Any clean YA authors here?

starrystorm

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It seems like every book I've read lately has had drugs, achohol, swearing or otherwise in it.

I'm starting to feel alone, so I made this thread. Does anyone write clean or mostly clean YA? Do you ever feel pressured to do otherwise or feel as if your writing isn't superior or authenthic.

Not that books with drinking or swearing are ad. I gobble them up like anyone else.
 
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Kjbartolotta

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It seems like every book I've read lately has had drugs, achohol, swearing or otherwise in it.

I'm starting to feel alone, so I made this thread. Does anyone write clean or mostly clean YA? Do you ever feel pressured to do otherwise or feel as if your writing isn't superior or authenthic.

Not that books with drinking or swearing are ad. I gobble them up like anyone else.

As a reader but not a writer, there's plenty. Just depends on what you sensibilities are and what you like. But I can make lists (as can many others, just that listing book recs is like breathing for me now, I do it unconsciously...) :)
 

MaeZe

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My characters are pretty clean. I have no role in the story for drugs. There's some beer and wine drinking but it's not major. Sex plays a small role so there's that but sex scenes are not described mostly because I don't think I can write a decent sex scene yet. Since it's in the future cussing is easily done with new words and phrases. One can scare the sweat out of you just as easily as other body wastes. Pond scum is sufficient as a curse word.

There are many 'clean' YA books.
 

Greene_Hesperide1990

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I think that there are. I'm working on two WIPs. One is YA but it's more of a fantasy so there isn't drugs and sex namely because it isn't needed story wise. But the other story is...in fact super-empowering drugs serves as a major plot point.

I think it really depends on the story you want to write. You don't have to put drugs and sex in the story unless you want to IMO.
 
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screenscope

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My first YA novel comes out next month and apart from a few light swear words, it's squeaky clean. It involves two well-adjusted girls (with no missing parents, no anxiety, no drug or relationship issues) having a fun, life-threatening adventure in outer space :)
 

lilyWhite

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Pretty much everything I write, YA or not, is "clean".

I was never around kids who drank, did drugs, or swore a lot when I was a teen. I don't feel like those things need to be included in a YA story to make it feel "authentic", and I probably wouldn't do an "authentic" job of characters who did those things anyway.
 

Kjbartolotta

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RE profanity in YA. It's funny, because I don't see it come up a whole lot. More lately, because a lot of mainstream YA titles of the past few years have been interested in social issues & realism. Which is rad. But the dialogue has gotten saltier along the way. Sometimes when I read profanity in YA I see it as an expression of the immaturity of the characters, which can work to good effect.
 

starrystorm

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Wow. I didn't expect this many responces. It certainly makes me feel better about being a clean YA author. I've also been thinking that drugs and swearing are more likely to appear in YA contemporaries, which I have been reading for a few months now (contemp. thrillers), but in SFF there might not be alcohol or drugs. In tighter, fast paced stories, characters don't have time for those things. Swearing, maybe, but my characters don't have to time for a smoke break while trying to escape an alien spaceship.
 

The Second Moon

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I don't write YA ( I write MG and Adult) but I try to keep my stories clean. It's not that hard in MG, but when I switch to my Adult projects it gets harder to keep it clean.

Lately, I been thinking about adding this "happy liquid" in my Adult SF. It would make the user--depending on where put it-- see, hear, taste, or smell something that makes them happy. One of the MC's girlfriend has had a hard life so she uses it a lot. The only side effect of using a lot of happy liquid would be the body part you put it in (eyes, ears, nose, mouth) will turn the color of the happy liquid. Then others may make fun of you.

I'm just worried happy liquid will seem like an alien substitute for drugs. I don't want that. I want my stories to be clean (even though I know people use drugs in real life).
 

Laer Carroll

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Alcohol (legal for adults) and MJ (legal in many states but a major federal crime) is common where I live. I include them in my books but only incidentally, the same way autos and apartments and pizza are incidental in my life.
 
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Putputt

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Does anyone write clean or mostly clean YA? Do you ever feel pressured to do otherwise or feel as if your writing isn't superior or authenthic.

Depends on what I'm writing. My YA Suspense books have swearing, drugs, and drinking. And murder. :D But my YA Contemporary books don't have those things, or if they do, they're very, very light (I can think of a single scene where my MC and her friends sip a bit of hard cider and that's it). My YA Fantasy has murder, but no swearing, drugs, or drinking.

I've never felt pressured to go down the route of including stuff for the sake of fitting into the YA space, aside from maybe inserting romance. Actually, I *have* been asked by an agent to reduce the number of swear words in my YA Suspense, so there's that.

There are lots of light-hearted YA books that are "clean". Jenny Han's TO ALL THE BOYS come to mind. Her MC and her friends are just about as wholesome as you can get, and the series is very popular. There's a lot more. I could easily come up with a list. I wouldn't worry about it.
 

mccardey

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Lately, I been thinking about adding this "happy liquid" in my Adult SF. It would make the user--depending on where put it-- see, hear, taste, or smell something that makes them happy. One of the MC's girlfriend has had a hard life so she uses it a lot. The only side effect of using a lot of happy liquid would be the body part you put it in (eyes, ears, nose, mouth) will turn the color of the happy liquid. Then others may make fun of you.

I'm just worried happy liquid will seem like an alien substitute for drugs. I don't want that. I want my stories to be clean (even though I know people use drugs in real life).
To be fair, that does sound a lot like a drug to me. A very good drug. :evil
 

Niiicola

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I wish there were a better word for it than "clean." I don't love the implication that having sex or drinking is related to dirt or filth. But I guess the term is what it is.

My YA debut has maybe one swear in it? And no drugs or drinking or sex (no romance at all, in fact). But it deals with some very heavy mental health issues and emotional stuff. So even though it's "clean," it's pretty dark.
 
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Kjbartolotta

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I wish there were a better word for it than "clean." I don't love the implication that having sex or drinking is related to dirt or filth. But I guess the term is what it is.

My YA debut has maybe one swear in it? And no drugs or drinking or sex (no romance at all, in fact). But it deals with some very heavy mental health issues and emotional stuff. So even though it's "clean," it's pretty dark.

Yeah, I really agree with this point. 'Clean' YA is a good thing, and there's nothing wrong with being wary of content in the genre. But it's worth it to point that YA with sex/drugs/profanity is not necessarily exploitative or somehow debased, oftentimes it's not even the darkest thing on the market! (Not that I think the OP is implying this).

I remember reading Nothing by Annie Barrows, which was not her greatest masterpiece but pure lightness and fun with the MCs being foul-mouthed, dope-smoking miscreants.
 

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My current work is mostly about college-aged students, but I've always been told that a large chunk of the audience for such books is actually made up of high school-aged readers. That would ordinarily cause me to be concerned about the amount of profanity or sex that I should--or should not--put into the book.

Fortunately, though, that became a non-issue when I decided to write the book in the first person and as if the main character were writing it for a a general audience. That way, young readers wouldn't expect the character to include vulgar profanity or explicit sex. So, I lucked out and dodged a bullet (this time, ha, ha!).
 

Sage

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College-aged MCs are actually rare to find in YA. You find them in the New Adult market, and that market is not expected to be “clean,” as defined in this thread.
 

Lhipenwhe

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I suppose my current WIP is mostly "clean". There's no profanity or drugs, and the closest thing to sex is a brief kiss and handholding. One of the main characters attempts to make alcohol, but nothing comes of it (in that book), and she nearly vomits while trying to drink alcohol she received from a suspect source.

There's plenty of drama and violence in the book, though. I suppose the reason it's so "clean" is because the characters are too busy getting traumatized and trying to survive to get it on or get wasted. All bets are off if I write the sequel, though.
 

MaeZe

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College-aged MCs are actually rare to find in YA. You find them in the New Adult market, and that market is not expected to be “clean,” as defined in this thread.

I thought there wasn't a 'new adult' market? My YA (definitely YA) book has end of high school beginning college' age kids in it.

But no worries, I'm not concerned.
 

RCRichardson

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Sage and MaeZe:

You have more experience than I do, and I guess I'm showing my ignorance here. But when I was in junior high school, I enjoyed books and TV shows that featured high school characters. And when I reached high school, I enjoyed those that featured college students. I thought it had something to do with how young people aspire to be like people who are slightly older. One of the best examples I have heard is how the vast majority of "Archie" comic readers are (or were) well below high school age.

Based on that theory (and it's just a theory), I have assumed that an author whose main characters are of college age should keep in mind that a considerable portion of his readers are going to be below that.

But again, I might be wrong (and the odds favor that, ha, ha!), but I think I'd rather err on the side of assuming it to be true. That way, younger readers won't be subjected to the profanity and sex, and (if the book is good) older readers won't even realize that those things are missing.
 

MaeZe

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I don't have anything close to the experience Sage has in the YA field or in writing for that matter.

By no NA market, I didn't mean no NA books, just that I thought those books would either be identified as YA or adult depending on the book.
 

Roxxsmom

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I haven't written YA thus far, but I've certainly read YA novels that are pretty mild. The Tethered Mage trilogy (YA fantasy) doesn't have sex (beyond some kisses and nebulously described desire), drinking is of the wine at social functions type (in the context of the story culture, teens are treated as adults in this respect), and any swearing is quite mild.

It seems to vary quite a lot as a genre.

As others have said, the presence of sex, drugs and swearing doesn't have to be for shock value or anything like that. Sometimes they make sense for the story at hand, sometimes they don't.
 
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Tim Archer

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My YA fiction is...decidely not clean. But, completely subjectively, I enjoy writing a bit of grit and grime into my novels.

But there's so much good, clean YA out there! I'm about halfway through THE CRUEL PRINCE and so far it's pretty clean. The only 'drugs' per se is fairy food and drink, which is intoxicating to human, and references to wine and mead, which is expected in a medievalish court setting. It's still gripping.

It's not YA it's middle grade, but Jonathan Stroud is one of the best examples of how to write stories that are 'clean' in the way you describe and are still gripping, age-appropriate, and dark. I mean, dark. Pick up Lockwood and Co. if you want some ghostly fun and thrills!
 

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FWIW I've seen a few agents saying they're looking for clean YA. A lot of them also seem to be looking for YA at the younger end of the bracket, so for some that may be one and the same. YA definitely seems to have "aged up" in the last few years (certainly when it comes to contemp titles) so those writing "clean" YA could be onto a good thing.

What I'm writing now definitely isn't clean unfortunately! My published books are, though.
 

ValerieJane

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Many of my YA story ideas tend to be more tame. My teenage years were not full of experiences with drugs, alcohol, and sex, so in my story ideas I like to explore the very real and high-stakes drama that can occur in the lives of teens who do not have that particular brand of conflict.

With that said, if the story calls for darker themes, I won't shy away from it.