Writing for teens kicks ass
Locus Magazine's just published my latest column, "Nature's Daredevils: Writing for Young Audiences," written in honor of their special young adult publishing issue -- in it, I examine the lessons I've learned in writing my first YA book, Little Brother:
Genre YA fiction has an army of promoters outside of the field: teachers, librarians, and specialist booksellers are keenly aware of the difference the right book can make to the right kid at the right time, and they spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to convince kids to try out a book. Kids are naturals for this, since they really use books as markers of their social identity, so that good books sweep through their social circles like chickenpox epidemics, infecting their language and outlook on life. That's one of the most wonderful things about writing for younger audiences — it matters. We all read for entertainment, no matter how old we are, but kids also read to find out how the world works. They pay keen attention, they argue back. There's a consequentiality to writing for young people that makes it immensely satisfying. You see it when you run into them in person and find out that there are kids who read your book, googled every aspect of it, figured out how to replicate the best bits, and have turned your story into a hobby. We wring our hands a lot about the greying of SF, with good reason. Just have a look around at your regional con, the one you've been going to since you were a teenager, and count how many teenagers are there now. And yet, young people are reading in larger numbers than they have in recent memory. Part of that is surely down to Harry Potter, but on this tour, I've discovered that there's a legion of unsung heroes of the kids-lit revolution.Link
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Reading about Andersons of Naperville, I immediately got the impression of shady people in trenchcoats sidling up to the kids at school, saying "Pssst... I got some books here that will totally mess you up!" Obviously thats not the case literally, but if your going to hook people on something reading is one which I think I would encourage, get em young and they are hooked for life.
"We all read for entertainment, no matter how old we are, but kids also read to find out how the world works. They pay keen attention, they argue back."
Don't adults do this when they read? After reading the whole piece, I better understand that this is part of Cory's argument about how adolescence works in the brain (a "series of brave, irreversible decisions" and an important lack of risk-assessment capabilities), but I am still concerned by the assumption that reading "to find out how the world works" is somehow the exclusive purview of children. Perhaps we should ask: If adults don't read to find out how the world works, if they don't pay keen attention and argue back, why don't they? Is it because we (or writers) assume they don't? It's all well and good to get children/adolescents hooked on the drug/faith/adventure of reading, but why aren't they staying hooked? Because generally, they aren't.
It's just a shame kids aren't encouraged to read at younger ages. In the high school English class I volunteer for, few of the kids have ever read a book. Most of them turn their text books in at the end of the year still plastic wrapped. ...and think that alone should make their teachers give them a higher grade....
But, I have found that it's easier to get them to read what they consider the unpleasant stuff by first giving them really great titles, such as 'Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom' (I had a girl of 15 who ran with a really tough group of kids and she would hide this on herself because while she loved the book, she didn't want any of her "friends" to know she could read), and also 'World War Z' (given to a boy who was glued to it for a month solid, and then started writing his own zombie stories). Kids have to have a chance to read stuff that appeals to their own tastes or reading will forever remain something that is negative in their minds.
Oh, my...you know, I hadn't thought for years about that copy of Heinlein's The Rolling Stones that I found during a summer vacation trip in 1977 or so. On a spinner rack. In a little convenience store, no less.
Thanks for a summer reading smile, Cory.
The idea that teens aren't going to cons is interesting and quite correct.
The big, giant unruly Dragoncon does attract teens in droves, but I never see them at smaller cons.
Perhaps the energy that went into that social scene is going into Myspace, and the online communities?
The REALLY surreal thing about YA books are that they seem far more mature than the books for adults. Attitudes about relationships sex are realistic instead of the weird pulpy "I just rescued you, let's have sex" vibe of "real" S/F.
@5 MOOFRANK, Dragoncon has media and anime too, doesn't it? Anime cons have plentiful supplies of teenagers, even preteens, many dressed as their favorite characters. They may be unruly, but there's also a lot of energy and fun.
I have a pet theory that the upward curve in anime fandom outside of Japan is related to improving bandwidth that made it easier to share episodes of well-loved series, and improved computing that made it easier for DYI subtitles. Those combined to make transmission much faster than fuzzy Nth generation videotape copies. The growth in anime fandom then made it more feasible to license and sell series to fans as they got more money.
By contrast, it's still very hard to share a book with more than one person at a time, unless it's available online or you love it enough to buy multiple copies so you don't have to wait for one friend to finish it before you loan it to another.
I seem to recall British author Philip Pullman saying once in an interview that he writes in the YA fantasy genre because it allows him to address larger themes than would writing adult literature.
Wouldn't it be great if high school English lit. classes were more about enjoying reading and less about reading random bits of the canon?
Perhaps if kids were shown how to appreciate the narrative structure in all forms of media they consume; TV, games, music, even advertising, perhaps they'd be more receptive to learning the history of the form.
Then again perhaps not, the little punks.
I was one of those unruly teenagers who hated English literature classes. Not that I didn't read -- I actually had a large collection of electronics and programming textbooks that I would read for fun -- but the material that we covered just wasn't interesting. It was no surprise to me that 14 year old boys would rather read light fiction about playing hockey than Shakespearean sonnets; it's easier for them to relate to playing hockey. Literature classes had forgotten the first rule of good literature -- writing for your audience.
Probably the most painful novel we had to read was The Stone Angel. Not because it was poorly done, or because it was Canadian and therefore forced upon us, but because it was about an old woman's regression back to childhood and her fight for independence. What does a teenager know or care about what it's like to be 80 years old? Even the more avid readers were loathe to read it because it just didn't interest them. Nevermind that it was actually a great story, it was just the wrong audience.
Hamlet, on the other hand, was found interesting by nearly everybody. Take a young teenager who falls in love, is betrayed by his parents, is trying to find his place in the world, and toss in a good ghost story, and now you've got something that almost any teenager could appreciate. Fighting through the Olde English wasn't easy, but our teacher was smart enough to give a summary at each section as to what was going on; enough that everybody understood the story.
Literature classes could get through to young adults a lot better if they focused on stories that would appeal to young adults. The stigma of reading being "boring" is bad enough at that age; tossing in an irrelevant story doesn't make it any better.
shrocket, I thing adults do sometimes read fiction to learn but I also feel that we don't do it enough (or well enough). There was a great article on BoingBoing a while back about an interview with Zadie Smith that talked about reader's involvement in the process of reading.
I think I stopped reading to see how the world worked after a while because I became jaded. Most writers don't have anything huge to say, they aren't giving you the keys to the kingdom, there is no magic escape, and those wonderful creatures that befriend you never materialize.
They aren't staying hooked because in the end it's all escapism and there isn't really anything there of value beyond killing a few hours reading.
I still enjoy reading as an adult, because if the writing is good, the directing, acting, and special effects in my imagination are always outstanding. I also get to eat what I want and don't get thrown out of my house for throwing popcorn around. This can't be said for only two hours of entertainment at the cinema at the cost of a paperback.