How YA can you get if you start out as MG?

Emissarius

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This is a question about book series that cross over from MG to YA. There aren't that many examples I can think of, and it's generally discouraged to move from one age group to another. Well, my WIP is currently an 8-book space fantasy series. It starts out as upper MG for the first 3 books with the MC aged 13-14, and then crosser over to YA. My question is, just how YA-ish are you allowed to get when you make the transition? We know that YA vary in terms of edginess and violence. Will the fact that my series started out as MG compel me to remain on the younger side of YA after book 4? If we look at Harry Potter, one of the few examples I can think of to transition from MG to YA, it nevertheless abstained from violence even in the last couple of books which were firmly YA. Even as far as the Deathly Hallows, there was no mauling, eye-stabbing, or throat-tearing, or pregnancy like in Twilight and Hunger Games. So can an upper MG transitioning into YA go all the way to upper YA? Or does it have to remain within the confines of younger YA (Ranger's Apprentice, Eragon, False Prince...etc. Stuff with 15 yo protagonists)?

Here's a breakdown of all mature content I can think of:
- Book 1-3, Middle-grade. MC is 13-14. Clean content.
- Book 4, Young adult. MC is 15. There's mention of a major character who once devoured another human. This is never shown. That character is deeply remorseful, and is never tempted to, nor does he commit that act again. This book is also where the MC develops feelings for a girl.
- Book 5, MC is 16, officially lovesick. Lots of romance, but no sex, not even implied.
- Book 6, MC is 16-17. Here things darken a bit. There's pregnancy, but the child is stillborn. A bit of grief on the 17 yo mother's part and for a while she has nightmares and wakes up screaming for her baby. There's also another scene where the MC is so remorseful that for a brief instant he tries to shoot himself, but he immediately comes to his senses. It's a quick scene. Kinda like how Bruce Banner said in the first Avengers movie: "I got low, put a bullet in my mouth, and the other guy spit it out." The Avengers is rated 13+ and yet there was talk of committing suicide, though I found the way Banner spoke of it to be relatively tame (definitely tamer than, say, that bulky guy who throws himself off a building in the first Divergent book and they recover his corpse). Unlike Banner, however, my attempted suicide scene will be in real-time, but the MC barely points the gun at himself before tossing it away.
- Book 7-8, MC is 17-18. There will be one, perhaps two, violent deaths. Nothing worse than the Hunger Games.
 
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ChaseJxyz

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Harry Potter is a unique case because the audience grew up with the books. I was in elementary school when it first came out and was in college when the last one did. Harry and the other students grew up, too, there wasn't going to be an MG-able way for them to deal with Voldemort. So it made sense for the books to graduate from MG to YA.

How do your protagonists age throughout the series? How long do you expect to take between books being published?

Personally I don't think you should go to the really upper-upper limits of YA, with sex and super graphic violence, but you could probably get away with Star Wars-level violence.
 

Emissarius

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The MC is 13 in the first book and around 18 in the last. It's too early to speculate how long each book will take to get published, though, me pursuing traditional publishing and all. I'm not saying the violence will be constant later on. There will only be a maximum of two violent scenes and those won't be until book 6-8, by which time the MC will be 17. There will also be mention of cannibalism in book 4 (the first YA book in the series. MC will be 15), but it'll never be depicted in any way whatsoever. Kinda like how Twilight referred to vampires preying on humans but never, as far as I can remember, showed it. In my case, the cannibalism won't be related to a whole community like in Twilight, it'll just be one character, and it'll come as a shock to the MC when he learns that that character had once preyed on his own kind (one time only, and he deeply regrets it). Think I can get away with that? There's also a small subplot in book 6 that involves pregnancy.
 
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ChaseJxyz

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Unless the MC is getting pregnant, I wouldn't worry about that bit. Everyone knows what pregnancy is, it's a fact of life. Graphically describing what's going on downstairs during the birth, though, probably wouldn't fly. Also same thing with cannabilism. It's a thing we know happens, and has happened in the past, so just mentioning it should be okay.

But as you're breaking that stuff out, yeah, book 6 seems like a lot of stuff. Teen pregnancy would be pretty YA in my opinion, especially if it's an unhappy of a situation as you're describing. Suicidal thoughts and actions need to be handled very carefully. I don't think it'll go over well in MG, especially if we see the thoughts/actions of it as it happens. Maybe you can market your stuff at the cusp of MG/YA? Especially as it matures a little as the books go by, so your devoted readers will be growing up with the characters, too.
 

Debbie V

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So much in MG and YA depends on how it's presented that this is hard to say. Book 6 reads as very heavy. But we don't know what the overall arc is. The Potter books age up with the characters, but the tone doesn't change beyond that. There's a cohesiveness holding it all together. That's what makes any series work.

Be true to the psychology. A stillborn baby leads to far more than a bit of grief and nightmares. That baby, that life, was in your body for months. It's something you move forward from rather than recovering from. Always, in the back of your mind, you wonder if you could've done something differently and what that child would've been like. (I know five women who had miscarriages, and this can be the effect even when only a month has passed in utero.)

The Avengers line is played for laughs by Banner. He is possibly still suicidal when he says it. He simply can't die. It's part of why he's always angry. I don't know that it makes a good comparison. The psychology of that is far different from a kid who can die. Again, be true to the psychology. In both cases, if you are going to go there, do it for real and make sure it is real and true to your characters.

But also keep in mind that there will be no book six unless the first one does well. The rest of this can be discussed with the publisher and your agent if you have one when the time comes.
 

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And, think of future readers. The theory is that Harry Potter got away with it because the readers 'grew up' with the books. This was no protection for later readers of the books, who are innocently reading a series about a boy wizard and his adventures in school and a few weeks later are reading the deaths of favourite characters. A kid with a series he loves can read it as fast as he can get hold of the books.

You reckon your first book will be 'middle-grade', with a 13 year old MC? How would you feel about 11 and 12 year olds reading your later books?
Is there any way the first 3 books could be aged up?
 
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Emissarius

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You reckon your first book will be 'middle-grade', with a 13 year old MC? How would you feel about 11 and 12 year olds reading your later books?
Is there any way the first 3 books could be aged up?

I've considered that, but the first books have too much fun and humor to possibly work for an older MC. YA readers would view it as somewhat childish. If I'm to age the books up, I'd have to get rid of far too many themes.
 

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I think you'd be okay. As characters age, maturity changes and the themes surrounding them should change to. Just be wise as you begin to breach that gap.
 

Debbie V

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You reckon your first book will be 'middle-grade', with a 13 year old MC? How would you feel about 11 and 12 year olds reading your later books? Is there any way the first 3 books could be aged up?
We stopped our 7 yo at the end of book 3 of HP and made him wait until fifth grade for book 4 for this reason. In those days he was reading a book a day so not much more mature for the next book in a series. Some argue that kids will put a book down if it gets to be too much. I argue that by the time they know it's too much, they can't unread it. So this is a real concern.

If the tone changes from fun humor to much more serious, do the books really belong together? HP actually has the same tone throughout---the events become darker but there is a sly bit in the tone throughout with elements to lighten the load except maybe in the last book, but there, we know what to expect because we know what has to happen just not how it will happen.
 
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