I was talking a few nights ago on Twitter...
(I know, shoot me)
[Is it called "talking"? What is it? Because I absolutely refuse to use "tweeting." I do not do that.]
...with some blogger friends about doing these upcoming video commentaries on Boys and YA – books for, about, and by boys.
And, naturally as I would expect, something kind of interesting happened during the course of our exchange.
It went kind of like this:
Blogger XX: You mean books like Lord of the Flies?
XY (that would be me. It's a chromosome thing): [Racks his brain. Thinks to himself: Does she think I'm THAT fucking old??? That I haven't read anything published since... wait... that was before I was fucking born. Gah! Now I hate myself even more for having used an exclamation point.] Um. No. I mean, like stuff for boys, about boys, and written by boys (male writers) that is out, like, now.
Blogger XX: Wow. I didn't know such a thing existed.
XY: That's why I'd like to talk about it.
Blogger XX: Do you know any boys who blog about books and reading?
XY: Yes. For example, there's Alex Bennett, Brent Taylor, Devyn Burton... and I can think of a few others.
Blogger XX: So the score is Girls 1000, Boys 3.
Yeah. It pretty much went like that.
And this is how it goes.
You know, there’s so much talk these days about inclusion and diversity being represented in YA… but this is one of the most obvious and overlooked aspects of the discussion: Guys.
I know some of you fans of so-called YA find that hard to believe, or, at best invisible and unimportant.
Guys do read, you know. We write, too.
And I'm not just talking about guys as characters in books. Anyone can stick a token, (and frequently) stereotyped mascot of something the author IS NOT in their story. It happens all the time. When white guy writers used to do it to minority groups, it was aptly called bigoted and ignorant.
Today, though, real guys are the minority (1000 to 3, according to Blogger XX) whenever it comes to YA literature.
Now here's where I'm going to make some people angry and defensive: In the same way that I would expect to get most of it entirely wrong, and to be fairly criticized for even attempting to do so, I would be a fair target if I (as a pretty mainstream kind of average white guy) wrote a novel from the perspective of or about the experience of being, say, a Native American, a poor kid from Myanmar, or a Black teenager in the South. And I would deserve to be raked over the coals for that.
Just yesterday, I read a YA blogger's (who happened -- what a surprise -- to be a woman) review of a new novel, in which she (the blogger) wrote: This is XX's first YA told from the POV of a guy protagonist... and she totally nails it!
How could you know if she nails it or not?
Really.
How could you know?
But Young Adult males do need to hear from people who share their journey, who know (not as an observer, but as one of them) what their experiences are and have been. And the bottom line is, there are plenty of YA enthusiasts out there who:
A) Do not think such a thing exists
B) Apparently don't think it matters, because boys stopped reading back in about 1954, when Lord of the Flies bored them all to death.
I'm just trying to warm your brains up a little bit to get you to consider what I'll be talking about on the video coming up in a couple weeks.
Don't worry, I'm not ripping in to YA bloggers alone, I also have a few remarks that might make the following people feel a bit uncomfortable:
1. Parents
2. Teachers
3. Some Farmers
and,
4. President Obama
...So just you wait. The video is coming.
There will be visuals.
I can't wait.
12 comments:
Sorry to post Anonymously but I'm one of those guy writers who writes guy books and I can't afford to piss anyone off. One of the saddest reviews I ever got was from a girl who claimed to hate my character because, she claimed, that no guy would ever act "that" way. I'm not entirely sure what way she was referring to but it made me sad and angry.
There's this schism between real guys in YA and the guys girls want to read. They seem to be unforgiving of the former and will only read the latter. Which means that most of the guys represented in YA literature are shallow, pale misrepresenations. They're these bad-boy-with-a-heart-of-gold fantasy figures that bear zero resemblance to real life. Meanwhile, great books written by guys, with realistic guy characters that real-life guys could relate to are shouldered out of the market because the YA majority deems them unfit.
Yet the blame for that can't be placed on girls, nor would I ever to to do so. People read what they want to read, and should read what they want to read. The real problem is the boys. Where are they? Why aren't they reading the books about them? They're criminally underrepresented in YA because they don't give publishers much cause to go out on a limb for books that would appeal to them. More often than not, when publishers do, sales blow.
When many women authors write guy protagonists, they write the kind of men they want guys to be, not how guys actually are. And let's not pull punches, male authors are responsible for the reverse. How many manic pixie girls populate books written by men? But this trend, this watering down of male characters to make them palatable for the majority readership, extends to male writers too. I'm not trying to make broad generalizations. There are all kinds of guys. They don't all have to be crude or hypersexual. But they do have to be honest and real. And I don't see much of that.
I can't wait for your video. Thanks for tackling this.
you bring up some valid points that i have wondered about. but i don't think it's wrong to write mc's who are different from ourselves- be it gender, race, socio-economic class, family situation, personality, or age... but then i wonder how genuine we end up being. i get very confused because i don't see how anyone could perfectly understand anyone else... i don't know. i guess a lot of that could be fixed by using third person- but...
anyway, i do agree that it would be awesome to get the names of ya books "for boys" out there more. i know my teenage brother has pretty much skipped ya, and i have three sons i would like to see read books that relate to them when they hit that age...
looking forward to hearing more of what you have to say! :)
I was drawn in by the MM post title and whoa, this post blew me away.
As I read your post, Sam from Maggie Stiefvater's SHIVER came to mind. He's sensitive, loved to read, and plays the guitar. Plus, he puts the MC girl's every need before his own.
I'm gay, and Sam sounds like a dreamy guy to me, for sure. But does he exist? Maybe, but not in 99% of the males I know.
Anonymous makes a point, guys generalize girls. When I read books, the token gay is sometimes so funny to me, that I cannot take the rest of the story seriously. And I am not saying that straight writers cannot write a gay character, or a woman cannot accurately write a teenage boy, but it is difficult to do.
Today's authors should challenge themselves to go beyond creating characters who they want to be with and move closer to creating characters they could live with.
I imagine you're familiar with interpersonal communication, Andrew. I believe every author should take courses in that subject because it prompts you to really understand the person sitting next to you and where they are coming from. What better lesson can a writer get?
One last thing, I keep going back to your posts from the fall regarding boys and why adults are so off when it comes to them. We have spent a lot of time talking about the gender divide in my Education classes and what a convoluted topic. Anyway, I am directing my classmates to read those. FYI/FYE.
I don't believe I pissed anyone off with this comment, but if I did, I think I am safe since I have no books coming out this year.
Oh.
This is instantly better than I thought it would be.
First, thank you to the two comments offered above.
To Anonymous:
It is so fucking ironic that you can't afford to piss anyone off. I maxed that credit card a long time ago, I think.
And I'm not into the blaming, let's pick sides routine. That gets us nowhere. We can make things better, though.
Let me start by answering your where-are-the-boys question. The boys are there. They want to read, but they've been edged out of the market as potential consumers because they are simply NOT being sold to. I deal with hundreds of teen boys every day (hmmm... that sounds really really creepy) and I see them passing around their secret copies of Palahniuk like it's members-only access to porn. When I introduce them to solid YA writers who write for guys, without fail I hear them asking me "why don't they ever tell us about books like this in school?"
They are definitely there.
And they want to read.
And they love to read. They just aren't about to carry around copies of Twilight or Jodi Picoult tucked under their arms. And I don't mean to offend Stephenie Meyer, Jodi Picoult, or their fans (male and female) here. This is just how it is.
I have lots to say on this topic, and that video is being made very soon.
Thanks again for posting.
To aspiring, let me say that I didn't intend to imply wrongdoing for writers who attempt to project the voice and attitude of a protagonist who is NOT realistically rooted in the author's experience and background. BUT, be prepared to get called out on it when you get something wrong or, especially, when you perpetuate flawed generalizations and stereotypes.
Jonathon,
You are amazing. Thank you. And your final line made me laugh.
I'm going to send an email to you later today.
Last week someone at work (a library system) shared a link to a new blog that celebrates diversity in YA fiction: http://www.diversityinya.com/. After checking out the site, I responded with:
"Of their January new books, I see only three with male authors and three with images of boys on the covers (not necessarily the same ones). Less than a quarter. Maybe they need more gender diversity?"
We need more Andrew Smiths.
I saw the same link. I don't know why it sticks out so much to me, too. You'd think that people who are concerned about Young Adults and literacy and such would make more of a conscious effort to diversify their recommendations as well as their panel of experts.
I am flattered that you think we need more Andrew Smiths (God help us), but we really do need to see more male voices and perspectives.
Come on, bloggers and book-cliques: It's easy to profess to be all about diversity, the richness of voices and experiences, but your high-rent architecture's facade is often transparent (we can see you in your underwear).
To the average person the bookstores appear more concerned with linning their pocketbooks than diversity in their YA section. My son Miles (14) skips that section completely, he actually thought it was the girl section until I showed him your books and said their are some YA authors out there writing for boys. He's still in shock. I've asked him to start surveying his male friends as to what they are reading. It should be interesting to see the results. On a funny note, I have one friend who's 14 yo boy carried around and read Twilight just to get he girls attention.
As usual, thank you for commenting, Connie. My video about boys and YA will be broadcast next week, on February 7.
Of course, more specific details will be coming up...
corrections for my typos:
lining for linning
there for their
the for he
I blame my large thumbs and small phone screen. I'll also throw in a side dish of "squee!" with my typos. I know how you love all of the above Andrew. :)
...Hey, I happen to like Lord of the Flies.
Anyway, [and this is my theory, not some law set in stone by Newton] the lack of guys in books [or, you know, real genuine guys who aren't athletic, artistic, or gay] stems from how most books are targeted toward female readers. Which in turn comes from the fact that there are some higher ups who think, "Jane Austen was a girl, therefore only girls read; Babe Ruth was a guy, therefore only guys play sports."
Which means books like these [UK cover] are remade [or originally made] as this
.
I wouldn't be caught dead toting that girl around, and I am a girl. Which gives me this strange idea that guys probably feel that way, raised to the eighth power.
And when you take that and go back up the chain, you get a "oh, look, this book must have sold well because it has a (toward) girl cover; therefore I shall write a book featuring a girl as a main character and all the guys as athletics, artistic, or gay, because it worked for so-and-so, didn't it?; added all together, this means that only girls read books". [This example being an example of the domino effect... somewhere...]
[There was this kid at my school who carried Twilight around, and everyone called him gay, another example of this mindset that only girls read.]
Was that coherent at all? You have to wonder... Oh, well, things to do, people to see, places to go, etc, etc.
I happen to be a male book blogger, a male reader AND an (aspiring) male YA novelist. It's sad to admit but I think you're absolutely right Andrew.
I remember as a teenager being one of the few guys I knew who read, who always had a book around, whether it was Salinger, or Capote, or some pulp fiction bullshit like Phoenix Force, I just loved to read.
Most of the other guys who read were like my D&D nerd friends who always had an epic fantasy tucked under their arm. There were no books for 'normal guys', or, if there were, we never heard about them.
Therein lies the problem. I think you nail it here Andrew when you talk about the industry not taking risks on books that supposedly don't have a proven market. The boys are out there. They want to read. Let's try to give them something just for them.
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