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Whenever I read articles on what sets YA apart (from, say, MG), they mention that the MC usually prefers talking to her friends rather than put up with advice and pep talks from older characters or mentor figures, that it's in the nature of teens to have little or no patience for old people giving them advice. Does your MC react differently? Can you think of YA protags who are cool with that? This is a huge concern for my WIP cause my story was originally MG, so it had lots of instances where the MC listens to his elders give a piece of wisdom that he really takes to heart (think Chiron or Dumbledore giving advice to Harry Potter and Percy Jackson). Now that I've turned it into YA, should I do away with those instances because the MC is a teenager who's supposed to find all that advice annoying? I still haven't decided the MC's age. He's definitely not gonna be older than 15 cause the story is nowhere near as violent or edgy as, say, the Hunger Games or Divergent. If it were up to me, I'd start the story with him being 13 and then he can maybe turn 14 halfway through. I imagine an MC on the younger side of YA would be less likely to brush off elderly advice.
Darn thing is, nobody seems to recommend 14 yo protagonists, and 13 is technically upper MG, which wouldn't work for me cause my story is a bit more mature than that. For those interested, below are a few articles about the 14 yo problem:
http://project-middle-grade-mayhem.blogspot.com/2014/09/age-14-no-mans-land-between-mg-and-ya.html
https://eleanorglewwe.com/2014/10/15/the-14-year-old-middle-grade-protagonist/
https://bookpage.com/the-book-case/17415-teen-characters-its-not-easy-being-14#.XvUWqWbbeIE
https://www.fuseliterary.com/2017/05/01/the-problem-with-14-year-old-protagonists/
Darn thing is, nobody seems to recommend 14 yo protagonists, and 13 is technically upper MG, which wouldn't work for me cause my story is a bit more mature than that. For those interested, below are a few articles about the 14 yo problem:
http://project-middle-grade-mayhem.blogspot.com/2014/09/age-14-no-mans-land-between-mg-and-ya.html
https://eleanorglewwe.com/2014/10/15/the-14-year-old-middle-grade-protagonist/
https://bookpage.com/the-book-case/17415-teen-characters-its-not-easy-being-14#.XvUWqWbbeIE
https://www.fuseliterary.com/2017/05/01/the-problem-with-14-year-old-protagonists/
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