What Authors and Publishers Don't Get About YA

In a world of Young Adult novels and the new, up and coming genre slot of New Adult I, as a writer of YA/NA have noticed an alarming trend. We are handing over to the young adults of this generation books filled with epic romances, sweeping tales of adventure and passion, and, above all else, an inability to credit the readers their due worth. What do I mean by this? Our readers have a "due worth"? Yes. Indeed they do.

The problem I see in full swing is that the characters of today are wishy-washy (namely the young females). They more often than not find themselves immersed in a love triangle between the bad boy and the good boy. Our characters are driven by emotions and plagued with doubt in themselves. Careful! These very things insinuate that the young people reading the books have only those attributes to call their own.

While there are some who may dispute the fact, the truth of the matter is that words influence to a very deep and personal level. So by creating characters that are only superficially strong we are informing our young readers that they are only as strong as their outside world and surroundings dictate. Times have changed and our younger generations grow up faster with more knowledge of the world than, say, fifty years ago. So it only goes to reason that we give out readers characters that will help them grapple the adult world they are placed in.

Give them credit. They are smart, brave, and willing to learn. Create for them characters that are not merely governed by the emotions of the moment and influenced by the current love interest in their life. Emotions are well enough but our readers have logic as well. So give them a character that is able to balance their emotions with the logic of their minds. Show them that they can overcome through their own wisdom and strength. Persuade them that they are enough and that through virtue of character they can conquer come what may!

Keep in mind when creating a world for YA readers that these people are the New Adults of a new generation. We want them confident, strong, persuasive, and majestic. As a writer I often think when creating a character that I hope I am creating a fictional person my readers can look up to. Give your readers more credit. They are not superficial and dependent. They are brilliant and strong and their minds are nubile and young and looking for courage that is more than skin deep.

Our readers deserve their due worth. They deserve to have their minds influenced by the powerful, not the weak.

Elusive Mask

When you need sleep the most, why is it that it is farthest away? The haunting hour has come and gone and still I find that I am tossing and turning. So what do I do? Do I drink a glass of warm milk with a dash of cinnamon? No. Do I turn on soothing music to numb my mind? No. Do I bury my face beneath the pillows and will it come to me? No. None of those. I instead find myself here, before a glowing screen, watching as my fingers fly across the keyboard and leave behind black imprints that are forever a reminder of my mind’s inability to shut down.
So many thoughts have been pouring through my mind. I have been racking my brain for the perfect Query letter for agents. The characters from my novels (Covered In Darkness and The Grim Daughter and The Coldest Moment) have come together in my head to throw a party of sorts. It’s a party I did not ask for and was apparently not invited to as the words are too garbled for me to even place them into a manuscript form at the moment. I have been ticking off moments I missed in my life and moments I wish I could visit again. Like I said, there are so many thoughts in my head.
I did, however, find my way to a large bowl of knock-off brand Frosted Flake cereal. I am fairly certain that inhaling a bowl of sugary crunchiness at this time in the morning is NOT the way to find sleep. Still, I don’t care because at this point, I do not think I am going to find sleep at all.
Sleep is an elusive mask for me. It always has been. From the time I was young, I wore the shadowy adornment mere hours a night and sometimes not at all. I love sleep as much as the next but, like a Mardi Gras mask made for someone else, sleep is the mask that does not fit me comfortably for more than a short time. I am going to attempt to harness and reign in the characters in my head and form some sort of order out of their meanderings onto a page. Perhaps fighting with them for the right to have my way will bring me the elusive mask of sleep. We shall see.