This is something I've been curious about for quite awhile and I've heard multiple debates on the matter, but no one ever seems to be able to completely agree. All genre specific advice aside, what exactly is the different beteween young adult fiction and adult fiction? What separates one from the other?
I'll give you my thoughts in the next post, but for now I would really love to hear what YOU think. How does a publisher tell the difference between YA and adult fiction? How do you as the reader tell the difference?
(For the record, when I say YA I'm talking probably at least the 15 and up crowd, not the younger end of YA which falls around 12.)
I look forward to the responses; let's start our own debate on this!
Yours Truly,
Mrs. C
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As with anything in this avenue of debate, it is more or less dependent upon how the author views his/her potential market. Now with the YA crowd, sex, cursing and graphic violence are pretty much out, but after that, it's anyone's guess.
ReplyDeleteNow my novel is clearly not in the category of YA, because the target audience has to have a certain level of understanding (which is not to say that it might not appeal to some young adults) about medicine, and medical technology.
But Leigh Fallon's book (The Carrier of the Mark) certainly would fit in that category, which is also not to say that I wouldn't be interested in it, because I am. It's really a matter of who your potential market is, and how you define your book.
I have never read a lot of YA, even when I was in that age range. I went straight to adult fiction from Nancy Drew, and most of the YA that I have read (even when I was that age) was always so shallow.
ReplyDeleteTo me, YA fiction is about struggling to fit in. Adult fiction may deal with this too, but without as much angst. YA may be sensual, but not necessarily sexual, and it won't have excessive swearing. Not sure about the violence, though . . . I think there are equal amounts of that in both YA and adult.
Also, YA seems to usually have less complex plots (though not always the case), and is written at a lower reading level. Or maybe I just have abnormally high reading comprehension O.O. It is also written with the main characters in the same age range as the readers (high school, sometimes college).
Adult fiction deals with more mature issues, I think - marriage, trying to conceive, adultery, sex, crime, etc. Unless it's written specifically for a Christian crowd, I've found that it usually contains swearing, sex, and/or violence.
I'm baffled as to why the general public thinks of paranormal/fantasy as a mainly YA genre, though. If there is anyone who is wanting to escape realism for a while, wouldn't be the adults?
I read allll the time anything from young adult to adult and most of the young adult books I read actually do involve profanity,drugs,and sex which is just like adult books the only difference is that the characters are generally in highschool or college. That is the only difference I have noticed because most teenagers don't want to read about all of that in a 40 year olds point of view because that is the age of their parents lol but I actually love to read adult books but generally a young adult book just has to do with the age of the characters. They do have alot of similarities though on story lines it doesn't mean that young adult books are necessarily "immature" because the ones I have read are very mature, it just depends on the genre as well.
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