Many years ago, I wanted to take a break from writing nonfiction and adult fiction to try my hand at the young adult market. I hadn’t read a YA book for decades and none of my sons were much on reading, but I had enjoyed the books I read as a child and thought this would be a good market. My sons weren’t going to be any help in this venture because they only cared about building and fixing things…certainly not reading. If needed, they’d read a tech manual, and they read much of the local newspaper, but I don’t recall any of them actually reading an entire fiction book. Since I constantly read and studied and taught, they probably figured I read enough for the whole family.
By the time I wanted to learn what seemed to work and sell well in the YA market, I was over 40. This was still in the time before Amazon, so to check out what was popular, I visited the YA shelves in Borders bookstores.
I wanted to learn what these traditionally published authors had penned to warrant landing a publisher and being selected by Borders for their shelves. Right away I spied the fantasy books of The Sisters Grimm. I was fascinated by the covers and had read all the tales by the Brothers Grimm, so I couldn’t resist. The magical absurdity of the stories delighted me, so I ended up reading the whole series. I could see why these books were picked up by a publisher – the author had clever ideas, wrote great dialog, and every chapter contained a surprise.
Unfortunately, those books were actually middle grade and not YA. So next I read Shadowland, which was definitely YA. For my tastes, it was okay. I couldn’t get into the combination of limited action amid a surplus of teen love-triangle angst. The book was well-written, and I could see why it would have been a best seller among many young adults, but I didn’t enjoy the book enough to finish it. I needed more excitement.
Next, I picked up a YA novel about an alternate world where people and ghosts sort of co-existed. The book had a great first chapter, and I had high hopes. But the book became increasingly difficult to follow, and I had a tough time finishing it. If there’s one thing I never want to hear about my stories it’s that they’re “hard to finish.”
I started reading a YA book about a girl and some ghosts, which sounded exciting, and I proceeded to read half of the book the first day. I stopped reading when I began to feel ripped off. The first five pages contained a hint of the paranormal, which was promising, but the next 96 pages were filled with laments like “I’m a nerd and I have no friends and the cheerleaders hate me.” For me, there was nothing exciting or even interesting in those 96 pages.
I naturally understand the necessity of adding some pages of background and self-talk to build a character, but half of the book? As a result, I quit my research into YA and returned to reading Jim Butcher’s supernatural books, which are right up my alley. Jim has created an exciting, clever, unpredictable world that’s supernatural and yet somehow believable because the reader wants it to be. Until I gained a better handle on what seemed both entertaining and saleable in YA fiction, I continued to write for adults.
Over a decade later I stumbled upon the book, The 5th Wave, by Rick Yancey—a marvelous supernatural YA novel that I couldn’t put down. In this book I discovered a strange world of surprises with likeable characters, odd invaders, a strange half human, and a resourceful female protagonist.
With my interest in this market revitalized, I located my dusty, half-written YA manuscript and began to edit.
Write on!
Despite your experience, I think YA has come a long way in the last decade, so I’m glad you’ve come back to it!
Thank you, Kelley. I agree that many of the more recent YA books on the market are wonderful. Some of the writers in my critique group are penning great YA stories! I’ll be working on mine this summer.
🙂