AdrienneW

When is a book considered YA (young adult) I am having a really hard time with this concept, however I do feel that some of my works would appeal to a younger generation, however some of the content I also feel is a bit violent. The story is about an older teenager, and I think that young people would probably be more drawn to that as well as the over all storyline (although some older people may like it as well)...however there will be violence and I honestly have a hard time being willing to expose some one too young to that type of conflict.
I know when I was 14 I was reading steven king, lots of gore and violence in his books but they were not YA books and YA books back in my day didn't seem to have any violence in them (at least the ones in my school library)
Will YA publishers look at books with possible terroristic violence situations?
I know there are some pretty, what I would consider, rough books out for teens but I am just wondering if they had originally been ment for that market or simply fell into it due to demand?

FrankBlissett

Depends on how you handle it.

IMHO, publishers will look less at what you write about than they'll look at how it's written.

One could ask "my book has sex in it - is it YA?" Well, there are YA books with (even about) sex, but that doesn't mean you'll be able to sell erotica as YA.

You mention terrorists. My mnd goes back to books and radio-dramas from the 40s. Look how often CHILDRENS entertainment would have a plot about stopping sabatores (sp?). Look how often comic books, even in the golden-age, dealt with terrorism in one form or another. However, that doesn't mean that a book a-la Tom Clancy would be YA.

So, without seeing the passages in question, my question about the violence would be: "What's it similar to?"

Is it more or less violent than the (book version of the) Harry Potter series? Lord Of The Rings? Narnia?

-Frank

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mammamaia

check the guidelines of the major YA publishers... you may find some info there on what's acceptable and what's not...

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aspiring

To my mind, a YA book is an adult book but where the main protagonists are all teenagers. They are often thrown into adult situations but they respond as teenagers rather than as adults. They also have problems that are fairly specific to their age group (eg school/qualifications/university) and tend to be encountering situations for the first time (eg drugs/sex).

But I do feel that some publishers are reluctant to publish YA books that are particularly explicit about certain things (or even not very explicit but touch on controversial issues eg racism). Here in the UK several publishers rejected my self-harm YA book because of the subject matter - they said it was too 'unflinching'. Fortunately, I did eventually find a publisher willing to take the risk, and they have thrown themselves behind it, which is great.

Test the water and see what the reaction is.