Genre Conventions: YA Edition!
Greetings and salutations Scribblers!
Greetings and salutations Scribblers! Thank you so much for joining me for another writing video. This is going to be the first video in a series that’s going to explore genre conventions and expectations. These conventions are important to crafting your story because you’re working within a familiar framework for the reader. Most readers will only read within a few specific genres with occasional forays into something new.
We find what we enjoy and we tend to stay there. As authors, it’s vital that we understand the reader expectations so we can deliver. And this isn’t to say that expectations and conventions can’t be subverted or reinvented, but in order to push those boundaries, you need to first understand what the conventions are and why.
Today, we’re starting with the conventions of young adult literature. This is more of an age range than a genre because within Young Adult you can have pretty much every genre that exists. Westerns, thrillers, literary, sci-fi, romance, etc.
But in order to qualify as young adult, your manuscript has to fit an additional set of criteria.
First and foremost is the age of the book’s protagonist.
Most YA protagonists are between 13 and 18–although the majority tend to be 17 or 18. In recent years, there’s been a big industry push to age up young adult protagonists, especially in sci-fi and fantasy.
If you’re writing that 13-16 year old protagonist, it is still YA, but it might be a harder sell. One reason is what publishing calls cross-over appeal, meaning will this book appeal to more than one major demographic. And young adult in particular is also very popular with adults–not so much because adults want to read about children, but I think because of several of the other main qualities of young adult.
One of those reasons is the fast paced narrative. Young adult books are generally between 65k and 100k in length so 285-400ish pages give or take. For teens, the target demographic, this is intended to not make the book seem as daunting and takes into account the shorter attention spans–and yes, I was one of those kids that lost myself in a book for hours, as I’m sure a lot of you are as well. But there’s also a whole bunch of kids that have difficulty focusing for just five minutes of reading time. So the industry’s solution is make sure books are plotted tightly and move fast.
So the lower word count and fast, streamlined pacing are hallmarks of a young adult novel. This is definitely something that appeals to adult readers too. They also want stories that move along because, lets face it, you tend to have even less time to read as an adult.
Two more characteristics are high stakes, urgent plots and high emotions.
When you combine that with the fast pacing and word count expectations, you end up with a highly engaging story that is hard to put down. Now, the high stakes and high emotions are crucial to young adult because this is generally how teens move through the world. The emotional regulation in their brains hasn’t fully developed and so what seems to adults to be something insignificant is absolutely life changing to a teen. Most haven’t yet even developed a global perspective of their world and when their oftentimes not-well-planned out schemes collapse, the fallout is characterised by big emotions.
Characters lacking fully developed frontal cortexes and who don’t have the experiences and history to draw on are going to make really bad decisions. They’re going to be reckless and selfish. On a side note, if you read reviews of YA books and see the “I really liked the story, but couldn’t stand the continued string of bad decision the character kept making” then you’ve found someone who is forgetting the genre conventions.
Another, almost mandatory, convention for a young adult book is the absence of parental oversight.
Their parents travel a lot for work and trust them to stay home, or maybe a parent has been incarcerated or has a chronic illness. Whatever the reason, it impedes the adult figure in their life from being there to help them though whatever life altering crisis they’re dealing with. It’s made them independent to a degree and often contributes to the emotional part of their character arc in the story.
Okay, one more structural convention and then we’ll talk a bit about themes and subjects. Most Young adult books are written in either first person or close third person. This is done to really dive into that emotional aspect of the characters and engage the reader. Depending on the genre, you’ll be more likely to find one or the other. Many romances and contemporaries are in first person while fantasy and sci-fi are often in third.
It must end in HOPE!
Now for theme, remember how I mentioned adults are part of the YA market? Another big reason for that is the ending of young adult books. A young adult book has to end with hope. This is something adult books don’t have to have. So a young adult book may deal with some gritty topics, but there is always hope at the end. As an adult reader myself, this is one of the main reasons I read young adult. While I love a tragic ending, I do also want there to be hope. I want to think there’s going to be a better world and people can grow from their mistakes.
Ending in hope is a non-negotiable for young adult literature. It doesn’t mean it has to be a full out happy ever after ending, but it has to end with the implication emotional growth has started and that it will continue. The reader has to see that even after all the bad things, there is still something good worth fighting for.
Alright, let's talk themes you’re likely to see in young adult. The age range of 12 to 18 is when where teens experience a lot of firsts. A first love, a first break up, a first job, etc. The exploration of these firsts and the emotional response they invoke is incredibly common in YA.
The character is making that transition from being a child to being an adult and that involves a lot of changes as they start to figure out their place in the world or find their voice and identity. They’re often moving beyond the smaller family circle they knew as a middle schooler and are expanding their friend groups. This journey of figuring out who they are and what they want to stand for is a really cool one. They’re learning where they have power and how to assert it–for good or for bad. And teens are, of course, known for being rebellious. So there are a lot of plot lines about young adult protagonists where they challenge authority whether it’s a student standing up to a professor or a teen hero determined to depose a king. This is why dystopian books are such a staple of the young adult genre.
So, to recap. Books in the young adult category need to have a protagonist between the ages of 12 and 18. They tend to be tightly plotted and paced and incorporate intense emotions throughout. Their parents are suspiciously absent and the story itself needs to end with hope.
What’s your favorite YA book? Tell me in the comments!
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Consisting of five sections, this course will include strategies for revising characters, plot, pacing, and worlding building. It also includes resources for copyediting and for gaining insight into your manuscripts theme and purpose
