Male MCs in YA (from New Adult thread)

Margrave86 · Jul 1, 2019

satyesu said:
I just read a newsletter from a NYT editor that said NA is primarily read by women, and that female leads are popular. Am I setting myself up for failure with a male protagonist? Can I even be successful in NA as a male author?

The term "New Adult" is marketing fluff. When the (mostly female) target audience for Young Adult stopped going to high school and started going to college and into the workforce, publishing companies plugged the old tropes into new milieus and slapped the label "New Adult" on their books to make them seem less like a guilty pleasure.

Can you write a YA novel with a male protagonist? Sure. But male main characters in YA are kind of like moe anime girls for dudes. You have to figure out what kind of stock archetypes tickle the fancy of the opposite sex. As a male author, you might even be successful at it, like John Green. Though I couldn't make it more hand a few dozen pages into The Fault in Our Stars, he gave his YA audience exactly what they wanted and they forked over boatloads of cash for it.

Personally, I'd recommend writing a book without chasing industry trends, though I understand that probably won't lead to any major success.

be frank · Jul 1, 2019

Margrave86 said:
But male main characters in YA are kind of like moe anime girls for dudes. You have to figure out what kind of stock archetypes tickle the fancy of the opposite sex

Yeah ... having read a lot of YA, I'm calling BS on both these points.

Margrave86 · Jul 1, 2019

be frank said:
Yeah ... having read a lot of YA, I'm calling BS on both these points.

After 10 Seconds of Google:
http://gillianeberry.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-appeal-of-ya-bad-boy.html

Sure, if you're a connoisseur, I'm sure you know the good vintages. But boxed wine from the supermarket sells for a reason: it's cheap, plentiful, and it does the job.

be frank · Jul 1, 2019

Margrave86 said:
After 10 Seconds of Google:
http://gillianeberry.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-appeal-of-ya-bad-boy.html

You do understand a blog post is one person's opinion, right? Like ... that's not data.

eta: I'm not going to derail the OP's thread for this. But IME, people who voice generalisations like yours are usually also people who don't actually read the material they're passing judgement on.

Margrave86 · Jul 1, 2019

be frank said:
You do understand a blog post is one person's opinion, right? Like ... that's not data.

eta: I'm not going to derail the OP's thread for this. But IME, people who voice generalisations like yours are usually also people who don't actually read the material they're passing judgement on.

This isn't derailment. The OP wanted tips on writing successful YA, and knowing a genre's audience is the #1 tip for success. Can we at least appreciate the irony that I'm the one being frank here?

And I've dabbled in YA. Twilight and, as I said, The Fault in Our Stars. Neither were to my liking.

lizmonster · Jul 1, 2019

Margrave86 said:
And I've dabbled in YA. Twilight and, as I said, The Fault in Our Stars. Neither were to my liking.

Just to stick my nose in, I've read a ton of YA, and I haven't read either of the above.

YA is a category, not a genre. YA romance is a genre. PNR seems to be big in YA these days, but it's hardly the only genre that's selling well.

cornflake · Jul 1, 2019

Margrave86 said:
This isn't derailment. The OP wanted tips on writing successful YA, and knowing a genre's audience is the #1 tip for success. Can we at least appreciate the irony that I'm the one being frank here?

And I've dabbled in YA. Twilight and, as I said, The Fault in Our Stars. Neither were to my liking.

Most of the tips for writing well in a genre or category come from people who ... know the area whereof they speak. Having read two books, out of hundreds of thousands, and only one published in the last decade, doesn't seem to me like it'd give you a great grounding in YA. I wouldn't tell someone how to write a successful high fantasy novel -- I don't read much fantasy at all.

Woollybear · Jul 1, 2019

Hi Margrave,

Always good to see frank input... but the protagonist in both of the works you mention... is female. The OP is asking about writing a male protagonist (MC) for a female audience.

And... the blog you linked talks about bad boys as love interests and villains, neither of which is typically the protagonist.

There are definitely blogs out there that list male MCs in YA fiction (OP, google around. Eragon is one example.) But FWIW I'm personally more likely to put a book down because it is 1st person (I prefer 3rd) than the gender of the MC (I don't care... but they should be impressive.)

The book I just finished and have been raving about follows an 11 year old boy as 1st person protagonist. The book is adult SF, but the protagonist is a kid. A young boy. And despite all that... I really enjoyed it. Because the character was fantastic.

Dead Father's Club. By Matt Haig.

OP: Yes, you can successfully write male main characters in new adult.

Sage · Jul 1, 2019

Note: This is a thread created after a derail in a thread about New Adult male protagonists.

I suggest anyone making claims about what can and can't sell in YA read more than a couple of blockbusters.

be frank · Jul 1, 2019

Margrave86 said:
And I've dabbled in YA. Twilight and, as I said, The Fault in Our Stars. Neither were to my liking.

Twilight is pretty much the Godwin's Law of YA. The moment you invoke it as representative of modern-day YA, you've outed yourself as being really unfamiliar with the category.

Putputt · Jul 1, 2019

Margrave86 said:
This isn't derailment. The OP wanted tips on writing successful YA, and knowing a genre's audience is the #1 tip for success. Can we at least appreciate the irony that I'm the one being frank here?

And I've dabbled in YA. Twilight and, as I said, The Fault in Our Stars. Neither were to my liking.

Yeah...um, I feel that reading one YA book and flipping through several pages of another does not an expert in YA makes.

And though no one can argue that both books were astronomically successful, it doesn't cancel out the fact that there are plenty of very different YA books that have been published since which have been just as successful, if not more. And they range very widely in terms of characters, plot, pacing, writing, and themes. I wouldn't, for example, compare THE HATE U GIVE to TWILIGHT. I mean, I could, but that would be like comparing apples to...spaghetti pesto? I dunno. Both food, but so, so different in every possible way.

ETA:

be frank said:
Twilight is pretty much the Godwin's Law of YA. The moment you invoke it as representative of modern-day YA, you've outed yourself as being really unfamiliar with the category.

Sorry, Margrave, but yes, this.

Margrave86 · Jul 1, 2019

be frank said:
Twilight is pretty much the Godwin's Law of YA. The moment you invoke it as representative of modern-day YA, you've outed yourself as being really unfamiliar with the category.

I've also read The Mortal Instruments, which has a TV show on now. The fact that I forgot I read it at first shows how memorable I found it. And I saw the movie version of Divergent, or parts of it, and it was about what I expected: bland heroine, swoony dude.

Always good to see frank input... but the protagonist in both of the works you mention... is female. The OP is asking about writing a male protagonist (MC) for a female audience.

And... the blog you linked talks about bad boys as love interests and villains, neither of which is typically the protagonist.

From what I've seen, in these sorts of 'boxed wine' YA trash novels, the female main character just functions as a middle(wo)man between the reader and the swoony dude(s) the reader is supposed to lust after anyway.

To bring back the anime comparisons, it's like the difference between harem anime or otome games, where a weak, self-insert girl or boy lead interacts with a bunch of pretty dudes/cute girls who fawn over them, compared with slice of life anime, where it's just a bunch of cute girls or pretty boys hanging out together. Regardless of whether the show has a weak self-insert or not, it lives or dies based on the quality of the cute girls or pretty boys.

People misunderstand me; it's OK to like trash. Trash can be wonderful. It'll just never be high art.

mccardey · Jul 1, 2019

Margrave86 said:
it's OK to like trash. Trash can be wonderful. It'll just never be high art.

It's probably not a good idea to trash-talk a genre based on your reading of two-and-a-bit novels, just saying. It might be that you're a shallower reader in the genre, and that you're missing stuff that other people find very rewarding.

cornflake · Jul 1, 2019

Margrave86 said:
I've also read The Mortal Instruments, which has a TV show on now. The fact that I forgot I read it at first shows how memorable I found it. And I saw the movie version of Divergent, or parts of it, and it was about what I expected: bland heroine, swoony dude.

From what I've seen, in these sorts of 'boxed wine' YA trash novels, the female main character just functions as a middle(wo)man between the reader and the swoony dude(s) the reader is supposed to lust after anyway.

To bring back the anime comparisons, it's like the difference between harem anime or otome games, where a weak, self-insert girl or boy lead interacts with a bunch of pretty dudes/cute girls who fawn over them, compared with slice of life anime, where it's just a bunch of cute girls or pretty boys hanging out together. Regardless of whether the show has a weak self-insert or not, it lives or dies based on the quality of the cute girls or pretty boys.

People misunderstand me; it's OK to like trash. Trash can be wonderful. It'll just never be high art.

Are you saying you think these YA novels that you've read are trash novels or that all of YA is trash? That's a heck of a broad brush to paint over like a dozen genres with, with no basis.

Putputt · Jul 1, 2019

mccardey said:
It's probably not a good idea to trash-talk a genre based on your reading of two-and-a-bit novels, just saying. It might be that you're a shallower reader in the genre, and that you're missing stuff that other people find very rewarding.

Sounds about right.

If you're looking for YA with very deep, nuanced plots and complex characters, I've got recs. Off the top of my head...

THE HATE U GIVE
CODE NAME VERITY
I'LL GIVE YOU THE SUN
UPROOTED
SPINNING SILVER
CUCKOO SONG

Brilliant reads worth more than a casual flip through to really understand the themes and character motivations.

Margrave86 · Jul 1, 2019

mccardey said:
It's probably not a good idea to trash-talk a genre based on your reading of two-and-a-bit novels, just saying. It might be that you're a shallower reader in the genre, and that you're missing stuff that other people find very rewarding.

I don't read YA at all. This thread was transplanted from the "Novels" subforum, where the OP asked how to become successful as a male YA author. My advice was to write trashy swoon-bait for young women.

As I mentioned above, I'm sure there's good stuff out there.

Sage · Jul 1, 2019

Margrave86 said:
I don't read YA at all. This thread was transplanted from the "Novels" subforum, where the OP asked how to become successful as a male YA author. My advice was to write trashy swoon-bait for young women.

As I mentioned above, I'm sure there's good stuff out there.

OP of that thread didn't ask anything about YA at all, actually. And you actually addressed NA in your first post, so you know that. In fact, it was you who brought up YA, seemingly to rant about your limited experience of reading a few books. Seeing as you have 3 books of reading experience in the market, perhaps it would be best to not open your mouth and prove your ignorance on the matter. Certainly when making generalizations about a market or genre or giving an author advice, you should stick to genres and markets you know more about.

Also, since you are actually in the YA subforum now (though, it would also be true in the Novels subforum and if you were talking about any specific genre or market), you might want to refrain from referring to the entire market as "trashy."

Finally, anime and YA novels are completely different markets. Best not to rely on your anime experience to talk about a market you know nothing about.

be frank · Jul 1, 2019

Margrave86 said:
I've also read The Mortal Instruments, which has a TV show on now. The fact that I forgot I read it at first shows how memorable I found it. And I saw the movie version of Divergent, or parts of it, and it was about what I expected: bland heroine, swoony dude.

You're not really selling your case here using these examples. Especially since one isn't even the book version of the book ... and what's more, not even the whole not-book-version-of-the book. Only parts of it.

I'm so confused as to why you think you're qualified to give anyone advice on anything related to YA. It's fine not to read it, but please don't think you know the topic because of your extremely limited reading (or is that watching?) experience.

Putputt · Jul 1, 2019

Margrave86 said:
I don't read YA at all. This thread was transplanted from the "Novels" subforum, where the OP asked how to become successful as a male YA author. My advice was to write trashy swoon-bait for young women.

As I mentioned above, I'm sure there's good stuff out there.

So you don't read YA, and yet you feel that you're well equipped to give advice about YA...

Also it's 2019, maybe we can lay off the condescension towards young women as an audience, huh?

Margrave86 · Jul 1, 2019

Putputt said:
So you don't read YA, and yet you feel that you're well equipped to give advice about YA...

Also it's 2019, maybe we can lay off the condescension towards young women as an audience, huh?

I never once condescended towards young women as an audience. I just spoke frankly about how both young women and young men are drawn towards media featuring attractive members of the opposite sex. Despite what Sage wrote, human psychological reactions to media of that nature are similar, regardless of whether it's labeled "YA" or "anime".

Also, while I don't read YA, I do read up on the latest controversies whenever they reach my attention, so I tend to absorb the current trends by osmosis. Such as the backlash against Kosoko Jackson.

Sage · Jul 1, 2019

What if we talked about male MCs in YA in this thread (by people who have ever read a single male MC in YA)? Or i could just lock it. I only unlocked it because I thought a discussion could be had about the subject.

Putputt · Jul 1, 2019

Sorry, Sage.

Actually, I've just started reading WHAT IF IT'S US, and the male MCs voices are so refreshing and so authentic. It's reminding me what it was like being a teen in all its awkward glory. Also makes me so jealous to see how well Albertalli and Silvera capture teen dialogue. Just...gah. It's so good!

be frank · Jul 1, 2019

Margrave86 said:
I just spoke frankly about how both young women and young men are drawn towards media featuring attractive members of the opposite sex.

You've just erased gay, lesbian, and a bunch of ace spectrum folk.

Sage said:
What if we talked about male MCs in YA in this thread (by people who have ever read a single male MC in YA)?

For those who are fans of quick google searches, here's a Goodreads list of YA books with male MCs.

pharm · Jul 1, 2019

This is some incredibly weak trolling. OP doesn’t believe the nonsense he’s spitting for a second.

mccardey · Jul 2, 2019

Male MCs in YA (from New Adult thread)

not a bloke, not named frank

not a bloke, not named frank

Possibly A Mermaid Queen

practical experience, FTW

Supreme Guessinator

not a bloke, not named frank

permanently suctioned to Buz's leg

practical experience, FTW

permanently suctioned to Buz's leg

Supreme Guessinator

not a bloke, not named frank

permanently suctioned to Buz's leg

Supreme Guessinator

permanently suctioned to Buz's leg

not a bloke, not named frank

profoundly de minimis