- \n
- point of view characters who are out of high school and looking at the college experience<\/li>\n
- young adults experiencing their first sexual relationship<\/li>\n
- young adults exploring independence that goes beyond the high school and family experience<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
However\u00a0the market is\u00a0perceived, it claims an amazingly large readership that translates into huge profits. But while\u00a0New Adult\u00a0novels often contain more sex and illicit behavior, most writers\u00a0tackle their writing with the clear hope of telling a story that reflects the lives of college-aged teens in a way to help them explore the complexities and realities of life after high school.\u00a0There are also writers in this market who might have older characters in sexual relationships but who\u00a0have a lot more going on in their lives than sex and independence. Instead of worrying about the market, maybe writers could expand the definition of the New Adult market to get with strong literary themes. Instead of focusing on romance, we might consider\u00a0working on a literary narrative which Wade Rawlins, editor of the Raleigh News and Observer<\/em> describes as \u201cthe dirt path that leads us through the impenetrable forest, so we move forward and don\u2019t feel lost.\u201d<\/p>\n
I like that idea. In fact I think\u00a0we might\u00a0write a novel about a 19 or 20 and 22 year old but let\u2019s explode the NA theme and push those boundaries.\u00a0Let’s create\u00a0a character whose post high school focus isn\u2019t on college or that first big job or sex, but someone who is focusing on survival in a poverty stricken urban environment or a rural backroad or in the sort of violence that seems to be prevalent in our culture.<\/p>\n
![\"imagesT80DGXQ7\"](\"https:\/\/annangelwriter.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/imagesT80DGXQ7.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I like to think that\u2019s who author Jo Knowles<\/a> is coaching when she says, “Right now,\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 your words float around this character, sometimes touching her skin. I want to see you use them to pierce her skin, and go underneath it. To give this story depth and purpose, you need to write close to the bone. Be brave. You can do it!” I quote Jo because I believe the writing itself \u2013 the craft of filtering through character, pov, voice and tone — raises the bar on New Adult works. But we writers can also explode the genre as agent Donald Maass encourages in his book on craft, Writing\u00a0the Breakout Novel.<\/em> There are books out that that achieve this and they can be our models:<\/p>\n
Kirkus Reviews describes author Mark Zusak as one of those authors who has pierced the skin of life with his NA character in I Am The Messenger <\/em>and, in doing so, he has created a substantial theme :<\/p>\n
Meet 19-year-old Ed Kennedy who slouches through life driving a taxi, playing poker with his buddies, and hanging out with his personable dog, Doorman. The girl he loves just wants to be friends, and his mother constantly insults him, both of which make Ed, an engaging, warm-hearted narrator, feel like a loser. But he starts to overcome his low self-esteem when he foils a bank robbery and then receives a series of messages that lead him to do good deeds.<\/p>\n
Constantly, I\u2019m asking myself, <\/em>Well, Ed\u2014what have you really achieved in your nineteen years? The answer\u2019s simple.<\/em><\/p>\n
Jack shit.<\/em><\/p>\n
The Midnight Coffee Monster<\/a> reviewed this book\u2019s complex themes, saying, \u201cReading this book, I scrutinized the way I interact with strangers as well as people I know. The do-good aspect largely sits at the center of why I relish this story, because a number of bad events drop like bombs and, when pushed down far enough, it happens: people lose faith in people and in our ability to pay it forward. Not because we expect the same in return, but because it\u2019s the \u2018right thing\u2019 to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
So let\u2019s look at more titles on the market that may or may not have been identified as NA that try to make sense of our violent culture:<\/p>\n
![\"Scowler.](\"https:\/\/encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com\/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcR43NXPoeie4uoIFrfQ8YUHur6B3KJvSXYmytJiHiNCKBP7AMdAvTAnu5-4:ecx.images-amazon.com\/images\/I\/51y6AX54J0L._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg\" "\\"Scowler.")
<\/a>\u00a0 Scowler<\/em> by Daniel Kraus<\/a>\u2013 Billed as \u201cEqual parts haunting and horrifying, this\u00a0literary horror novel gives readers insight into the mind of a controlling homicidal man and the son who must stop him,\u201d this novel calls attention to domestic violence in an unforgettably chilling tale of a boy whose earlier memories include snipping sewing stitches from between his mother\u2019s fingers and toes to release her from the bed her husband has sewn her to. \u00a0Although these scenes are some of the most disturbing you are likely to read, Karen Jensen, a youth services librarian at the Betty Warmack Branch Library in Grand Prairie, Texas, said, “There are hands down some of the most disturbing scenes that I have ever read in ‘Scowler<\/em>,'” she wrote, “but they moved me to compassion for our main character and his family. I think they also make you think about the cycle of abuse and violence that can happen in the lives of our young people.”<\/p>\n![\"Kill](\"https:\/\/encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com\/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTnrKxGezCqjTCv6XBdgV5n5x6Jj49RvvUzQJzoLVojLzyGdCpXUA:d.gr-assets.com\/books\/1327971561l\/12005462.jpg\" "\\"Kill")
In a starred review, Booklist <\/em>said of Chris Lynch\u2019s Kill<\/em> <\/a>Switch<\/a>, <\/em>“Lynch\u2019s writing, parched with desert-dry humor, is so fine that a breakfast table conversation is just as gripping as the paranoia-laced scenes of the trio evading a shadowy doom. A compact, frayed-nerves bundle of brilliance.\u00a0\u00a0This story of a post high school guy who takes a summer journey with his poor grandfather\u00a0who suffers from dementia only to\u00a0discover his grandfather\u00a0has a hidden past as a hitman, made Lynch so curious about the disintegrating tourist town setting of Lundy Lee\u00a0that Lucky Buoy, his short story in the anthology Things I\u2019ll Never Say<\/em> <\/a>is also set here. Lynch told me he\u2019s creating an entire series of short stories set in the town.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
![\"In](\"https:\/\/encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com\/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRo4BdRVcWopndeW1C45Dfswu8-izdd9k0-Inp1GljNl_Ooi2HM:ronestradabooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/the-fault-in-our-stars.png\" "\\"In")
There\u2019s also a lot of literature out there that’s romance with a twist. The<\/em> Fault in Our Stars<\/em> explodes the romance genre when cancer riddled teen Hazel Grace tells a boy named Gus that she\u2019s not a good choice for romance, she avoids sentimentality with her words: \u201cI\u2019m a grenade and one day I\u2019m gonna blow up and I\u2019m going to obliterate everything in my wake and I don\u2019t want to hurt you.\u201d John Green doesn\u2019t play on our sympathies with this romance, surrounded as it is by the ticking clock of death. Instead he digs deeply into the meaning of life for two teens who want to live fully even if it\u2019s only for a little while. In doing so, he captures the immediacy and honesty of their lives and loves as they face death but avoid Gus\u2019s one fear — oblivion.<\/p>\n![\"rainbow](\"https:\/\/encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com\/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRtY7c1pVl7sICWA91oKdMavi5TgYQ4TdJdqw55Zy4YSfb00G2-Jw:novelsounds.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/iphone-eleanor-and-park-rainbow-rowell-wallpaper.jpg\" "\\"rainbow")
In turn, John Green has\u00a0written about Rainbow Rowell\u2019s unlikely relationship in her novel\u00a0Eleanor and Park<\/em>. In a review for the New York Time\u2019s<\/em> he wrote \u201cI have never seen anything quite like \u2018Eleanor & Park.\u2019\u2026Its observational precision and richness make for very special reading.\u201d The novel takes a traditional romance and adds themes of cultural differences and a bit of nerdiness through Park\u2019s half-Korean, comic-book and good music loving character. He describes the effect of Rowell\u2019s evocative language: \u201cThe hand-holding, by the way, is intense. \u2018Holding Eleanor\u2019s hand was like holding a butterfly. Or a heartbeat.\u2019 Evocative sensual descriptions are everywhere in this novel, but they always feel true to the characters. Eleanor describes Park\u2019s trench coat as smelling \u2018like Irish Spring and a little bit like potpourri and like something she couldn\u2019t describe any other way than boy.\u2019<\/em> ”<\/p>\n![\"E.](\"https:\/\/encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com\/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcR5emqUm63-DNoz6yu-ohi-IldGwTg7SVgQnVtIJwvJTZdoyMOWKQ:www.barnesandnoble.com\/blog\/barnesy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/lockhart.jpg\" "\\"E.")
\u00a0There are novels that move even more deeply into moral premises surrounding wealth the greed, like E. Lockhart\u2019s<\/a> stunningly haunting We Were Liars<\/em>\u00a0a romance between a very rich waspish teen girl and the East Indian nephew of an uncle who lacks wealth or stature to such an extent that the grandfather fails to call him by name. The novel unfolds to show readers the horrific consequences of the family\u2019s arrogance and elitism on this third generation.<\/p>\nThe novel begins: “Welcome to the beautiful Sinclair family….The Sinclairs are athletic, tall, and handsome. We are old-money Democrats. OUr smiles are wide, our chins square, and our tennis serves aggressive.<\/p>\n
It doesn’t matter if divorce shreds the muscles or our hearts so that they will hardly beat without a struggle. It doesn’t matter if trust-fund money is running out; if credit card bills go unpaid on the kitchen counter. It doesn’t matter if there’s a cluster of pill bottles on the bedside table. It doesn’t matter if one of us is desperately, desperately in love.<\/p>\n
So much<\/p>\n
in love<\/p>\n
that equally desperate measures<\/p>\n
must be taken.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"Bone](\"https:\/\/encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com\/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQt38mfV537wl9thc1p7t04wYENhOtFTwEhJtB7oYqhOGZOzL1E:p.gr-assets.com\/200x200\/scale\/books\/1403130187\/22535490.jpg\" "\\"Bone")
Let\u2019s take a close look at the themes in Laura Ruby\u2019s Bone Gap<\/em><\/a>, a novel I’ve been obsessing on because of it’s power and beauty and one I wish I had written. This is\u00a0the story of beautiful Roza who is kidnapped and the only witness, a 19-year old named Finn who cannot forgive himself for being unable to identify the kidnapper. Finn is just out of high school, contemplating possible college so the NA elements are here. But there is so much more. This novel relies upon magical realism inside a contemporary rural setting while bringing readers a glimpse into survival in rural America, survival of people from other cultures in rural america. The novel contains romance and sex that just sort of happens in an incidental way. When Finn falls for a beekeeper, who also happens to be the ugliest girl in Bone Gap townspeople think he\u2019s using her. She is the one who realizes he thinks she\u2019s beautiful because he has one fatal flaw as a boyfriend. He\u2019s faceblind.<\/p>\nHis face blindness is a metaphor for the way so many of us walk through our days completely blind and oblivious to people in our lives and it is a metaphor for how we see the people we come to love.<\/p>\n
Author Kekla Magoon<\/a> says of New Adult themes, \u201cI would even like to see more books reflecting the college experience for teen readers. Are those books automatically NA? I’m not sure. I remember reading a series of YA books in high school that were about a girls’ dorm, and girls experiencing their freshman year of college. I’m sure it was mainly fluffy and chick-lit-ish, not very literary, but I enjoyed reading about that age group. When high schoolers move on to reading adult books, I’m not sure it’s because they necessarily need or want higher level reading, but because they want to read about adult perspectives and adult experiences. The same way that middle graders will read up to YA a lot of the time. So, there is a gap where YA readers could be looking to older characters, but still getting the same type of engaging story. NA classification tends to be so much about sexual content, but I think it does have potential to be more than that. I’ve not really thought of myself as writing NA in the past, though. I can just see potential there for something I might try in the future–a YA style book but with the type of content that is more often found in adult books…. It strikes me that there could be a lot of room in NA for different\u00a0writing styles and characters who encompass a range of ages, and, yes, room for incorporating “edgy” content that manifests in lots of different ways.\u201d<\/p>\n
There are crossover novels that deal with war and tragedy<\/p>\n
- \n
- All the Things I Cannot See<\/em><\/li>\n
- The Things I Never Meant to Tell You<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
![\"Janis](\"https:\/\/encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com\/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRh7zikT9mSrW1QFsXT3y0RK5g-Ob3yLr0yB41fWdjMi4uYZknnfw:irisonbooks.files.wordpress.com\/2011\/03\/janis_joplin.jpg%3Fw%3D219%26h%3D279\" "\\"Janis")
My own nonfiction was called into question as having themes that were too adult for young adult audiences when Janis Joplin Rise Up Singing<\/em> was published. It didn\u2019t take me long to realize that my most recent anthology, a collection of stories about secrets, would reveal that teens keep extremely adult secrets. The book, Things I’ll Never Say, Stories About Our Secret Selves, <\/em>\u00a0is being marketed to teens 14 and above because it deals with mature themes like teens protecting their hording or alcoholic mothers, gender issues, teens attempting sexual relationships with ![\"Things](\"https:\/\/encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com\/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRE7mK7tQ1u_f5QHQT12FEXP4X_ck-KW9Z-i7bPRjmZrK3Z7lBL:ecx.images-amazon.com\/images\/I\/51DzzAWWKDL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg\" "\\"Things")
teachers, and teens who refuse to take responsibility for their sexual behavior. While not labelled NA, the book which is recommended for teens over 14 doesn\u2019t feel very YA to me either. But most of the stories fail to resolve easily. I think they keep the reader engaged, wondering and sometimes haunted, long after the story ends. \u00a0\u00a0 There is Kekla Magoon\u2019s story of Sally John who returns home via the subway, a metaphor for how she also lives under her father\u2019s roof, filling up on rich foods to make him happy, but hiding her bulimia in \u201cFor a Moment, Underground.\u201d<\/p>\nMy own story, \u201cWe Were Together,\u201d captures the story of Luke who loves girls so much he gives his girlfriend herpes. But it\u2019s a bit more layered in the way the main character Luke must figure out how he will face or hide his secrets within complex family relationships. Luke says, \u201cI wonder how the truth would change the way my mom loves her boy.\u201d<\/p>\n
For instance, in erica l. kaufman\u2019s \u201cThree-Four Time\u201d we meet Imogene who returns home from marching band practice to pacify her drunken mother by dancing the waltz to a Meatloaf song. Imogene who tries to protect her sister from her mother\u2019s alcoholism, says, \u201cHer waltzes always have style although her arms are getting bonier, tattoed with smudgy bruises and raised, welted burns. She tells everyone she\u2019s clumsy but she looks pretty coordinated now, waltzing around our tiny living room.\u201d<\/p>\n
A Chesire, Connecticut Library blog discusses the issue of the New Adult market\u2019s effect on book selection. The blogger wrote, \u201cIn general the \u2018New Adult\u2019 label is now applied to books with main characters between the ages of 18 and 25 as they face the challenges of leaving home, developing sexuality, and negotiating education and career choices. The books are typically about characters in the transition of becoming an adult while society still seems to consider them children. Some of the books in this category are still accessible and appropriate for teens, while others have more sexual content than most parents would be comfortable with their teens reading, and some have conflicts and situations have little interest to those that have not faced similar issues.\u00a0 The majority of books currently being released under this\u00a0label seem to be contemporary romance, but this is not a requirement of the genre<\/strong>.”\u00a0 The blog\u00a0points out, \u00a0“Many books have cross over appeal but do not get the chance they deserve because of the labels or marketing that are attached to them.\u201d While this librarian uses the term genre for a work that clearly defines market, she brings up an important idea. If we categorize books too narrowly, they\u2019ll miss their audience. This segues\u00a0into\u00a0what writer and librarian Ann Matzke, said while\u00a0speaking about how libraries shelve books and how their patrons make selections. She said too many books fail to reach their audience because market labels limit placement on bookstores and libraries. I think she’s right and I also think we writers need to write stories that speak to our interests and themes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The New Adult market, labeled the sexed-up version of Young Adult literature, currently carries the burden of proving to detractors that it can also be great literature containing significant and relevant themes. While reviewers have tagged New Adult fiction a \u201chot new category\u201d but \u201ctoo sexy\u201d and headlines have accused writers of the genre of … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":19,"footnotes":""},"categories":[133,1],"tags":[138,125,139,140,145,16,137,141,147,146,143,149,135,142,144,11,136,148,134,82],"class_list":["post-559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-on-writing-for-teens","category-uncategorized","tag-chris-lynch","tag-college","tag-daniel-kraus","tag-e-lockhart","tag-independence","tag-janis-joplin","tag-jo-knowles","tag-john-green","tag-kekla-magoon","tag-laura-ruby","tag-literary-themes","tag-mature-themes","tag-new-adult","tag-rainbow-rowell","tag-romance","tag-teen-sex","tag-themes","tag-things-ill-never-say","tag-ya","tag-young-adult"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/annangelwriter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/annangelwriter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/annangelwriter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annangelwriter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annangelwriter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=559"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/annangelwriter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1318,"href":"https:\/\/annangelwriter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559\/revisions\/1318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/annangelwriter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annangelwriter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annangelwriter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
- The Things I Never Meant to Tell You<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
- All the Things I Cannot See<\/em><\/li>\n