Today I am hosting Catherine Austen, author of the 2011 release of All Good Children. Check out her guest post about how YA is not just for teens and the book trailer. Enjoy!
Writing for Young People - Not for Dummies, By Catherine Austen
“I actually write for adults but I can’t seem to sell my novel so I’m revising it for teenagers. Do you have any tips on how I can dumb it down?”
That is what a writer said to me two months ago – and I’m still annoyed. (No. It wasn’t Martin Amis, who famously said that he might write for children if he had “a serious brain injury.” I don’t hobnob with the likes of Martin Amis. Alas.) This was said by a stranger whose writing is as yet unpublished. I don’t know if his writing is good or bad because “Let me take a look at it” was hardly my response.
“My vocabulary is pretty advanced,” he went on to explain. (He must have noticed my look of confusion.) “I’d need to simplify the words.” (Obviously this man had never read Eragon, which uses an entire thesaurus in its three massive volumes.)
Why this idea that young people’s literature is simplistic?
Is it because YA novels are generally a bit shorter than those for adults? Nah – whether you’re talking Twilight, The Knife of Never Letting Go, or The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, YA novels can be very lengthy.
Is it because YA novels are generally plot-driven? What, like adults are all reading Finnegans Wake and loving it? Five minutes in a library is enough to see that YA books span the same range of light to serious, funny to sad, slow-moving to frenzied, fluffy to intellectual, as books for adults do.
Maybe it’s because adults just forget what it’s like to be young. We see our own teenagers every day - texting or playing video games or applying countless coats of mascara – and that’s not the best vantage point. It’s hard to view people as shining beacons of brain power when you’re mad at them because they can’t pick up their undies after a shower or lock the door when they leave the house.
You have to shed your parent perspective to write for young adults. You need to remember what it feels like to be one. Remember how fast your mind worked and how intensely your heart pounded - a perfect combo for the most demanding books. (All the Russian novels I ever read, I read between 15 and 25.)
But what’s wrong with simple, anyway? Isn’t the entire second section of Strunk and White’s Elements of Style, that timeless writers’ bible, devoted to ways of simplifying your writing? Shouldn’t readability be a goal of every writer?
The Plain Language at Work Newsletter says that Time and Harpers are written at a 9th grade reading level. Should we assume those magazines hold simple thoughts for simple minds just because they can put their thoughts in simple words? No way. Better Homes and Gardens is written at an 11th grade level. The National Enquirer is at 12th grade. Reading levels don’t equate with intellectual value.
The average American is said to read at an eighth or ninth grade level. (I don’t know about Canadians but I’d guess it’s the same for us. Two of five Canadian adults is deemed to have “low literacy” with no, few, or simple reading skills.) We don’t have to dumb anything down for high school kids. They read Shakespeare, Steinbeck, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. They can keep up with our phrasing just fine.
If you are writing for teens and young adults, you do not have to worry about your vocabulary any more than if you are writing for adults. What you do have to worry about is whether you have a book that is interesting to young people: a plot that can grip them, characters they can relate to, a story that comes to life. To write really well for teens, you have to respect teenagers – not pat them on the head as you try to sell them words no adults will buy. If you think you have to dumb down your work to write for young people, chances are you’re not writing for them very well.
That’s my rant for the day. Thanks, Kate and Jessica, for letting me vent. Phew, that feels better. (I’m passing the torch now. If you’ve heard condescending comments about writing for young people, vent on.)
Thanks for stopping by Catherine!
Publisher: Orca Book Publishers (October 1, 2011)
Purchase Links: Amazon | Chapters | Orca
Catherine Austen's Website
Quick-witted, prank-pulling graffiti artist Maxwell Connors is more observant than the average New Middletown teenager. And he doesn’t like what he sees.
New Middletown’s children are becoming frighteningly obedient, and their parents and teachers couldn’t be happier. As Max and his friend Dallas watch their classmates transform into model citizens, Max wonders if their only hope of freedom lies in the unknown world beyond New Middletown’s walls, where creativity might be a gift instead of a liability.
I am the last stop on the book tour but be sure to check out the other previous stops HERE
Great post! I, too, am annoyed when people think adult novels are better written or more advanced than YA or even MG novels. Breaking into YA and MG is as difficult, perhaps even more difficult, then breaking into the adult market. Why? Because young people demand a lot. They want to be entertained, enlightened, and understood. They don't want authors to talk down to them. They hate being patronized. And God forbid you should make them look stupid or disrespect them in any way. But if people don't read YA or MG, they would not see that. Thanks for your rant. It was well said, Catherine.
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