For YA authors: The steamier side of our work...

2638 Views 35 Replies 19 Participants Last post by NathanWrann, Dec 23, 2012

54706

Discussion Starter · Dec 22, 2012

A great article for those of you curious about moving into the "New Adult" category of YA.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/22/books/young-adult-authors-add-steaminess-to-their-tales.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20121222&_r=0

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Steve Vernon

· #2 · Dec 22, 2012

Yup - my FLASH VIRUS series is a little on the "new adult" side of the map - so I was very interested in reading that article.

Still, I wonder if the new "category" is really necessary after THE HUNGER GAMES? I've always known that Young Adult could lean towards the steamy/violent side of things. Heck, as a kid I yearned for that sort of a story.

Kids are older than people think!

dalya

· #3 · Dec 22, 2012

Steve Vernon said:
Yup - my FLASH VIRUS series is a little on the "new adult" side of the map - so I was very interested in reading that article.

Still, I wonder if the new "category" is really necessary after THE HUNGER GAMES? I've always known that Young Adult could lean towards the steamy/violent side of things. Heck, as a kid I yearned for that sort of a story.

Kids are older than people think!

Hunger Games is SO NOT steamy. Like three kisses and three hundred nights thinking about the ramifications of each kiss. Even the violence isn't that crazy. It's not like Katniss goes all Heart of Darkness I-love-killing-Tributes-in-the-morning-the-blood-makes-me-feel-alive. it's more like EEEK! Self defence! Whack! Eeek! Self defence! Poing!

Steve Vernon

· #4 · Dec 22, 2012

You got a point, Dalya. It's been a while since I read Hunger Games. Old farts like me should NEVER pretend at trendiness...

dalya

· #5 · Dec 22, 2012

Steve Vernon said:
You got a point, Dalya. It's been a while since I read Hunger Games. Old farts like me should NEVER pretend at trendiness...

I enjoyed reading Hunger Games. I'm just jealous. That article made me cranky because when I was querying for my New Adult Romance books, the literary agents were all "shut up! New Adult isn't going to happen!" Because that was a whole year ago.

And stupid me, I didn't put nearly enough sex in my New Adult books when I self-pubbed (i.e. no sex at all) to make them juicy.

RM Prioleau

· #6 · Dec 22, 2012

This is an interesting article. I'm always trying to research 'how far is too far' with sex and violence for YA books.

Jan Hurst-Nicholson

· #7 · Dec 22, 2012

I think there should be a better definition of 'Teen' and 'YA'. I classed Mystery at Ocean Drive as YA, but now I'm beginning to think it should be 'teen' as it's a Hardy Boys type story with no sex or violence (or dark side). Is there a classification guide somewhere?

MEPurfield

· #8 · Dec 22, 2012

This NEW ADULT things seems silly to me. So do we consider Bret Ellis's LESS THAN ZERO New Adult? Or any other book with a protag 18-23? That would just chop a chunk out of the literary genre.

Marketing lables can be so lame.

Danielle Kazemi

· #9 · Dec 22, 2012

Thought my books were New Adult because of the characters but I might need to get things -ahem - steamier. Bow chicka bow bow. lol

H.M. Ward

· #10 · Dec 22, 2012

Dalya said:
I enjoyed reading Hunger Games. I'm just jealous. That article made me cranky because when I was querying for my New Adult Romance books, the literary agents were all "shut up! New Adult isn't going to happen!" Because that was a whole year ago.

And stupid me, I didn't put nearly enough sex in my New Adult books when I self-pubbed (i.e. no sex at all) to make them juicy.

I keep seeing articles on this. It seems like the pub is saying they are pushing the trend when, in fact, all those books they featured in the article started indie. The pubs response (up til yesterday) was - there's no market for that. Like 20 year olds don't buy books. Apparently now the pubs are still saying 'how do we market that?' but can see there is a market. Ah-dher. I feel your pain, Dalya.

On a happy note, one of my titles hit the top 200 on Amazon. Guess what genre it is? New Adult! I'm still shocked. I'm going to go do the happy dance now.

Saul Tanpepper

· #11 · Dec 22, 2012

I'm always torn when adding the label "YA" to my GAMELAND series. I know it turns a lot of older people off, but the the main characters are 16-19 and they respond to the situations in decidedly YA fashion. On the other hand, the series gets violent and gory in places, there's sex (limited, but when it happens, it happens, and the participants are very adult about it). I actually like the New Adult classification because it's a bridge between the YA world (where sex and violence and drugs and all those deep issues have been restricted by the overly-sensitive traditional publishing machine) and "adult" literature.

olefish

· #12 · Dec 22, 2012

Is New Adult just another term for tempestuous romances featuring college students?

Claudia King

· #13 · Dec 22, 2012

Dalya said:
Hunger Games is SO NOT steamy. Like three kisses and three hundred nights thinking about the ramifications of each kiss. Even the violence isn't that crazy. It's not like Katniss goes all Heart of Darkness I-love-killing-Tributes-in-the-morning-the-blood-makes-me-feel-alive. it's more like EEEK! Self defence! Whack! Eeek! Self defence! Poing!

I don't know, I thought Hunger Games was pretty horiffic at times, particularly the death of the last tribute. :-X

:-X

"New Adult" definitely seems like a genre that makes sense though. A lot of those teenagers graduating from Harry Potter and Twilight are going to be ready and eager for something a little raunchier moving on (I know I was!), and consolidating those types of books into a new genre should be helpful for readers and writers alike. I'd have loved a New Adult category to browse from a few years back!

H. S. St. Ours

· #14 · Dec 22, 2012

I always thought it was the humanity of the characters and the richness of the plot that made YA books appeal to teens and adults as well, even without gratuitous sex and extreme violence.

::sigh::

But we know what sells, don't we? I guess I should have thrown a few steamy sex scenes and detailed descriptions of decapitation. Then I guess I'd deserve that coveted New Adult label.

Atunah

· #15 · Dec 22, 2012

H.S. St.Ours said:
I always thought it was the humanity of the characters and the richness of the plot that made YA books appeal to teens and adults as well, even without gratuitous sex and extreme violence.

::sigh::

But we know what sells, don't we? I guess I should have thrown a few steamy sex scenes and detailed descriptions of decapitation. Then I guess I'd deserve that coveted New Adult label.

Its not just about the steamy sex scenes. I read "Easy" and the scenes were very mild. That's not really it. For me, I don't read YA. Never would have touched it. I read "Easy" because it was recommended on Goodreads and it has "older" characters. I loved that book. The characters work, everything just does. It is very emotional.

Now I am not a young adult, or a college age person. None of the folks I follow on Goodreads that read this book are. Many that read it I think are just regular readers that want contemporary romance that is a bit different. Not as jaded maybe. So to me they are more like contemporary romances where the characters are just starting out. If that makes any sense. I am not really a big fan of regular contemporary romance. Maybe because I don't want to read about people having kids, going through divorce, etc. I think new adult maybe fills that area before all that happens. No clue.
But for me to find those now, I have to go looking for the term new adult now.

eta: "Easy" is one of those success stories that got picked up by a publisher, after readers went bonkers for it.

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CoraBuhlert

· #16 · Dec 22, 2012

I still don't know why we can't just call those books contemporary romances with college age characters or college romances, but need the special label "New Adult". Never mind that it's a stupid name, because new adults are adults. Though I must confess that I don't have that much interest in college romances (and unlike atunah I like contemporaries), because the Germany university experience is quite different from the US college experience. And I didn't even like the German doomed university romances - often involving exchange students - which flooded the university lit mag when I was a member of the editorial team there. Still, it's great that those books are out there for those who want them.

However, I hope that the New Adult label doesn't begin to colonize everything like the YA label did. A lot of paranormal and SF novels are now published as YA, because the characters happen to be teenagers, whereas twenty or even ten years ago, those books would have been simply SF or fantasy with teen characters. I don't want all books with characters in their early 20s suddenly be stuffed onto separate New Adult shelves, where again they are more difficult to find for genre readers who either don't look at the YA/New Adult shelves (I constantly have to remind myself that good SF and fantasy might be found in the YA section, because that's not where I usually look) or who don't feel comfortable shopping there.

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That one girl

· #17 · Dec 22, 2012

I went back and forth with how to handle the sex scenes in book two and three of my post-apocalyptic trilogy. I couldn't take them out because they were too important to the plot. I wasn't even aware of the new adult category when I published in June, but I'm very happy for it now.

dalya

· #18 · Dec 22, 2012

T.S. Welti said:
I went back and forth with how to handle the sex scenes in book two and three of my post-apocalyptic trilogy. I couldn't take them out because they were too important to the plot. I wasn't even aware of the new adult category when I published in June, but I'm very happy for it now.

Well ... there's nothing on Amazon to pick. But you can put it in the description, and the prolific readers and reviewers will know what it means.

I can't say I don't see the appeal of reading about smexytimes as a teen. I mostly read fantasy and sci-fi, because there was little at the school library in the way of hot teen romance with sex. What bothered me about the contemp/romance stuff of the day like Sweet Valley High was how insanely unrealistic it was. The teens were on another planet compared to the actual high school experience. It was all about moral lessons or about how beautiful the twins were or ... oh who knows. But it wasn't hot and it wasn't real.

I think the New Adult books that are written by younger authors are very truthful to the experience, and truth will always have appeal.

That one girl

· #19 · Dec 22, 2012

That's the problem. Many readers still don't know what new adult means. I've hesitated to put it in my description because I think most people associate it with romance and an HEA.

dalya

· #20 · Dec 22, 2012

T.S. Welti said:
That's the problem. Many readers still don't know what new adult means. I've hesitated to put it in my description because I think most people associate it with romance and an HEA.

At one point, I had a rambly explanation on one book (not sure if it's still there) that just said, Hey, the main character is 18. Some people consider this book YA, other see it as Adult or New Adult ...

So, why not state the age of the main character? It's not the worst work-around. People can draw their own conclusions.

I also put word count/page count and even list the genre on many of my books. For the youngish ones, I'll put recommended age. I figure the more information you give people, the better they're able to figure out if they want the book. You want them to feel more certain before they hit the button, and you want the people who'll be disappointed to move along. Nobody needs that sale that leads to the 1-star.

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