the late 1950's in a college atmosphere.

To me that would show on Amazon as Teen & Young Adult>historical fiction>20th century

College aged protagonists makes me want to think of it's not YA (although Marissa could better advise on that).

Again, helping you narrow down a label for it depends on particulars we don't have. Who are your characters, what are the situations they face? Are there any genre elements: mystery, romance, etc?

The best I can give in general is not to come across as testy. No one is suggesting your books will never sell or that you've wasted your time. Writing isn't a waste, you should be learning something, refining your skill.
 

RaggyCat

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I posted on your other thread, but one other thing I've remembered: a year and a bit ago I wrote a historical YA set in 1989 about the fall of the Berlin Wall. My then agent was concerned that there wasn't enough in the story for today's teens to form a connection to it - that the story didn't seem relevant to now and would thus be a hard sell. This was no doubt down to my execution but the point is this: even if you are writing in the past, especially the not too distant past, there needs to be something in the story that speaks to today's teens, and makes it relevant to today. The Lies We Tell Ourselves is a great example - it's historical but the themes it covers and the way it explores race especially feel now, and feel relevant, rather than just a nod to another time.

Now obviously this is just my agent's take (though FWIW I think she was right) and of course a novel say, set in medieval times, is going to have a tough time linking to now, but you may wish to have a look at your novel's themes to work out what a modern reader would see in it, and how they could identify with the novel. This will help when pitching it to an agent. The connection angle is especially important when writing for teens IMO.
 

KBooks

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(I am unpublished at this point. Still polishing my manuscripts!) Was giving an example of another author's work. Sorry if I did not make that clear!
 

Debbie V

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Hi All,

I purposely chose the 1950s because it seems to be a very charismatic decade, one where America was more prosperous and things were a bit simpler. We live in an age nowadays where kids run into schools and gun people down. I wanted to bring the reader AWAY from that. Although I'm sure the 50's were fraught with their own issues (nuclear war being predominant amongst them), I view this as a more idyllic decade, perhaps partly because of the nostalgic element.

This concerns me. Kids in the 50s were terrified of Nuclear War and practicing duck and cover drills. Now, that might not be relevant to your story. It does lead me to question whether you are writing about the 50s or some idealized vision of the 50s. Have you done any research or talked to folks who were kids, teens, during this era? Are the details in the story true to the actual era or your imagined ideal of it?

I'm also concerned that there is no story reason for the choice of decade. Would the story be the same if it were set in another time period? If it would, then your setting isn't relevant. An agent will question the choice then. Every teen is a product of his times. Casual elements, things folks never consider, are part of that.

For example, I grew up on a segregated street in an integrated school system. As a teen I knew this but I didn't know how to get my street integrated. I didn't feel I had any power. But I was still annoyed by it and had no respect for the person who talked to all of the real estate agents about who to show homes that became available. This was the 80s, before social media. Even in a story that had nothing to do with race, race came in to play. Sexism would as well, and more so in the 50s. It might be subtle, but it was an undercurrent of the times as roles were reestablished following the war because there were babies everywhere and the men were back home. These things may not be in the story. Again, they may have no place in it, but if you haven't studied the era, you'll be missing the richness that forms the actual backdrop of the times you're writing about and the people you're bringing to life. Stand By Me is a great example. The setting, both time and place, are integral in who these boys are.

No era was truly simpler and less fraught with danger. Historical fiction has to be rooted in the truth of the times as your narrator would experience them. Nostalgia has its place in the adult market, but teens aren't nostalgic for other times. They're nostalgic for the days when they could play after school because homework only took 20 minutes.

So think about what you really have written and whether your audience is really a sixteen year old. Then decide on your category.
 

hopper0001

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It's a looking back on a person's life who happened to grow up in the fifties. Not told from a first person, but from a third person perspective. I didn't want to do first person because it is too limiting for the scope of the story. I need other peoples input. That's why it HAS TO be set in that era, because that's when the main character grew up.