Help! I Think I’ve Written a YA Novel
Signs Your Novel May Be Meant For Young Adults
I was working on my second draft of a novel when I came to a rather surprising realization: I was writing a young adult novel. I hadn’t planned on writing a young adult novel. I’d thought it was just a novel with a protagonist who just happened to be a young adult.
I thought, “No. Surely I would have realized this sooner if it were truly a young adult novel.” However, the more I thought about it, the more convinced I was that I’d written a young adult novel. I’ve always enjoyed YA novels, even now as an adult I think they’re wonderful, so it makes sense that I’d end up writing one.
“Hold on,” my skeptical writer’s brain said, “My story has dark themes, and sex, and cursing in it. Doesn’t that disqualify it from being a YA novel?” Turns out, no. YA novels can and often do have all of those things.
Like any good writer, I did some research and some soul searching…
A quick review of a New York Times article by Lizzie Skurnick showed me sex has been in YA novels for years. Judy Bloom’s Forever was considered scandalous for its portrayal of teenagers having sex without consequences. Madeleine L’Engle’s book House Like a Lotus includes a teenage girl losing her virginity to a medical intern. Goodreads has a list called “Young Adult Fiction With Sex” which includes over 800 books.
A flashing mental billboard with “Hunger Games” written on it reminded me that dark themes are incredibly common in teen books. Maze Runner, Thirteen Reasons Why, Divergent, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and Uglies are a few others that come to mind. Life can be dark, so sometimes fiction should be too, even fiction for teens.
What about cursing? Teenagers don’t curse, right? (Insert sounds of hysterical laughter here.) Cursing/swear words may ruffle a few feathers, but as far as I can find, there’s no rule against including them. Like with anything else, it’s more about deciding if the language is authentic to the character saying it.
Now my interest was really peaked. I had to know what made a book a young adult novel vs. just a novel with young adults in it. After combing through the internet, I found the following common YA novel traits:
- It has a teen perspective
- It is recommended for readers between 12–18 (sometimes 15–18 for darker books)
- It is often written in the first person
- It has faster pacing
- It deals with teen issues
Turns out I wrote a YA novel after all. It made me excited when I realized this. There are so many wonderful YA novels out there and I’m excited to add mine to the list.
