When is fiction YA?

[JohnDurvin]

What are the differences between general fiction and young adult? I've looked it up in a few places online, but none of them were very helpful; all I can see for certain is that you're probably going to have a protagonist between the ages of eleven and seventeen and any depictions of graphic sex or violence will be cautionary, and my WIP has those features, at least.

The basics of my WIP are a Tom Sawyer-type runs away from an abusive home-life to join a group of hobo knights-errant adventuring around a steampunk/clockpunk fantasy version of the American South during the economic and cultural fallout of a big war that ended while the MP was a baby; there's a Depression setting in, as well as a Dust Bowl-situation, and a weapons magnate that made a fortune during the war is buying up all the impoverished farms and bringing the farmers and their families into his manufacturing cities. What would need to happen for it to be YA? What would need to happen for it not to be? Which should I shoot for?

[polymath]

Young adult fiction in some way portrays circumstances unique to young adults, most notably coming of age. It is the literature of initiation into early adulthood privileges and responsibilities, and independent self-identity and viewpoint formation at an age when multiple viewpoints and identities become emotionally and intellectually accessible for maturing humans, and not too coincidentally an age when natural familial detachment processes foster fledgling independence drives, rebelliousness, and experimentation with alternative lifestyles, re: identity experimentation.

[Sommer Leigh]

What Polymath said.

Although I would add that 11 is probably still in the middle grade section. The youngest YA protag I've read has been 13.
I don't know that there is a hard and fast rule about this though.

Also there are plenty of violent and sexual situations in young adult books. The past ten years or so have seen YA books grow up considerably and authors aren't shying away from tackling these subjects. The cautionary bit is that the really good books aren't displaying them gratuitously.

If you're not sure I would recommend reading a spread of YA that your book would fit in with. See, there's this feeling about YA books that is hard to describe, but coming of age plays a huge part in a YA narrative.

Just from your description, some books I'd check out:
Leviathan and Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld
Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi
City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau
XVI by Julia Karr
The Water Wars by Cameron Stracher
Restoring Harmony by Joelle Anthony
Tomorrow when the war began by John Marsden
The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins

All of them have some level of violence and a few of them have sexual undertones or situations. Each of them handles the situations really well though.

[Falls Apart]

I think that fiction is YA when you get the feeling that it would appeal more to kids than to adults. You can have a young adult book where the protagonist is an adult--for instance, The Host, by Stephanie Meyer. The reason that it's young adult is that the characters face conflicts that young adults would be more likely to identify with/be interested in. You can also find books aimed toward adults with children or teenagers as the main characters. Jodi Piccoult has several books, such as My Sister's Keeper and The Pact, which have groups of protagonists/narrators with one or several being teens. However, the themes in these books would appeal more to adults than to young adults. The "objectionable" content doesn't define it, either; YA books can have sex, violence, and language (although this can make them controversial) and adult books can have none (although it doesn't tend to upset anybody when they are). I suppose that, to define it for your book, you should think about which audience would like it.
Oh, and length. YA is usually 45k - 80k, adult should generally be at least 90k.
Good luck!

[Sommer Leigh]

I think that fiction is YA when you get the feeling that it would appeal more to kids than to adults. You can have a young adult book where the protagonist is an adult--for instance, The Host, by Stephanie Meyer. The reason that it's young adult is that the characters face conflicts that young adults would be more likely to identify with/be interested in. You can also find books aimed toward adults with children or teenagers as the main characters. Jodi Piccoult has several books, such as My Sister's Keeper and The Pact, which have groups of protagonists/narrators with one or several being teens. However, the themes in these books would appeal more to adults than to young adults. The "objectionable" content doesn't define it, either; YA books can have sex, violence, and language (although this can make them controversial) and adult books can have none (although it doesn't tend to upset anybody when they are). I suppose that, to define it for your book, you should think about which audience would like it.
Oh, and length. YA is usually 45k - 80k, adult should generally be at least 90k.
Good luck!

The lengths can be a little longer than that, particularly paranormal YA or YA Fantasy. Here's a good break down by Colleen Lindsay at Penguin Group: http://theswivet.blogspot.com/2008/03/o ... ength.html

Also, The Host by Stephyanie Meyer is not YA.

[polymath]

Although I would add that 11 is probably still in the middle grade section. The youngest YA protag I've read has been 13. I don't know that there is a hard and fast rule about this though.

All of them have some level of violence and a few of them have sexual undertones or situations. Each of them handles the situations really well though.

Middle grade ages, one of the tween ages of youth, transition ages of intitiation, is roughly fifth and sixth grade or eleven and twelve years of age. Precocious readers read up a notch or two. The other tween is the early adult age between age of majority, eighteen, and full entitlement to adult privileges and inherent obligations, twenty-one. I locate another not so much tween but still young grouping up through age twenty-five when human brains reach full development potentials.

Anyway, middle grade still has a black and white, parentally imprinted value system with limited viewpoint access capacity. It's an age when there's still wholesomeness indoctrination in the literature because moral authorities make it so. Young adult can be edgy, with violence, sex, intoxicating substance experimentation, and so on, but an undertone of wholesomeness in conflicts and outcomes and messages may be essential to pass moral muster.

[sierramcconnell]

To get a good feeling, go and look in that section at BN. You can even go online to check.

But generally YA is that tender time of turning of age for your protag. They are learning a life lesson or a value through your main storyline and it's in most cases (at least I've seen) in first person but not always. A lot of YA recently deals with the following as well as your secondary plots: parties, prom, getting a car, getting a job, hating\loving your parents or only having one parent, going to college, moving up in life to adulthood, gaining sexual independance through dating\kissing\having sex, etc.


Case in point, the stories I write are YA because...

Carmine is 12 when the story starts. He's going through a life change because he's trying to save a dying friend and yet save the world, too. His secondary issues are his parents, one of which is a stepfather who he loves, and the other is a mother he never really knew much about. He's moving into adulthood (Victorian times? Yes.) and gaining independance because he's losing his servant and has to learn to stand on his own.

Bradley is 15 when the story starts. He's going through a life change because he dies. He learns who he really is and that his whole life was a lie. He has to turn everything around and realize that unless he starts thinking for himself, he's never going to be happy with his life. He's moving into adulthood, learning about sexual independance through getting a girlfriend\engaged\married, and eventually becoming the ruler to an entire city.


Both of those are YA because they deal with young people in srs situations. They deal with growing up and accepting responsibilities as responsible adults, but learning to be yourself.


At least, that's what people tell me. XD

[sarahdee]

I was trying to see if my current WIP was adult or YA (adult it turned out) and Ajcattapan gave me the following advice: for YA the MC is a teenager, the story is usually coming of age/identity and often there is a self reflective point of view.

When I apply her thoughts to the YA I have read it does fit in.

[Sommer Leigh]

I was trying to see if my current WIP was adult or YA (adult it turned out) and Ajcattapan gave me the following advice: for YA the MC is a teenager, the story is usually coming of age/identity and often there is a self reflective point of view.

When I apply her thoughts to the YA I have read it does fit in.

I have noticed a couple of college age YA slipping in lately. I think it is kind of weird, personally, but I think the "coming of age" part fits pretty well.

[Aimée]

In my WIP, there are both college age characters and high school age kids ranging between 16 and 21. I feel like this is a little old for YA, but it is definitely a coming of age, identity crisis story that would appeal to young adults, though adults would enjoy it too, I'm sure. I've been debating it for a while, and I'm still not sure which way it would go. There is a bit of swearing and some violence, but nothing outright adult. I'm about 75% sure it is not YA, but I guess I won't know until I'm finished writing it. :)

[DanielaTorre]

The basics of my WIP are a Tom Sawyer-type runs away from an abusive home-life to join a group of hobo knights-errant adventuring around a steampunk/clockpunk fantasy version of the American South during the economic and cultural fallout of a big war that ended while the MP was a baby; there's a Depression setting in, as well as a Dust Bowl-situation, and a weapons magnate that made a fortune during the war is buying up all the impoverished farms and bringing the farmers and their families into his manufacturing cities. What would need to happen for it to be YA? What would need to happen for it not to be? Which should I shoot for?

Don't matter. I totally would love to read a story like this. ; )

[Nathan Bransford]

Here's my take on it: http://blog.nathanbransford.com/2007/02 ... ke-ya.html

[bcomet]

I just reread Nathan's article along with all of the above comments and there is a lot of good information.

One of the places I am finding very interesting novels is the "new adult" section, wherein, the material is geared to more of a 16/17 to 24/25 age with more progressive coming-of-age themes and/or with a chic lit or adventure bent. These are often juicier, more "adult" but still about the maturation process and can include sex although some people still think that's perhaps too dicey, mainly because under 17s will want to read this too. Like YA, it is often first person and fast paced, i.e. exciting to read with little to no yawn room, and recognizing the reader for being ready for more than just high school dramas. Even if includes first love, it takes it deeper. Just like a lot of coming-of-age movies, many of these begin at closer to the end of high school but then go out into the bigger world. The characters are not expected to stay stuck in Happy Days land.

It's a crossover area that seems to be trying hard to get more status, just like science fiction and fantasy once fought for their "sections" of the books store, but that doesn't quite have everyone on board yet. I've noticed that B & N, that doesn't have a new adult section yet (or a "vampire" section), have none-the-less moved their YA section away from childrens and next to sci fi/fantasy in our local B & N store. (There were so many adults browsing the old YA section that now could do so less conspicuously too.)

What seems both encouraging and good about a classification of "new adult" is that it offers stories up that are both older teen and adult. There is still a lot of teen protectiveness in the YA sections and probably rightfully so. However, the hungry readership of YA grows older every year and this type of section is largely for that voracious readership group.

[siebendach]

I don't write YA, but someone recently gave me a qualification regarding the category that I don't think has been mentioned yet.

Yes, the protag has to be of the appropriate age. My friend (who read a lot of YA, and whose children read it now) also adds that it's important to have a lack of helpful adult authority figures. While they might be in the background, it's critical that they not be helpful in the protag's achievement of goals. . . they don't have to necessarily be an obstacle (though they can be), they don't have to be absent or uncaring (though the can be), but they have to be of little or no value in the achievement of the protag's goals.

In short, YA is about young adults, confronting issues that affect them as young adults, and solving their problems on their own --- or at least, in a way that leaves the protag(s) stronger and more independent than before.

Whaddaya think? Is this accurate?

[sierramcconnell]

I don't write YA, but someone recently gave me a qualification regarding the category that I don't think has been mentioned yet.

Yes, the protag has to be of the appropriate age. My friend (who read a lot of YA, and whose children read it now) also adds that it's important to have a lack of helpful adult authority figures. While they might be in the background, it's critical that they not be helpful in the protag's achievement of goals. . . they don't have to necessarily be an obstacle (though they can be), they don't have to be absent or uncaring (though the can be), but they have to be of little or no value in the achievement of the protag's goals.

In short, YA is about young adults, confronting issues that affect them as young adults, and solving their problems on their own --- or at least, in a way that leaves the protag(s) stronger and more independent than before.

Whaddaya think? Is this accurate?

Somewhat but not always. What if the goal is learning to trust and believe you have family and love? Then you have to have the adult or authority figure be there for you to help you. Even though it's been a while since I read it, I think there was a few adult\authority figures that helped Harry Potter. And Bella of Twilight fame. I have a couple in my own book. Not major to the story exactly, but they are there to offer support and to guide. They give what the protag needs when they've lost their way.