YA vs. Adult -- Part 2

I received some awesome comments and emails from you guys regarding this matter. Thank you so much! I love to hear from my readers. You guys are a big reason of why I blog in the first place.

I heard several conflicting opinions and that's precisely what I was hoping for. I wanted to see what you thought as the reader. I heard that YA literature only deals with young people while adult lit is for characters that are older. I heard just about every degree of whether or not YA lit includes sexuality/sensuality, foul language, and violence. And much much more.

For what it's worth, I'll give my opinion now:

1) I think YA lit does deal almost exclusively with younger characters, but adult lit does not necessarily exclusively with older characters. It often does, but there are plenty of adult fantasy series dealing with younger characters (late teens, early twenties perhaps). Robert Jordan's "The Wheel of Time" series comes to mind. There are certainly many older characters, but plenty of younger ones as well. Yet it is still marketed as an adult series. Interesting...especially if age is the only thing we're looking at. But it's not!

2) I do definitely agree that a lot of YA lit deals with coming of age while the themes of adult lit might be a bit more wizened. You probably won't find many adult lit books dealing with prom and first love, but then again you probably won't find many YA lit books dealing with the death of children, retirement, financial independence and careers, etc. There are always going to be exceptions, but I feel like you guys hit this one pretty spot on.

3) Violence, foul language, and sexuality. This one is tough. It used to be that this was mainly reserved for adult lit while YA lit got the watered down or glossed over versions, but I don't think that holds nearly as true now as it used to. I don't think you're going too find many YA books written like Stephen King novels where the language can be as plentiful as weeds and as colorful as the rainbow, but that's not to say YA authors are getting shy. The same goes for sexuality. I probably will not find many Laurell K. Hamilton-esque steamy sex scenes in YA lit, but don't look for those YA moments of sensuality to be as glossed over as they used to be either. As for violence, I think it depends on the genre and the mind behind the violence more rather than YA vs. adult anymore, though YA is more prone to carry fewer scenes of intense violence when adult books may be a bit more prolific with it.

All in all I don't think there is any straight answer and all of your opinions reflect that. Sometimes it is very easy to say which category a novel falls into, but too often there is a gray line. I'm probably thinking about this a lot more right now than normal because I am definitely one of those gray-area authors. The NaNo novel I plan on working on this upcoming November is definitely YA. But my NaNo novel from last year (that while I am still working on the first book has already informed me it demands to be at least three books)...is a bit funny. Younger characters. Some YA-friendly themes, some more adult-friendly themes. No gross amounts of heavy violence, sex, or cursing, but all three of those are definitely in there. I don't like writing those things in just for the sake of shock value or marketability, but I will write them in where I think it is very true to character and necessary for that character to stay IN character.

I suppose it all boils down to I just need to keep writing and see what directions the story takes. Yet even if my story ends up being easy to classify, there are so many more out there that are not so easily classified. Lots to think about!

Yours Truly,
Mrs. C

P.S. Tomorrow will be a long post about my first month's experience with Yahoo! Contributor Network. I know some of you have been asking for more details and I have plenty to give!