Another YA panel? Yes, but just as we've learned with the sex panels, each time a writer or group of writers tackles this subject, the information rendered is unique. Enjoy!
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Beyond
the Children’s Section: Writing YA
Aaron
Michael Ritchey, Holly Black, Lisa Mantchev, Rachel Hartman, Arwen Elys Dayton
Moderator:
John Lovett
What are the characteristics
that you’ve found that make for a YA market?
AD: Wrote a book and paid no attention to genre; it happens the four main
characters at the centre of the story are teens. It’s a minefield that we go
through in life and a very interesting part of life to examine.
RH: YA for her has to do with the themes. The time in your life when
you’re stepping out, emerging, coming out and trying to figure out who you are,
all the possibilities ahead of you. As opposed to adult lit where you’ve made
your mess and must lie in it.
LM: Similar experience: wrote the story she wanted to write. It just
happened to be YA. Now she knowingly writes YA as a theme, the coming of age
story, foundation issues for a YA novel.
HB: What defines a YA novel is a teen protagonist. Certain themes and
characteristics throughout, but there are outliers that don’t have those
things. It really does come down to a teenage protagonist.
AR: Wanted to write YA. Yes, it’s a teen protagonist going through
teenager things, but also dealing with other things.
HB: YA didn’t used to exist the way it did now. Most people just
transitioned to writing adult novels. Remember that you’re competing with adult
books. You’re writing the experiences of a teenager. Otherwise, they’ll go read
adult books.
AR: It’s the emotional vibrancy.
We’ve talked about the
characteristics of this market. Are the characters supposed to be two years
older? Are the sentences longer (as per Stackpole)?
RH: It’s not our job to plan that.
LM: It may be a 10-year-old advanced reader or their grandmother who
bought it for them. Lots of people read YA. Not just kids or the target
audience. Syntax, etc, are editorial decisions.
AD: People are more willing these days to talk about what happened when
they were teens. But don’t write down or talk down to a teenager. You don’t
dumb it down.
RH: When you were young, you were used to learning new words through
context.
HB: Idea of aging up the character: most of the time, readers like
reading characters a little bit older than them, to tell whether they like it
or not to figure out whether a character is right for them. If you get asked to
age up or down a character by the publisher, you don’t have to. And making
sentences shorter. YA allows for more complex sentences. MG wants more simple
sentences. And when people are talking about YA, they are often thinking about
MG. HP and Percy Jackson behave like seventeen year olds in a middle grade.
AD: Problem with Harry Potter – Rowling made no distinction between MG
and YA. She had the luxury of working between both.
LM: She deliberately did not choose to focus on teen issues. Partly because
the aspects of being teens were not important when dealing with the
world-at-stake issues.
AR: What it really comes down to is the sex stuff. You can kill, but
the moment you add the sex stuff. There are no rules; what works, works.
Speaking of the Harry Potter
series – YA used to be Burroughs and Tarzan. How has the YA market
fundamentally changed, and how do you think the Harry Potter series has
influenced the YA market, and where is it going?
HB: HP is not YA. Has changed the MG market, adding younger middle
grade and older middle grade. Big series that affected things: Gossip Girl,
Twilight, the Hunger Games. What we see as YA has shifted. And it’s still in
flux. It’s way different than it was a few decades ago. And some YA back then
would be considered MG.
LM: Write what you really want to write; don’t chase a trend. The
digital revolution has now found new homes for books. As YA authors it’s now
limitless possibilities as for what you want to write and how you want to get
it out there.
RH: Agrees that HP is MG. But it is directly responsible for YA authors
being able to publish600 page books. Twilight, too. Opened doors for longer
manuscripts being accepted.
AD: YA used to be less about how old you were than what you were
interested in reading. Now kids have very big books. Write what you want to
write; it finds the audience.
LM: Also, YA saved the industry. Parents would still buy their kids
books even when the economy tanked. YA was the one category that outperformed
every age group every year.
AR: One of the reasons why is that you have this emotional vibrancy in
teen fiction. You get that in YA books because it is such a vibrant part of our
life. And an emotional vibrancy in the fan base. Also, the coming of age story
is so great because it’s such a hopeful arc. Madeline L’Engle: If you really want
to write complex stories, don’t write for adults, write for younger stories.
HB: Not just page length or series length. Release dates, midnight
releases, now have become a thing.
LM: This is how big it’s become.
AD: Entirely new territory.
In the context of writing a YA
novel, are there stereotypes of characters and tropes you’d suggest that
authors avoid? What would be the least and most successful?
RH: Use any trope you want, but you have to earn it, own it, make it
yours. They’re not bad in and of themselves. You use them and think about them
and be aware of when you’re doing them. Stereotypes arise from a lack of
understanding. Notice how you use these building blocks, try not to fall into
the traps before.
AD: You can’t come up with something wholly original; it’s about the
story, lets it grow in its own space as its own story.
LM: Just because something has been done already doesn’t mean you can’t
do it better. You get your craft to the point that you know what you can do
with a story. Make it worth reading. Uses TV tropes.
HB: Write a book that you the reader would truly love. Then hope other
people will love that too. Try not to write nostalgically about
childhood/youth. Remember what it was truly like to be there. Write for
yourself then and yourself now.
AR: It takes courage and bravery to do that. Being a writer is an act
of absolute courage and daring. And what you write can have an impact on a
writer. Write the books that will save someone else’s life.
Audience question: What is your
research process when writing a marginalized character?
HB: It’s the iceberg. You’ll have to do a lot of research that won’t
show up in your work. Make sure that you do this respectfully and well. Have
folks of that marginalized group read it for authenticity. You’re creating a
character with the weight of representing that. One of the ways to do that well
is to hopefully not have that character be the token, only person of that
marginalized group.
LM: Have your ducks in a row, use beta readers to get feedback. Some
will not be offended, some will be very offended. And you will still screw up.
No way to write a perfect character. And you’ll still get feedback about how
folks feel you represented that character. And it’s important that you do it
well because kids will see themselves in that character.
RH: Whatever their backgrounds are, it’s about extreme empathy, finding
the part of that character somewhere inside yourself to be able to write them.
And then, when you do receive criticism, find a way to deal with it and
empathize again.
AR: And be courageous. It will happen. If you start doing stuff out of
the norm, you will get attacked. We have to have diversity. It’s our job as
authors to show it.
AD: If there’s someone in your life that you get to know and research
it that way, great. Research with love. Once you capture that you have a fairly
good chance of the words coming out right, the story heading in the right
direction.
When you start outlining a
story, do you focus on certain parts specifically?
AR: Goes through the 14 points in Save the Cat. Has to have the
beginning hook and the climax, then follows the 14 beats.
HB: All over the place. We talk a lot about plotters and pantsers and
it’s very clear but experience is that most people exist on a spectrum. Even
plotters don’t stick to their outlines. Everyone has the process that they’ve
come to.
LM: Everyone does it differently. No one can turn in a perfect draft.
Everything good in a draft happens in revisions. All of us have files of
versions of the books that will never see the light of day. Also, keep your
ducks in a row for book 1 so that the details for book 3 are consistent and don't contradict book 1.
RH: Process for each book is different in each book.
NG: You never learn how to write a book. You learn how to write *this*
book.
AD: A method you learn is likely only applicable to the book you are
working on. Updates outline to match what she’s written. If an outline helps,
go with it, otherwise throw it out. Whatever gets the book written is the
process that works.
When do you share excerpts with
others, who do you share with?
AD: Shares it with only a few close first readers, and watches their
body language.
RH: Has two beta-reader friends.
LM: Shouts ideas through the shower to husband and daughter. If their
reactons are good, that works for her. Also has done collaborations with others
and working together, having someone immediately looking over your shoulder
that’s as invested has been very interesting, both invigorating and
challenging.
HB: Mostly shares with author friends, and formal critique group when
done.
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