What Constitutes YA Fiction?

timewaster

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Nobody really knows. If it published as YA, it is YA and er... that's it.
 

Shady Lane

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^true story. Although in my case it's like wc 20,000-35,000 :p
 

Chicken Warrior

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Well, you spell adult fiction a.d.u.l.t. And YA A.Y. Or, wait, Y.A. And...um, YA is for young adults?

Seriously, though, the line is VERY blurry and I've heard many times of agents (let alone authors) who try one book in both markets.
 

Gina_Marie

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hmm.

Typically the characters are teens with teen issues. The adults maybe secondary characters, or not in the book at all. When my patrons come into the library they say "I want teen books." thus meaning they want teen issues with teen characters.
 

bethany

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I've seen and read YAs over 100,000 words. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Aidan Chambers's This Is All are both at the quarter-million mark.

Well sure. But you can't compare anything realistically to Harry Potter.

If you're going to break the "rules" make sure you do it with tightly written narrative that requires every single word.
 

Charlie Horse

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Call me dense (no really, you can call me that. My parents did.), but what if your MC(s) are in the right age range (perhaps on the upper end), they deal with some coming of age issues, etc. but the WC is higher (say 90k and upwards for example) and there are also elements of real world adult type conflicts? I'm talking corruption in government, evil corporate madness, trade embargos with neighboring countries, those old chestnuts. When it comes down to it, doesn't the narrative have a great deal to do with how the work is classified?

Is this where the line goes all blurry?
 

Esopha

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Yes.

Welcome to my world.

How old are your MCs and how big is the coming of age? And how do you think your voice represents the genre? Is it more adult or YA?

Those are really the questions you should ask.
 

Charlie Horse

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Well, my MCs (there are 4 actually) are 16 and 18 (two each, boy, girl, boy girl). The coming of age stuff is mostly relationship and dealing with peers, which is going on behind the real main conflict, which I won't get into here.

Of course each character's POV varies, but I worked hard to keep the narrative crisp and not overly wordy like I would if I were writing a scholarly text or something.

I guess my main concern might be word count. First draft went from 117,000 to 98,400. We'll see what my readers come back with to determine if I can cut some more, but I'm pretty happy with the shape it all took in 2nd draft.
 

heatheringemar

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Cool. I'm glad to see the word count stuff referenced; I've started a YA paranormal novel that I have a feeling will round out at around 30k and was worrying that it would be too short.

Good thread. *thumbs up*
 

popmuze

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What about sex and drugs? Profanity? I'd heard there were a lot of changes in YA over the last ten years, at the upper levels, wherever they are. And now you can deal with these topics almost as explicitly as you can in adult novels. Anyone know if this is true?
 

Claudia Gray

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YA is primarily about young people, primarily for young people. Virtually anything else -- subject matter, tone, even length although YA does tend to run shorter -- there's no difference.
 

LeeFlower

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popmuse, if the YA I've read recently is any indication, swearing, sex, and drugs are no longer dealbreakers (the Gossip Girl series seems to delight in indulging in all three). At a panel on YA at ConFusion in January, Scott Westerfeld (author of the hugely popular Uglies series) said "There are only two things you can't do in YA: Bestiality and boring. And if you have to do one, make it bestiality."

But yeah, the line is extremely blurry. If it's meant for a reader grade 6-10ish, it's probably YA. If it's meant for a reader grade 4-7ish, it's probably middle grade.* The age of the character might be an indicator, but not always-- the first two Harry Potter books are YA even though he doesn't turn 13 until the third, and The Hobbit is considered YA even though the MC is well beyond his teenage years. The best advice I've heard about it is to write the book and let the editor decide how to market it.

*And yes, I know people are going to say that middle grade is 6-8 and YA is 9-12. But I'm not that long out of the grades in question, and my friends and I and all my classmates were reading Middle Grade by fourth grade, YA by sixth, and general fiction by eleventh. And publishers were marketing those books to us at those ages.
 

timewaster

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What about sex and drugs? Profanity? I'd heard there were a lot of changes in YA over the last ten years, at the upper levels, wherever they are. And now you can deal with these topics almost as explicitly as you can in adult novels. Anyone know if this is true?

Yeah you can, but it's not mandatory. Anything controversial still narows your market a little.
 

heatheringemar

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But yeah, the line is extremely blurry. If it's meant for a reader grade 6-10ish, it's probably YA. If it's meant for a reader grade 4-7ish, it's probably middle grade.*

In the library where I work, it is sometimes hard to determine where to put books. Since I order for YA, I usually put 14 as a minimum age for my section, so that's what I keep in mind.
 

bonnyread

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Call me dense (no really, you can call me that. My parents did.), but what if your MC(s) are in the right age range (perhaps on the upper end), they deal with some coming of age issues, etc. but the WC is higher (say 90k and upwards for example) and there are also elements of real world adult type conflicts? I'm talking corruption in government, evil corporate madness, trade embargoes with neighboring countries, those old chestnuts. When it comes down to it, doesn't the narrative have a great deal to do with how the work is classified?

Is this where the line goes all blurry?

The book I'm currently planning is an alternate history that does deal with some of the themes you've listed, but I've come to the conclusion that it is probably best suited to the YA market. It simply comes down to a vague feeling the story is giving off to me. I guess you could say tone or voice. The MC is a teen, and there's madness, corruption, and political intrigue, but at the core, it is an adventure story. The heroic, pulpy kind of adventure that I adored when I was younger. I want to write this story for readers with a highly developed sense of wonder. :D

I don't know if that's helpful at all. I know "it's just a feeling" sounds pretty wishy-washy. But that's what it is in my case.
 

nybx4life

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In particular, what separates it from "regular," adult fiction? Your thoughts?


It's usually on the things mentioned in the novel.

Of course, with some of these urban novels out now, I think that line is blurring up a bit.

But usually I guess, the MC is a teen.