Addition to My Young Adult Post
Feb. 2nd, 2011 09:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
future_guardianOkay, so apparently the trend in Young Adult books is post apocalyptic/dystopy. I'd sort of kind of fit in. Yay? But here's the thing: Whether I was writing for adults, teens, kids, whoever, I'd want to write my own thing the way I wanted to write it. I don't believe in following trends just because that's what sells. See, that's what sold two years ago and is coming out two years later. By the time all these post apocalyptic/dystopy stuff is out, it's a new trend. My god, I shudder to think what people would write when the trend is happy fluffy bunnies that go around hugging people and making the world happy. In any case, I'm writing this novel the way I want to write it and right now, it's not going easy (or at all) but at least it's working the way I want it to work. So there is that.
One other thing I read today. There were some people saying "We hate fantasy (specifically YA Fantasy)! We want real because it's real!" If I didn't think it would pop my teeth out, I'd beat my head against the nearest wall all day. You know, when I was a kid I read a lot of slice-of-life fiction, and I hated it to no end. Because in being real, it felt too real. I wanted something I couldn't see every day. Not necessarily true fantasy (I got into that as well as horror when I was about eighteen), but stuff that was clearly fictitious. These people also said "You can only learn about the world through realistic fiction." Sorry, but wrong. I learned more about real-life issues through speculative fiction novels. I'd even say I've learned more from paranormal romance than my tenth grade health class (and that is super embarrassing to admit on more than a few levels). So no, not true.
One other thing I read today. There were some people saying "We hate fantasy (specifically YA Fantasy)! We want real because it's real!" If I didn't think it would pop my teeth out, I'd beat my head against the nearest wall all day. You know, when I was a kid I read a lot of slice-of-life fiction, and I hated it to no end. Because in being real, it felt too real. I wanted something I couldn't see every day. Not necessarily true fantasy (I got into that as well as horror when I was about eighteen), but stuff that was clearly fictitious. These people also said "You can only learn about the world through realistic fiction." Sorry, but wrong. I learned more about real-life issues through speculative fiction novels. I'd even say I've learned more from paranormal romance than my tenth grade health class (and that is super embarrassing to admit on more than a few levels). So no, not true.
