I’ve been asked many times (always by those who don’t read YA) why I write for teens. Those who don’t ask often flatter me with odds looks when they discover my apparently bizarre love of YA lit. Really, these people ask (sometimes silently), why would an over-educated person such as yourself be interested in books for young adults? Because they’re good, I insist. Because, because, because… and off I go listing various reasons. But the truth it, those reasons weren’t always so obvious to me. So let me get this off my conscience.
Several years ago, inspired by a trip to Italy, I wrote a traditional fantasy set in a world loosely based on the Roman empire. My MC was sixteen, but in her society was considered an adult. I wrote the whole novel believing it was an adult fantasy. But when I finished, it dawned on me that many of the themes that emerged were coming-of-age type themes. A lot of what my MC did, besides the literal plot stuff, was grow up and find her place in the world.
I wasn’t happy. I didn’t want to write YA. I thought of myself strictly as an adult writer, and aside from Harry Potter, read adult almost exclusively. So how could this have happened?
As it turned out, there were several issues with the story that I never figured out how to fix, so I trunked it early on in the editing. I wrote a new novel, one that was definitely, no doubt about it, adult. Then I wrote one more. Also adult. Or was it?
As I worked on the query for the newest novel, a couple critters mentioned the query made it sound like the book was YA. Then one of my betas, who’d just landed an agent for her YA novel, said if I chopped a couple years off the MC’s age, the story would work as YA. They were right–the themes, the voice, it all was smacking me in the face.
Cue Britney because oops, I did it again.
At that point, I decided maybe I needed to start reading some YA since my brain clearly wanted me to write it. That was when I discovered just how awesome YA could be. And I realized that the story ideas I’d been mentally kicking around, but ignoring because they didn’t work, could totally work. As YA.
Part of my initial reluctance to embrace the YA moniker was because I’d thought restricting myself to writing about teens would be, well, restrictive. Instead, I learned that it opened up a whole new range of possibilities. In fact, some of the best books I’ve read are YA. And some of the most interesting stories can be told in YA, simply because genre conventions aren’t as rigid.
Since my epiphany, I’ve found it’s impossible to turn off that YA idea-generator in my brain. (And believe me, some days I wish I could so I could focus on one project at a time.)
So here is it, the confession of an accidental YA writer: I didn’t want to write YA. YA, apparently, wanted me to write it.