Okay. Let me tell you how much I hate YA.I'm letting all the big reasons out today, so hang on.
First, a little backstory. I was e-talking with Lia Keyes the other day, and she mentioned to me about another author who thought that YA as a category should be done away with. She thought it would be interesting -- fiery -- to have me participate in this debate.
And, I'm, like, what debate? I totally agree.
I hate YA.
Here are my three biggest reasons:
1. YA has no definition. You may just as well call it "fiction." And, because of this ill-defined super-categorization of what I believe to be a non-existent genre, people carry too many pre-conceived expectations about constraints on content and embedded curriculum (see point 2).
The thing is -- and why YA is a pointless label -- is that YA contains every genre of the broader category of fiction, from contemporary literary, to science fiction, paranormal romance, chick-lit, fantasy, humor, and so on. But the YA section in a bookstore is the vampire section.
It's kind of like putting all adult fiction in the "Dan Brown" section. Remember, "YA" didn't exist when Twain wrote The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, or even when Harper Lee wrote To Kill a Mockingbird. I don't think there was such a category when Stephen King wrote Carrie or 'Salem's Lot, both of which would definitely be stamped with the big Y and A if they were published for the first time today.
All those titles up there (and I'm sure you could think of many others) were just novels.
Let's revisit the Venn Diagram from two days ago:
They're still "adults," right? Just "young" ones.
2. The Expectation and the Blues. (That's the title of a really great song from Corb Lund)
(The Blues)... best "back-at-ya" comment I received from someone on the "Part 1" installment:
"As a writer you can write for any age group you want, can’t you?
If you hated being a teenager why write for and about an age that made you unhappy?"
Okay. Now, I am definitely NOT speaking on behalf of all authors here, so don't give me any superpowers I don't already possess.
First, question one: I don't write for an age group. Not ever. Nope. Totally wrong assumption. I write to tell a story. The only target in my mind is a story, NOT a demographic.
As far as question two goes: ouch. huh?
What a downer.
So, the expectation part: See, when people pre-suppose a work of fiction is only for a particular age group (and that age group happens to be... let's say, high school kids), then they frequently get all caught up in the thought that what you write must contain some kind of curriculum geared toward the elevation or the insulation of the fragile "young adult" soul.
It's pretty much what I've been railing against for two days now. And for those people who want to put the cart up front of the horse, and pre-plan a target demographic and constraints on content, that's all totally fine with me.
Do you hear me? It's fine with me.
Just don't expect me to do it.
I just write stories. If people want to get all caught up in the debate about a writer's lack of responsibility for including certain content elements, then they can't possibly be talking about books for "adults," whether they're young, old, or anything else.
My readers are adults. Young ones and old ones. It's a disservice, in my opinion, to treat them like children.
3. Back to Taxonomy: (And I know this will likely tick off a lot of my author friends, so, for that, let me apologize in advance)
Take a look at the Venn Diagram above, one more time. Now, where it says "People," imagine the word "Literature."
One of the things I've struggled with most -- and, given that I've NEVER set out to aim anything I've written at a particular demographic sector -- is that everywhere you go, YA literature and YA writers are constrained within the "Children's Literature" circle.
How can this be? How can you be a writer for "adults," and produce work that has the big Y and the equally big A on it and also, simultaneously, be considered a county within the kingdom of KidLit?
It makes me crazy. I don't have any answer for it, either.
But it's a big reason why I hate YA.
If you don't get this, don't try. Don't get all bent out of shape thinking I don't LOVE reading great books by writers I totally admire, love, and respect -- who also happen to be burdened with the evil brand of YA.
We wear it proudly. But I hate it.
20 comments:
pretty much right on...
and yeah, the YA section is the Vampire section.
I've always thought a solution would perhaps be a "Coming of Age Fiction" section, the same way Mystery is separated out, and fantasy, etc.
Obviously you're right that "YA"makes no logical sense. What it means in market terms is "14 year old girls." 90% of YA is devoted to reassuring girls that they won't be stuck with the awkward, pimply, over-loud, badly-dressed, graceless and inarticulate male creatures they see galumphing around the school yard.
I understand their fear. I've seen teenage boys. I've been a teenage boy. So I understand girls' need for a literature that lets them pretend they'll spend their lives with a lean, sexy, poetic bad boy who isn't really bad at all, not when you get to know him. Unfortunately in real life they end up trapped with actual men, which is why we have chicklit. Women: they just keep hoping.
Probably we need a cross-generational "Men who don't act like men," section of the bookstore. It would cater to women from their ardent, hopeful teens, to their frustrated dating years, through their disappointed married years, and on up into their "I just want to meet a guy with teeth," old age.
Don't know that I agree with every word of this, but I definitely say amen to #3. Teenagers aren't children, and the fact that YA gets lumped into children's literature is exactly what creates the problems you talked about in posts 1 & 2.
Using the word "children" in relation to readers of YA throws up strawmen all over the place in the dialog. Of course no one wants to corrupt children! Of course adults owe special responsibility to children! But YAs aren't children, so those arguments don't apply. I'm not completely convinced they are adults, either, but they are a lot closer to being adults than they are to being children.
Thanks, everyone, for offering your terrific comments on this. I really am honored to hear from people like you, and, especially from the actual "Young Adults" who responded to these posts in other places.
Sure seems like I pissed a lot of people off on the other blog site where these were run.
*shrug*
I guess that's what I do.
Tomorrow, I guess I should blog about my favorite kinds of cake.
No one can get pissed off at cake, can they?
Your blog keeps getting better and better! Your older articles are not as good as newer ones you have a lot more creativity and originality now keep it up!
If it makes you feel better, our notions of childhood and adulthood are still coming into their own; I think it stands to reason that this is a growing pains stage, and that the current balkanization can't last forever. As you get adults who cherish the YA novels they read while teens, those books will become more than YA to them, and the categories should shift and perhaps blend. Although there certainly is YA that fits right into the standard conception of the ....genre?, not that it is a genre since it encompasses them all. But the wheat and the chaff are only lumped together til sorting time. Or something.
I should also say there there could be a "male wish fulfillment" section in bookstores as well as a "men who don't act like men" one. In which I assume guns and femme fatales are plentiful and cops and robbers can be played straight from cradle to grave.
I should also say there there could be a "male wish fulfillment" section in bookstores as well as a "men who don't act like men" one. In which I assume guns and femme fatales are plentiful and cops and robbers can be played straight from cradle to grave.
Wait, are you implying that I'll never be an action hero?
I love this.
I thought the male-wish-fulfillment section was kept behind the counter at 7-11.
YA is not a genre. It's a reading level. Is Adult a genre? Within YA there are genres. Fantasy, contemporary, science fiction, you name it, YA has it.
And not all YA is about vampires. It's a trend. It is also a trend in adult literature. Here's a few examples of other YA books.
Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
Looking for Alaska by John Green
Dreamland by Sarah Dessen
If I Stay by Gayle Forman
Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
Willow by Julia Hoban
Something, Maybe by Elizabeth Scott
The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson
Cracked Up to Be by Courtney Summers
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Hate List by Jennifer Brown
I Heart You, You Haunt Me by Lisa Schroeder
Crank; Glass; Burned; Impulse; Identical; Tricks (all) by Ellen Hopkins
Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
The Maze Runner by James Dashner
Ballads of Suburbia by Stephanie Kuehnert
Nineteen Minutes; The Pact; My Sister's Keeper; The Tenth Circle (all) by Jodi Picoult
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
Jumping Off Swings by Jo Knowles
The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams
Love is the Higher Law by David Levithan
Going Too Far by Jennifer Echols
Not a vampire among them. Maybe you should actually read YA before you judge it.
Well thank God no one is forcing you to read or write for this genre. :)
For some reason there seems to be this recent uprising of people that want to attack all that is YA and instead of going on my own little rant here in the comments, I'm going to simply leave a link where I've basically already addressed this sort of close minded thinking: http://harlequintwilightsbookblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/teens-that-read-ya-arent-as-smart-as.html
Boy, is this stupid. You seem to be under the belief that a YA label is a limitation. These days, a lot of YA books outsell adult books. You seem to be under the belief that the openness of the YA label is a bad thing, when in fact it gives YA authors more flexibility in what they can do than most adult genre authors could ever hope for. I can't even say this essay pissed me off -- it's too numbskulled to induce anger -- but it sort of makes me pity you. Keep right on preaching about what you don't understand -- and never write for YA. Those of us prospering there will not miss you.
I am thinking most of the latter comments come from people who followed a link from twitter straight to this post, and you don't realize Andrew IS an author YA fiction and happy to be so, and you haven't read any of his other posts, including the recent ones about why he loves YA?
When I started reading the h8 YA posts I thought it was obviously not literal, and obvious that what Andrew is saying is he just wants to write what he writes and not be told what it Is, Isn't, Should Be, Shouldn't Be? That some of the reactions and overreactions to content put an unfair and wrongheaded expectation on authors of YA that are not put on authors of other kinds of fiction? And further more devalue you the adolescent experience?
It's not obvious?
hello typos. martini time!
I can't say I agree with the Vampire section.. although they could really stop with all the New Moon merch - I'm fairly sick of looking at it. I think Teens needed their own space and why not rebel in their own book section.. promote reading and give them their own niche.
But I understand where you don't want to just be thrown into a category when you're a writer.. such as Adult, YA, or Childrens.. I enjoy many children's, YA, and Adult books.. and mainly because of awesome authors.
But that's the marketing world of books.. everything needs a nice little label so we can all find what we need. :)
YA is an inferior genre when it come to fiction. It's basically what women of all ages read because they have sad and lonely lives. In the YA books they can escape and read about some romance with a sexy guy who is like Adonis, which will obviously never happen to them in real life. It's an altogether pathetic genre, just like the romance section. Nothing but pining after fictional hot men that will never exist. Women that read YA need to get a grip.
@Anonymous If you want to insult the people that read YA, you should at least have the balls to not post under Anonymous.
Teens are Young Adults, they are at an age in their life where strictly they are considered children but brain capacity is leveling more towards adult thought and decision making.
Young Adult is not a genre but a level. There are lots of different kinds of adult fiction, some of it out right ridiculous in itself.
There are plenty of YA authors that strive to help these children on the cusp of adulthood cope with some of the emotions they are dealing with in every day life such as Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson. This book is poetic, mind blowing, and disturbing. It also helps young adults deal with eating disorders. Then you have amazing fantasy, and faerie, and vampire books. Guess what? There is eve non-fiction on the YA shelves.
I respect your opinions but I would suggest you look further into a subject before completely bashing it. Sure there is a lot of stupid YA making the headlines and moves (dare I say Twilight and live?), but there is a lot of great stuff out there also.
I think it's time for the sockpuppets to come back. Or maybe they've been posting here all along.
Not to threadjack, but I make an argument for YA as a distinct literary genre (which then encompasses other genres like fantasy, romance, et al.) here: http://chavelaque.blogspot.com/2009/06/theory-definition-of-ya-literature.html
Basically I don't quite agree with your Venn diagram; I think young adulthood is an age category that overlaps both children and adult, as teenagers have many of the rights and privileges, as well as the complexities and difficulties, of both ages, as they move from one to the other. And as such, I do think young adulthood has/deserves a distinct literature.
What you're saying in points #2 and 3 has more to do with the idiocy of people who don't respect that age or writing for it, it seems to me, than the literature itself. And especially in point #3 -- historically YA mostly grew UP out of children's literature, rather than DOWN out of adult lit, so it's always been twinned with kidlit.
Interesting discussion!
Post a Comment