Is my story YA? Brief synopsis included

Pencrafter

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jun 2, 2019
Messages
86
Reaction score
3
I think of my story as existing in both Science Fiction and Fantasy; leaning more toward Fantasy, but much of the magic that happens feels grounded in modern Western Science. My story also deals with current events in a sort of social crit way.

My main character is a wizard who has a conventional job, lives in a small town. His antagonists / enemies include other wizards as well as industrialists. His goal is to save the world, in part by using his magic powers, but he hopes also to teach some lessons in the process.

A few of the story’s important characters are late teen college-age, but the story isn’t really about them. These characters are instrumental in advancing certain parts of the story, but the story isn’t about their arcs and relationships. Guess I’m saying that they’re in supporting roles to the main, who is mid-career adult-age.

As I write this draft, I’m not actually picturing any one particular reader, neither by age, race, gender, country of origin, etc. I’m not dumbing the story down, but neither am I trotting out my vocabulary of $2 words, unless they are actually needed.

Initially I thought that this story was a shoe-in YA tale, but after reading some of the comments here, I’m not so sure.

Any thoughts on where my story lands, based on the above description?

Thank you!
 
Last edited:

Brightdreamer

Just Another Lazy Perfectionist
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Apr 22, 2012
Messages
12,975
Reaction score
4,508
Location
USA
Website
brightdreamersbookreviews.blogspot.com
+1 to it not being YA. The MC is an adult, already established in his adulthood, dealing with adult problems and behaving in an adult way. The fact that he hopes to teach lessons along the way especially kicks it into the adult category, IMHO; a YA character will still be learning how to be an adult (the whole "coming of age"/"rite of passage" part of growing up), not imparting lessons to others (unless they're one of those preachy types who already thinks they know everything about the world before actually having to live in it as a grown-up; even a YA character who has had a very rough and "educational" life likely won't be first thinking to impart lessons to others before they establish themselves in adulthood.) Being helped out by teenagers at times isn't enough to make the story YA, especially if he's acting as their mentor/teacher.

If you told a story from the POV of one of the teen side characters, that would be more likely to be a YA story (though not necessarily - there's more than the MC's age to an age category, there's also story and overall feel, which this synopsis doesn't seem to fit.)
 

Bing Z

illiterate primate
Super Member
Registered
Joined
May 3, 2008
Messages
3,787
Reaction score
998
Location
New Jersey
A fiction with an adult MC cannot be YA.

AFAIK, these are the criteria for a story to be YA:
a) age; the MC (& preferably sidekicks too) is between 15-18yo (slightly younger might be rare exceptions);
b) if the MCs are modern-day students, they are in high school (a 16yo prodigy working on PhD at MIT may be okay but not a typical college student);
c) theme - there must be teenage themes--first love, coming of age, searching for identity, etc.
d) voice - most YA books carry a distinct teenage voice;

The voice part is hard. I am writing a historical fantasy with a 17yo prince, a 16yo LI, and some teen themes. Before I started it, I was sure it would be a YA book. Now, 2/3 on, I am not so sure with the narrator voice.
 

Beccorban

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Oct 13, 2020
Messages
73
Reaction score
3
Location
London
I would say no. YA typically portrays a teenage protagonist, thus it's appeal to people of that age group. From your brief synopsis I believe this would be an adult grade novel.
 

NINA28

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Mar 29, 2019
Messages
109
Reaction score
5
Location
UK
Adult mc
Dealing with adult problems
No love interest or love triangle mentioned (joke)

No this doesn't sound YA to me.