How To Tell If Your Manuscript Is YA

Being able to accurately categorize your writing as middle grade, young adult, new adult, or adult is an important part of writing for your audience and preparing to query. Sometimes writers assume because a novel has a main character who is a teen, the story is YA, but that isn’t always the case, and it’s not really the character’s age that’s the main determining factor. Many thrillers deal with teens and children, and aren’t YA.

When I first started writing, I thought the MS I was working on was YA because it was about a teen, and it wasn’t really YA. It had several young adult elements, but it was a much closer match to adult fiction. So how do you tell, really, if you are writing YA, or something else?

Here are some examples of works that muddy the waters:

Dark Places by Gillian Flynn is told from two points of view, and one POV is from a boy who’s fifteen years old. Room and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close have children as the main characters, but they’re adult fiction. The Harry Potter series is one of the most well-known examples of category confusion. The series is shelved in the children’s section because the first few books are MG. But Harry grows up, and so does the series. So, is the series middle grade, young adult, or adult?

Whether a manuscript is MG, YA, NA, or adult isn’t defined primarily by the main character’s age, although certain experiences, settings, and plots lend themselves to characters of a certain age group. Basically, it boils down to perspective.

Perspective is chiefly what makes a story young adult fiction. The lens through which the main character sees the world is what gives YA its distinctive flavor. The characters tackle adult issues, but when they do, it’s for the first time. Of course, YA can contain all the grit and reality of adult fiction, but the characters confront those things without the experience and often without the resources adults have. Of course, teens tend to go to high school, date other teens, have parents and homework. Other category tendencies are the use of first person, school as a major setting, and frustrations with parents and gaining independence. But what ties all these things together, what makes YA fiction YA, is the perspective of the characters.

To me, this perspective of facing the adult issues for the first time is what makes YA unique, and it’s why I love it. Over half the YA-buying readership is adults, and that’s probably a big reason for it. We read it and write it because YA is about change, and we all remember those years—and we don’t stop changing even as adults.

In Walking on Water, Madeleine L’Engle says:
“Only the most mature of us are able to be childlike. And to be able to be childlike involves memory; we must never forget any part of ourselves. As of this writing I am sixty-one years in chronology. But I am not an isolated, chronological numerical statistic. I am sixty-one, and I am also four, and twelve, and fifteen, and twenty-three, and thirty-one, and forty-five, and…and….and… If we lose any part of ourselves, we are thereby diminished. If I cannot be thirteen and sixty-one simultaneously, part of me has been taken away.”

It’s not about being a certain age, it’s about what it means to be that age. YA keeps that part of our lives, that unique perspective on the world, awake and healthy.

 

I originally wrote this post for The Thrill Begins as part of my blog tour for my book release– I wrote about 30 posts that went up on different sites over November and December, and with all that content out there, I’d like to keep it all in one place, so I’m posting it here for archiving purposes.

“You don’t grow out of YA”: My Interview with International Thriller Writers

Last fall, The International Thriller Writers interviewed me– they’re a great organization of highly respected authors who do a wonderful job supporting new thriller writers, with Lee Child, M.J. Rose, R.L. Stein, and other greats on the board. Here’s that interview!

From ITW:

A rural Missouri girl, Kate Brauning fell in love with writing at a young age. She was that child who practically lived in the library, discovering all its treasures. Now, she resides in Iowa with her husband and a Siberian husky, and works in publishing. She loves to connect with readers. If you see her and say hi, she might invite you for a coffee and to talk about books.

Her debut novel HOW WE FALL is a young adult tale about two cousins with a secret relationship, a missing best friend, and strange girl with secrets. Will this strange girl be a harbinger of doom? Will they find their friend? THE BIG THRILL sat down with Brauning to find out more.

When did you start writing?

Oh, I was pretty young. I wrote my first “story” at ten or so, I think. I’ve always had fun writing stories, and I wrote a novel all through high school. I loved it, but it just never occurred to me that I could write for a career. I kept on loving it, though. In college I decided that I loved it too much to not try.

Did you ever want to be anything besides a writer?

I decided early on that I wanted to be an author, so no, not really. Along the road to becoming an author, I’ve discovered I love the publishing world and I love editing, so if I couldn’t write anymore, I’d continue to work with publishing houses as an editor.

What got you interested in YA Fiction?

Great question. I didn’t imagine myself as a YA author to start with, actually. I started out writing adult, but it didn’t quite fit the stories I wanted to tell. Young adult fiction explores the teenage years of a person’s life, and those years are a significant point of change for most of us. Teens are tackling adult issues for the first time—serious relationships, jobs, shifting authority structures, new limits and opportunities—but they’re doing it without the experience, and often without the resources, that adults may have. It’s a vulnerable, heady, thrilling stage in someone’s life. Teens are also adjusting to greater independence and more authority in their own lives, but might still be dealing with limitations at odds with those things, like curfews, not having a car, house rules, and the structures of school. YA tackles that.

The experiences we have in our teenage years are formative ones, and the mistakes and choices we make can follow us into adulthood. There’s great opportunity, uncertainty, and passion in those years, and they leave a mark on us. I didn’t start reading YA until I reached my twenties, and I wish I’d found it earlier—seeing so closely into the lives of other teens who are wrestling with the same changes and struggles I was would have been so helpful as a teen. I still find myself identifying with the characters in these stories, because people never stop struggling with change. You don’t grow out of YA.

Did you have a favorite character to write?

HOW WE FALL is a YA contemporary story about two cousins who are hiding a relationship. I chose Jackie as the perspective character for this story because I really love how she thinks. She’s not really honest with herself, and often says the opposite of what she means, so it was a really interesting voice to write. Since it’s first person, the reader is really close to her thoughts, but I still needed to communicate the difference between her thoughts and reality. It was a really fun style I’m looking forward to doing more with.

What was the road to getting published like?

I’ve been writing since I was a teen, but it wasn’t until after college that I finished a novel I wanted to get published. I researched agents and query letters, developed an interest in the publishing world, and started working first as an internship with a publishing house. Then I worked with a literary agency, and started sending out query letters for my novel. I then moved to a job as an editor with a publishing house. While I was querying, I started writing my second novel, which was HOW WE FALL, and the response from agents was much more encouraging than for my first work. I did revisions and signed with an agent after about six months, then we went on submission right after the holidays and I had an offer in late February. It happened pretty fast and I couldn’t have done it without such a fantastic agent. My debut just released in early November, and it’s been a tough but really wonderful journey.

How would you describe your writing process?

I spend a long time working on the concept of the story—living in the story mentally, churning scenes around, and figuring out the focus—before I actually start drafting it. Once I start drafting, I try to fast-draft the first act so I can see how things work out when I write characters into the situation and the environment. Then I go back and heavily revise that first third to get all the layers in place and make any changes to the plot/characters that I thought of along the way. After I have the first act solidly drafted and revised, then I finish drafting the rest of the book. Of course, it depends some on the book and how well I know the story before I start writing it. Doing revisions in that first third makes starting a manuscript slow for me, but I do find it helps me avoid having to change major parts of the story.

What does 2015 hold for you?

I’d love to know that, myself! I’ve just moved to a new publishing house (Entangled Publishing) where I work as an editor with YA fiction, so I’ll be acquiring and editing some really wonderful YA titles. I’m also hard at work on new projects, both adult and new adult, that I’m really excited about. I’m also attending a lot of conferences (I’m a conference junkie), so be sure to say hi if you see me!

_________

PS Did you know there’s a narrative Pinterest board for How We Fall? Have you ever seen a narrative book board? I worked so hard on it! And I love it so much. Tell me what you think? ~Kate

 

Starting That Novel: #Subtips for the New Writer

As a part of my #subtips feature on Twitter, I’m going to start doing some quick blog posts about those same tips and topics.

Writing is a complex field with tons of variables and questions and distractions, and sometimes it helps to just ask questions and get answers. Have questions about querying, submissions, or anything else? Drop them in the comments, and I’ll reply, or possibly even do a #subtips round on Twitter or a blog post about the issue.

Common questions about getting that novel done:

Q: Do I have to have a title before I start writing?
Nope. My manuscripts sometimes have a title before they have a first page, and others I’m still struggling with titles for even after they’ve been drafted and revised. Titles often change during the publication process anyway, so I wouldn’t get hung up on finding the perfect title. I’d just start writing, and it may come to you as you write. Lots of authors find their title while writing out those gorgeous lines. Don’t sweat it.

Q: Do I have to have a thorough outline before I start writing?
Nope. Some authors have to have one, and some find it drains the inspiration from the creative process. I’d say you definitely need a firm idea of what the story is about– what’s the main character’s problem? Figure that out, develop it, find out what stands in the way of him/her solving that problem. Basically, know the big events that have to happen. If you don’t like outlines, that’s okay. Just be sure you have a solid concept in place so you aren’t writing enormous tangents or piles of words with no goal. That can be discouraging and actually damage your chances of finishing the story.If you have a clear conflict in mind for your characters and you know what’s keeping them from solving the conflict, that’s a great place to start. I use a method that works great for me: I get to know the conflict and the characters, then I start writing, treating my outline like I’m driving in the dark; I only need to see as far ahead as my headlights will show me. Each step shows me a little bit more of what’s ahead, and that’s enough for the first draft! Just make sure each scene contribute to the main character’s goal/problem.

Q: Is it a good idea to let family and friends read my manuscript? 
In the early stages, I say no– for similar reasons that it’s not a good idea to let your friends and family name your children. They won’t want what you want for the book, and if you don’t take their advice, they may be upset, and quite frankly, you probably love them too much. The opinions of family and friends usually mean so much to us that it can make filtering their feedback difficult, and it also puts you in the awkward position of having disagreements with them over what’s best for the story and potentially doing exactly what they said was a terrible idea. On the other hand, well-meaning but inaccurate advice can set us off on the wrong path. I’d look for feedback from people who are good writers, because they usually have a more solid idea of what to critique and it can be easier to evaluate their advice.

Lots of us are plenty strong enough to not let relationships cloud what’s best for the book, but even when that’s the case, it’s hard to deal with. Save yourself the angst, and have them read, if you must, once it’s done and you’re no longer accepting feedback. Chances are, they’ll tell you they love it and it’s perfect, anyway. 🙂

Q: How long should my novel be?
The first thing to know is that writers almost always measure book length in words, not pages. How many words fit on a page can vary so much that it’s just not an accurate measure. Most word processors track the word count of your document for you, so check (probably at the bottom) for how many words you have.  How long your book should be depends on the category and genre. Here’s a pretty solid breakdown from Writer’s Digest. Keep in mind a standard page is about 250-300 words.

Q: What if I screw it up by writing the wrong thing?
You will write the wrong thing. Trust me. Don’t be afraid of it! Here’s the thing: you’re smart, motivated, and creative. Anything you can write, you can un-write. So much of writing is rewriting that I like to think of it as a puzzle. I’ve got all these pieces, I found the corners, and now I’m shifting them around to see what fits where. That’s what drafting is all about. Don’t pressure yourself too much to know everything before starting to write pages.

Legos are a good comparison, too. They can be taken apart and shifted around to fit a different way if I discover my creation isn’t looking like I want it to, or the structure isn’t holding up. It may be painful at first, but you’ll learn from it, and you know your characters and plot better now than you did before. This one is going to be better because of it. Trust yourself– if you made something good once, you can do it again, so if you need to rework something, that’s okay. You can take it down and make something else good, too. Trust yourself to find a good thing in all those building blocks and make it take shape. Reshape as you go. Jump and and do it. And redo it. Good writing is rewriting!

Q: How much revising should I plan on doing?
Well, I like to compare drafting and revising to raising a child. You put months into planning, developing, and writing that book, and when you finish drafting it, you have a brand new book baby! Congratulations. It’s a huge moment. But just like you’re not done when you’ve successfully created a brand-new person, you’re not done with that book yet. You have to shape that child and spend 18 years teaching him or her how to be a successful, happy adult (who are we kidding? We need our parents long after that), and you have to shape, focus, and polish your manuscript. It’s a book now, but it needs a lot more love before it’s ready for the world. Now, hopefully, this won’t take 18 years, but it usually does take several thorough rounds of revisions with beta readers and critique partners to really make the book live up to its potential. And that’s before agent revisions and editor revisions. However: here’s the great part. All this work can be so much fun. Just like parenting, there are parts we hate and parts that make us cry and parts we wish we didn’t have to do. But it’s worth it.

Do you like this blog series? Submit your questions for the next one!

How To Tell If Your Manuscript Is YA

Being able to accurately categorize your writing as middle grade, young adult, new adult, or adult is an important part of writing for your audience and preparing to query. Sometimes writers assume because a novel has a main character who is a teen,  the story is YA, but that isn’t always the case, and it’s not really the character’s age that’s the main determining factor.

For a while, I thought my first novel was YA, and I discovered it wasn’t. It had several YA elements, but it was a much closer match to adult fiction. So how do you tell, really, if you are writing YA?

Here are some examples of works that muddy the waters:

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss- the main character is an adult, telling us the story of how he got to where he is now, but he starts his story when he is a young child, and we spend a good chunk of the story with a MG-aged main character. By the time the story ends, he’s several years older and into the YA age range, and even in a school setting. In the sequel, The Wise Man’s Fear, he moves from a young adult to an adult. Room and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close have children as the main characters, but they’re adult fiction.

The Harry Potter series is one of the most well-known examples of category confusion. The series is shelved in the children’s section because the first few books are MG. But Harry grows up, and so does the series. So, is the series middle grade, young adult, or adult?

Whether a manuscript is MG, YA, NA, or adult isn’t defined primarily by the main character’s age, although certain experiences, settings, and plots lend themselves to characters of a certain age group. People debate the finer points of what belongs in which category, but basically, it boils down to perspective.

Perspective is chiefly what makes a story young adult fiction. The lens through which the main character sees the world is what gives YA its distinctive flavor. The characters frequently tackle adult issues, but when they do, it’s for the first time. Of course, YA contains all the grit and emotion and truth of adult fiction, but the characters confront those things without the experience and often without the resources of adults. These first-time encounters with the adult world leaves a deep impression on us, and it’s a major part of why adults and teens connect with young adult fiction. We’ve all been there.

A great source on the topic is agent Kristin Nelson, of Nelson Literary Agency. Her video blog here discusses the difference between MG and YA fiction.

Of course, these first-time encounters with adult experiences tend to be among teens. Teens tend to go to high school, they tend to date other teens, and they tend to have parents and homework–sometimes even a magic wand and a dragon or two. Many other category tendencies exist, such as the use of first person, having school as a major setting, and frustrations with parents and gaining independence. But what ties all these things together, what makes YA fiction YA, is the perspective of the characters.

To me, this perspective of facing the adult issues for the first time is what makes YA unique, and it’s why I love it. Half the YA-buying readership is adults, and that’s probably a big reason for it. We read it and write it because we need to keep the teen side of ourselves sharp.

In Walking on Water, Madeleine L’Engle says:

“Only the most mature of us are able to be childlike. And to be able to be childlike involves memory; we must never forget any part of ourselves. As of this writing I am sixty-one years in chronology. But I am not an isolated, chronological numerical statistic. I am sixty-one, and I am also four, and twelve, and fifteen, and twenty-three, and thirty-one, and forty-five, and…and….and… If we lose any part of ourselves, we are thereby diminished. If I cannot be thirteen and sixty-one simultaneously, part of me has been taken away.”

It’s not about being a certain age. It’s about what it means to be that age. The perspective. It’s what draws us to it and it’s a major part of what defines the category. YA keeps that part of our lives, that unique perspective on the world, awake and healthy.

Common Publishing Terms and Abbreviations

Below is a list of common terms and abbreviations you might see as you read my posts or other publishing blogs. About a year ago I wrote a similar list, and it has turned out to be one of my most popular posts, so here it is, revised and updated!

• Agent: Literary agents are professionals who represent an author’s career. The most well-known task an agent performs is selling the writer’s manuscript to a publishing house and negotiating the contract. Agents do much more than this, however, and function pretty much like career managers.

• Beta reader: Usually beta readers are people that an author asks to read his/her manuscript and give critiques and respond to the story. This is not the same thing as a critique partner.

• Big 5: Previously the “Big 6,” these are the major New York publishing houses: Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, Macmillan Publishers, Penguin Random House, and Simon and Schuster. Many other significant, international publishing houses exist, though, such as Bloomsbury, Scholastic, and Harlequin.

• Category: a broader term than genre that addresses the age range the book is written for or about. All books fit into one of these categories: picture book, middle grade, young adult, new adult, or adult. Some people separate the younger categories into more divisions than that, but those are the basics. Young adult and new adult categories are a bit different than the others, because while they are written about characters of a certain age, they aren’t written just for readers of that age group–adults make up a huge percentage of their readership.

• Crit/Critique. An evaluation (usually from another writer) that aims for showing both the strong and weak elements of a MS. Critiques from other writers, especially authors and agents, can be a great way for writers to improve their writing.

• CP/Critique Partner. Writers who critique each other’s work in an on-going relationship. The critiques CPs give can be tougher than a beta reader’s feedback, and CPs often know each other’s writing strengths and weaknesses, and can push each other more. These can be great relationships to establish because of the encouragement, resources, and support writers receive from each other.

• Editor: Depending on the type of editor, editors acquire books for their house to publish and guide the book through the editorial process for publication. Like agents, they do much more than this, too.

• Form rejection: A copy-pasted rejection from an agent to a writer who queried. Most of the time this is what writers will receive. Most agents receive 100+ queries a week (I’ve seen some agents report 800+), so personal responses are often impossible

• Genre: A term to describe the kind of story a book is. When writers are asked what kind of books they write, they often respond with the category and genre– young adult fantasy, for example, or adult romance. Science fiction, contemporary, mystery, thriller, magical realism, and historical are all genres.

• MG: middle grade. Writing written for middle grade readers and adhering to certain age group conventions.

• MS: manuscript. An unpublished work of fiction or nonfiction. Plural: MSs.

• NA: new adult. Characters and plotlines that revolve around situations common to the 19 to mid-twenties age group. Some say this is a subset of adult fiction, and others maintain it’s its own category.

• Personalized rejection: A rejection from an agent to a writer who queried, but some element of the letter is personal. A line or two complimenting the work but explaining why it’s not right for the agent may be included. This is an encouraging sign and a compliment from the agent, and is actually a good thing to receive. If a writer is excited about receiving a rejection, this is likely why.

• Pitch: A brief description of a manuscript highlighting the main elements in a way that makes others want to read more. Contests sometimes ask for a 1, 2, or 3-sentence pitch. Writers should have one ready for contests and conferences, and many writers create the pitch while they are plotting the manuscript to help keep them focused on the story’s core.

• Query letter: A letter, often a professional email, that writers send to agents asking them to consider them for representation. The letter includes specific details about the manuscript the author has written and relevant credentials the writer may have. Some agents want 5 or 10 pages and/or a synopsis included as well. Conventions for queries are very particular.

• R&R(or R/R): Revise and resubmit. The request from an agent or editor to have the writer make certain changes to the manuscript and then resubmit the work for consideration. These happen frequently, and are an excellent sign of the story’s potential. The agent’s current list of titles, market trends, and the writing itself may be reasons the agent asked for an R&R, to see how well they can work with the author and how open to feedback the writer is.

• Request: An agent (or sometimes editor) requests to see a certain number of pages of a writer’s manuscript. These can be “partials”–generally 30, 50, or 100 pages– or else “fulls”– the entire manuscript. Usually agents request a partial first and then request a full if they are considering representing the writer. A request is a BIG deal, particularly if it’s a full.

• Slush/ slush pile: the queries and submissions waiting in the query inbox of an agent or editor.

• Small Press: A publisher with annual sales below a certain level, or else one who publishes a small list of titles per year. There can be significant benefits to publishing with a small press, such as increased attention from your publishing team.

• Submission: Usually this refers to when an agent takes an author’s manuscript on submission– actively submitting it to editors, hoping to receive an offer of publication. It can also mean the submission materials writers send to agents or contests.

• Synopsis: A 1-2 page summary that reveals the main elements of the MS in a cause-and-effect style. Agents and editors often ask for these to see how (and if) an author can wrap up the story.

• Twitter pitch: A pitch designed for Twitter contests designed to quickly hook the reader. 140 characters or less. Twitter contests can be a good way to reach agents who may be closed to submissions (if they are participating) or get a request that may move you up in the agent’s slush pile.

• WIP: work in progress. The manuscript an author is currently writing.

• YA: young adult. Writing intended for a teenage audience, but with tremendous crossover appeal to adults. Publishers Weekly reported that 55% of all YA books are purchased by adult buyers, and 78% of the time, those books are for themselves. Basically, YA is written about teens, but written for both teen and adult readers.

Have you heard any other terms you’d like to know more about or have added to the list? Let me know in the comments!