RnR'd to Age Levels from MG to YA. Advice?

mentacle

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So I finished a middlegrade fantasy and subbed it. The revise/resub request I received was to age up the characters and emphasize the romance and darker elements. Which I'm cool with, as I was struggling with the MG restrictions anyway. I realized I was trying to stuff it into MG because that category just seems more open to new work.

As I rewrite the story from the ground up in YA, I do feel more comfortable, like everything that bothered me about the first version finally makes sense.

Now I'm afraid that this manuscript has morphed into a YA Paranormal Romance (Well, a fantasy adventure with PR elements). Afraid because I love PR concepts, but I'm not sure if I can pull the romance off convincingly. I need more guidance in this genre. And also afraid that PNR/ YA SFF is just much harder to get into.

So I ask:

What are the pitfalls of the genre in this year of our COVID, 2020? Tropes to avoid? Tropes you'd like to see more of? I mean, love triangles still aren't a thing, are they? Heck, is PNR still a thing? Should I categorize it as a Fantasy primarily, and PNR second?

What is it about PNR that makes your heart go, as the Japanese say, "doki-doki"- that fluttering fountain of feels when you read a particularly touching/ delicious scene of your characters interacting? Any particular scene types or characters?

What makes a convincing romance? Like, any dealbreakers between a human MC and a supernatural LI's interaction?

Lastly, I'm not as well-read in the genre as I should be. Book recs for the best the genre has to offer? I enjoyed 'Three Dark Crowns' and 'The Hunger Games.' Would enjoy books that have angst, darker elements (though not necessarily dystopia) and MC's with lots of moral ambiguity and/or PTSD. And FUNNY PNR- definitely bring on the funny.

...And any other thoughts you might have on the matter.

Thank you!
 
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MaryLennox

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I don't know...I still love love triangles. I know a lot of people don't, but I still like them, and I still read and write them.

As many people on the forum will advise - try not to worry about "what's in" right now. By the time you finish the manuscript and submit it, something else will be "in". If it gets picked up right away, it could still be another year or more before it is published - and the something else will be in, again.

The only books that are coming to mind that are kind of paranormal (ghost story?) and YA and romance are the Anna Dressed in Blood books. I'll come back and post if I think of something else.

What is your paranormal element/character? A vampire? A wereworlf? A ghost? A...zombie? A zombie werewolf? The ghost of a dead (for real dead) vampire? Are they in love with a human?
 

MynaOphelia

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I think the thing that always throws me about paranormal romance is that I wonder... why? Why is a supernatural, super-hot vampire or a sexy werewolf or an archangel in love with a human who is typically mediocre, underage, and just flawed in a way the romantic hero isn't and can't be?

If you can answer that question in your novel, that makes it much more compelling for me.

Paranormal romance was absolutely huge in YA a few years ago. Lately, I've seen buzz on Twitter from people suggesting they want it to come back, and a handful of books have been published in the past year or so featuring vampires (though I'm not sure if it was in a PNR context, but it definitely wasn't horror/thriller). So I think there's always space for it. Here is a Goodreads shelf of some of the most famous PNR in YA!
 

lonestarlibrarian

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The thing that makes me go dokidoki over YA PNR is when there's both internal and external obstacles in the way of the relationship. I prefer simmering tension rather than fulfillment or HEA.

It's been ages since I read it, but I enjoyed the romantic elements of the earlier volumes of Vampire Academy, precisely because it was a doomed relationship, and there were so many obstacles in the way of anything coming of it, in addition to all of the Plot Going On. But the attraction was still there, even if it wasn't sensible.

So, for example--- you've got the forbidden Student Has a Crush on Teacher thing, where the Instructor knows it would be irresponsible to encourage anything to develop. And then you've got the complications of how Instructor and MC both act as bodyguards in their world--- and bodyguards aren't allowed to cultivate any kinds of relationships that would interfere with their ability to focus on protecting the person they're sworn to protect. And then you've got the complications of how both halves of the love interest are hybrids in the first place-- and their kind is supposed to sacrifice everything in service to the vampires, or be concubines to the vampires, but they can't reproduce amongst themselves. So if they ended up marrying, not only would they both be out of work, but they could never have a family together. So you have Duty, you have social class, you have lack-of-a-future, both economically and biologically, on top of the age disparity/student-teacher relationship going on. And then there's the whole plot that's going on while they're having to struggle with personal issues.

I wasn't a fan of how the relationship developed in the later volumes, and I wasn't around for the spinoff series when it came out. But the first couple of volumes--- at the time, I really enjoyed the worldbuilding and the way the romance influenced the plot, and would recommend it if you haven't already.
 
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KBooks

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Vampires seem to be making a resurgence recently. I see lots of YA PNR on KU. If you search the too 100 titles on Amazon, there's a good mix of trade and indie. I probably would have guessed some of those were YA Fantasy and some aren't very recent. There's a degree of crossover between the two genres. so i might not worry so much about classification now, but would probably just write.

You mentioned that you don't read much in the genre. There's no shortcut for this if you want to write init.
 

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It's been a long time since PNR was the thing to sell, but it's also been a long time since it was unsalable. I haven't heard much about how agents and editors feel about YA PNR, which might mean it's not that popular, but might just mean I'm not paying attention that much right now (which is kinda true).
 

mentacle

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Hi MaryLennox! Thanks for the reply! I get what you mean about not writing to trends. I think my main concern is writing and subbing into a genre I'm not familiar with ( and am only acquainted with superficially) and then unknowingly stuff every well-worn cliche into the book. I don't want to reinvent the wheel, I just want to put out something fun but a little skewed enough to be appealing.

I'll check out the Anna books- I thought they were more horror than romance. But same author as Three Dark Crowns, right? Sounds good!

My character is a shifter unicorn, and it's unapologetically descended from all those magical horse shows from the eighties (Rainbow Brite, My Little Pony, Wildfire, The Last Unicorn definitely), and because horns are phallic already so what-hey! It actually started as a Twilight spoof until I couldn't get the idea out of my head, so I mashed it with Buffy and some anime and- there it is. Girl hunts unicorn, girl falls for unicorn, etc. I'm also trying to have fun lampshading some of the more common pnr tropes while indulging in them- but to do that, I need a better idea of what the tropes are. I hope I don't sound like an idiot.

I'm personally having trouble with depicting the romance: the editor wants it; I kinda want it; but my betas are saying it's all rather crap. The stabby scenes are better ( their words).

So, yes! I LOVE the idea of romance. of being swept off your feet by something too heartbreakingly beautiful to be real.
Writing that relationship is tougher than I thought, though... so I wanted to check out some books that did it well.
 
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mentacle

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I think the thing that always throws me about paranormal romance is that I wonder... why? Why is a supernatural, super-hot vampire or a sexy werewolf or an archangel in love with a human who is typically mediocre, underage, and just flawed in a way the romantic hero isn't and can't be?

If you can answer that question in your novel, that makes it much more compelling for me.


Thank you so much! That's an excellent point, and I'll try to address that.
 

mentacle

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The thing that makes me go dokidoki over YA PNR is when there's both internal and external obstacles in the way of the relationship. I prefer simmering tension rather than fulfillment or HEA.

It's been ages since I read it, but I enjoyed the romantic elements of the earlier volumes of Vampire Academy, precisely because it was a doomed relationship, and there were so many obstacles in the way of anything coming of it, in addition to all of the Plot Going On. But the attraction was still there, even if it wasn't sensible.

So, for example--- you've got the forbidden Student Has a Crush on Teacher thing, where the Instructor knows it would be irresponsible to encourage anything to develop. And then you've got the complications of how Instructor and MC both act as bodyguards in their world--- and bodyguards aren't allowed to cultivate any kinds of relationships that would interfere with their ability to focus on protecting the person they're sworn to protect. And then you've got the complications of how both halves of the love interest are hybrids in the first place-- and their kind is supposed to sacrifice everything in service to the vampires, or be concubines to the vampires, but they can't reproduce amongst themselves. So if they ended up marrying, not only would they both be out of work, but they could never have a family together. So you have Duty, you have social class, you have lack-of-a-future, both economically and biologically, on top of the age disparity/student-teacher relationship going on. And then there's the whole plot that's going on while they're having to struggle with personal issues.

This is great! I think this may be the key to my difficulty with romance- stringing out the sexual tension until the characters just bubble with it. Food for thought. Filing this away for the third dfraft!
 

mentacle

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You mentioned that you don't read much in the genre. There's no shortcut for this if you want to write init.


Yup! I haven't read much, and I do want to know more, but...there's just so much of it? There's not like, a canon of it, is there? I've read several YA pnr books that did nothing for me, and because we don't have public libraries here, I have to really budget my book purchases carefully. So I'm hoping to milk your collective knowledge of what's cream and what's curd. Which titles really expand the genre? And I mentioned Three Dark Crowns because I'm also searching for relatively dark books where the MC's are a bit morally ambiguous. So I'm really open (begging) for recommendations.
 
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mentacle

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It's been a long time since PNR was the thing to sell, but it's also been a long time since it was unsalable. I haven't heard much about how agents and editors feel about YA PNR, which might mean it's not that popular, but might just mean I'm not paying attention that much right now (which is kinda true).

It does seem to have spun off into NA/ Urban Fantasy land.
 

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Almost all YA has romance, so if you check out any YA contemporary/urban fantasy, you’ll probably find it. If YA PNR hasn’t been appealing to you, is it possible you could shift this into a more CF/UF direction?
 

MaryLennox

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Almost all YA has romance, so if you check out any YA contemporary/urban fantasy, you’ll probably find it. If YA PNR hasn’t been appealing to you, is it possible you could shift this into a more CF/UF direction?

What does CF/UF stand for? :/
 

Debbie V

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Since this is an R&R, I especially wouldn't worry about what is in and can sell right now. You've been asked for it. Nothing else to add. Good luck with it.
 

KBooks

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What does CF/UF stand for? :/

contemporary/urban fantasy

WRT the line between PNR and Fantasy with romantic elements, some books would be easy to categorize as one or the other. In PNR the romance is a central part of the story. If you remove the romance bits, the story no longer works, whereas almost all YA has romance, as Sage said, but most of them that are not romance, if you took the romance element out, you still have a book that makes perfect sense.

(some of these series are adult rather than YA)

Some books that I would call UF or Fantasy include: Mercy Thompson series by Patty Briggs, Crown of Midnight series by Sarah J Maas, Jane Yellowrock series by Faith Hunter

PNR series: Twilight by Stephanie Meyer. Shiver series by Stiefvater. Need series by Carrie Jones. Black Dagger Brotherhood series by JR Ward. Nocturne Falls series by Kristen Painter. You take the romance out and it no longer makes sense.

Series that fall somewhere in the middle: ACOTAR series by Sarah J Maas, Kate Daniels series and Nevada Baylor series both by Ilona Andrews
 

mentacle

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contemporary/urban fantasy

WRT the line between PNR and Fantasy with romantic elements, some books would be easy to categorize as one or the other. In PNR the romance is a central part of the story. If you remove the romance bits, the story no longer works, whereas almost all YA has romance, as Sage said, but most of them that are not romance, if you took the romance element out, you still have a book that makes perfect sense.

Ohhh. This makes sense. I guess my book would be somewhere in the middle but skewing to a general fantasy adventure with romance elements. That clarifies things. Thank you!
 

mentacle

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Thanks! I'll definitely need the luck. Especially nowadays- urk.
 

mentacle

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Since this is an R&R, I especially wouldn't worry about what is in and can sell right now. You've been asked for it. Nothing else to add. Good luck with it.
Thanks! I'll definitely need the luck. Especially nowadays- urk.
 

mentacle

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Almost all YA has romance, so if you check out any YA contemporary/urban fantasy, you’ll probably find it. If YA PNR hasn’t been appealing to you, is it possible you could shift this into a more CF/UF direction?

I think so? I'm getting lost with all the distinctions in these subcatgeories. My book has a paranormal love interest but I guess the romance is secondary to the story. Going by that, I guess it isn't pnr after all. Will stick to the YA age range though.

- - - Updated - - -

Almost all YA has romance, so if you check out any YA contemporary/urban fantasy, you’ll probably find it. If YA PNR hasn’t been appealing to you, is it possible you could shift this into a more CF/UF direction?

I think so? I'm getting lost with all the distinctions in these subcatgeories. My book has a paranormal love interest but I guess the romance is secondary to the story. Going by that, I guess it isn't pnr after all. Will stick to the YA age range though.