YA vs. Adult: Do you have the voice?

Previous articles in this series:

YA vs. Adult: Crossover Appeal

YA vs. Adult: Adult Romance Writer Disease

Not everyone can write for young adults.

My mentor, USA Today and NYT bestselling author Lori Wilde, sees many adult romance authors trying to crossover into YA. When I asked her about the “Gold Rush” push toward YA, she said:

YA gives authors a lot of freedom that they don’t have in adult fiction. Writers are attracted to the Wild West feel of the current YA market and many who really don’t have a YA voice are trying to write for this genre.

Nearly all the YA manuscripts that crossed my desk as an acquisitions editor were penned by authors who started out writing adult romance and either couldn’t break in, or were lured to the YA side of things by the promise of huge debut advances and a broader readership than ever before. And it shows. While I’m sure these authors have fantastic intentions, most suffer from ARWD and try to pitch their novels as “YA with crossover appeal.”

During an #askagent chat on Twitter in January, someone asked:

Should you bother mentioning in a query that you hope your book can be classified as a crossover, appearing in both YA and Adult?

The always brilliant author and MG/YA agent Mandy Hubbard answered:

Meh, the people that usually say crossover tend to end up not hitting EITHER audience quite right.

I addressed the crossover appeal phenomenon in the previous post in this series, and Mandy is exactly right. Crossover appeal happens organically when a book’s themes, stakes, and conflict speak to a broader audience. There’s a reason action packed paranormal series have crossover appeal in spades while contemporary high school sagas appeal mainly to the teenage audience—the stakes are higher in paranormal novels.

If you set out to write in a voice you believe will appeal to a crossover audience, you’re focusing on the wrong aspect of your book. And if you have to think about it, chances are you’re missing the mark. Harsh? Yes. Truth? Most definitely.

So why is the teen voice so hard to master? Reading a lot of YA doesn’t necessarily translate into a strong YA voice of your own, as evidenced by all the manuscripts I read and reject, so what does?

Lori says:

In order to be successful at YA, you really have to be prepared to return full throttle to your high school days. You have to become a teen again and that’s a tough act to pull off. How many adults can (or want to) eat, drink, sleep teenage angst?

There’s a reason YA authors hang out together. No one judges us when our inner teens come out to play, nor do we blow each other’s books off as less of a literary accomplishment than an adult book. Giddiness, Capital Letters, and text-speak abounds. We get our audience—we have to, or they’ll see right through us. Authentic teen voice stems naturally from this.

Here are some things to ask yourself:

Can you still channel the innocence most adults lose when life first gives us the shaft? What about the self-absorbed urgency with which teens approach everything from where they’ll sit at lunch to which college they’ll get into? Do you remember thinking everyone’s eyes were on you when they weren’t, the sting of petty betrayal, and the need to belong at any cost? How about unrequited love and all the pain that comes with it?

More importantly, are you ready to live through all of that again?

If the answer is no, maybe writing YA isn’t for you.