Nathan Bransford - The Forums

So, I'm rather knew to this whole commercial writing world. I have a ms completed, and have been editing it for almost a year now. Now that I've been looking around writing blogs and advice sites, I've come upon a problem.
I can't tell if my book is meant to be called literary fiction or young adult. It features a young adult protagonist, but I don't want to automatically assume I should be pitching it as a YA novel.
Has anyone else had this problem? What did you do? And if so, do you have any advice for a confused writer?

Literary fiction is a tough labelling call for a writer to make. Made all the more tough from about every struggling writer anymore tritely appending that label to their pitches, queries, and synopses. Marketplace forces are a better metric for determining if a narrative fits in a literary category. I've encountered dozens of widely disparate qualifications for literary fiction, many of them at diametric odds with each other, and no consensus reasonably agreeing on what it is beyond knowing it when it's read.

A seemingly simple but challenging one, a protagonist experiences a noteable change in character, personality or behavior traits. Such a change oftentimes is a consequence of an internal conflict, albeit with external pressures chiming in. Young adult genre is particularly ripe for that sort of character change, more than coming of age and initiation into adulthood changes, moral and psychological growth in particular, or a narrower genre literary in nature known as bildungsroman, which isn't exclusive to young adult literature.

S.E. Hinton's seminal novel The Outsiders is an illustrative example of young adult, literary fiction bildungsroman. However, since its release, self-ordained moral authorities have condemned it as pornographic filth. Actually, it's one of the topmost banned library and school curriculum books in the U.S. since its release.

So it sounds like literary fiction is a genre that falls under Justice Potter Stewart's "I know it when I see it." ruling. Thank you for the tips, they were very helpful!
The Outsiders is being called pornographic filth? What rubbish. I read it in 7th grade and didn't find it disturbing.

You'd be surprised how often we post around here "Help, what's my genre!" It's totally normal. And honestly, I think the best thing to do is to come on here and ask. Nothing like an outside opinion to help you see more clearly.

The other tried-and-true method for determining genre is to think of where you want to see your book shelved at your local bookstore. Would it fit in with the literary stuff, or with the teen novels? If you shudder to think of it being relegated to a certain shelf, you probably don't want to call it that.

Thanks for the advice and sympathy, Brenda! I might just go to a book store and try that. Will have to make sure I don't bring money though, because without fail I will exit with at least 4 books. And I don't think my bookcase can handle the extra weight.

GingerWrite wrote:Thanks for the advice and sympathy, Brenda! I might just go to a book store and try that. Will have to make sure I don't bring money though, because without fail I will exit with at least 4 books. And I don't think my bookcase can handle the extra weight.

Yeah, I'm not to be trusted in a bookstore with a credit card, either.

I remember reading The Outsiders in middle school. I don't remember the pornographic sections, however. Perhaps it deserves a revisit.

AnimaDictio wrote:I remember reading The Outsiders in middle school. I don't remember the pornographic sections, however. Perhaps it deserves a revisit.

I don't feel the novel is pornographic in a gratuitous sexual sense, though there are moments of awkward sexual tension. Just that dissenters labeled it that way for its scandalous glorification of alternative cultural, social, and family values and lifestyles.