Writing and Selling the YA Novel (24 page)

This is where our definition of literature becomes very important. Literature is usually defined as writings that are valued for their form in addition to their content. When referring to literature we tend to think of classic novels, poetry, or plays as opposed to journalism or technical writings.

Many authors also come up with their own definitions of literature. We each have our intent as novelists, and that intent might be to make people laugh, to entertain, or to illuminate. I would argue that if your intent is to inform, you come dangerously close to producing work that falls outside the boundaries of literature. Not that there's anything wrong with journalism or technical writing—both can be written exceedingly well—but as a novelist, you need to think about form, not didacticism.

What this means to me is that decisions about the inclusion of controversial issues such as sex, bad language, character drug use, or negative behaviors need to be made in the context of the story itself, looking first and foremost at what is necessary to write the best possible book rather than looking to promote either a moral agenda or controversy for the sake of controversy.

What makes something the best possible book?

Everyone gets to answer this on their own, but for me, the very best books shed light on human nature and show us some corner of ourselves that we either never knew existed or have long ignored. These books illuminate our world so we see it as it truly is, even if that truth is shown by contrasting reality with fantasy. The best books draw us in and make us feel something—we laugh or cry, and maybe we do both at the exact same time. The best books teach us something about our lives, but this kind of learning doesn't come as a lesson or an informational tract. It arrives through vicarious experience as we accompany the characters in a book through the world the author has created.

The question then, for each of us, is: What kind of world are we looking to create? Are we hoping to move our readers through realism, fantasy, or some combination of the two? As you think about the teenage world you're portraying, consider what realities would be a part of your character's world. Do drugs exist? If so, how close or how distant would they be to your character's experience? Would sexual feelings or sexual experiences be a part of your character's life? How would the characters speak in the environment you've chosen?

Many authors get confused and try to portray a potential reader's experience, or their own views or wishes, rather than remembering that the world that exists on the pages of a book belongs to the characters. Limitations should not be imposed based on the author's desires, or even a potential reader's desires. When that happens, worlds collide and the spell of great fiction is broken.

To give you an example of what I'm referring to, I'll use my own experiences with controversy. In
Fat Kid Rules the World,
the main character, Troy Billings, is a junior in high school who is living in Manhattan and finds entree into the alternative world of punk rock. In this world, I felt that Troy would naturally hear and use language that some people consider offensive. Since he's a teenage boy, I also felt that sexual feelings would be a part of his reality, even if sex itself wasn't. Furthermore, I felt that he'd not only be aware of drugs, but he would most likely be confronted with them up close and personal at one time or another.

Despite what some people might suggest, I didn't make the decision to include bad language, sexual feelings, or drugs in my book in an arbitrary manner, to add "spice" or controversy to my novel. Personally,

I rarely swear and I don't use or advocate the use of drugs, but when I wrote this book it wasn't
my
world I was portraying; it was Troy's. I wasn't willing to portray Troy's world as I, or anyone else,
wished
it might be. Instead I chose to portray it as I believe it truly would be. Should someone argue with the realism of that portrayal, I would have to be called to task, but if, in fact, I've done my job, hopefully I've opened a window to a world that most of us don't usually get to peer into—that of a six-foot-one, three hundred-pound, punk rock drummer in New York City.

My goal when I was writing was to create this world in a realistic way, and my hope was that people would go on a journey with the characters and, regardless of how they might personally feel about the lives portrayed, they would come to love them. After all, isn't this what life is all about? Seeing other people, places, and beliefs and accepting them for what they are rather than trying to change them into .. .
us?

In my next book,
The Liberation of Gabriel King,
which was geared to younger readers instead of teens, my characters are fourth-grade students living in Georgia in 1976. In this book you'll find no references to sex or drugs and no swear words. In this world, the insertion of swearwords, drugs, or sexual feelings would have been out of place—imposed on the text. But what you will find is the word "nigger" used by an adult and overheard by the children.

This book deals with racism, and the characters must struggle with the confusing and unfair nature of the world they live in. Since the story takes place at a time in our country's history when the civil rights movement was still new, it seemed to me that racism would certainly be a part of these children's everyday lives. Yes, the temptation to rewrite history was there. I don't find it any easier than the next person to accept the uglier realities of the world we live in, but what

would be gained by whitewashing the past and what opportunities might be lost to discuss the present?

What it comes right down to is portraying the world you've chosen with the most skill, artistry, and truth possible. Had I chosen a fantasy setting for either of these novels—an otherworldly punk rock zone in some far distant galaxy, or two kids living in the southern part of a country that never existed—I could have created these worlds with no limitations imposed by the real world. I could have created universes where different races had always existed in harmony, or a planet where sex was something teenagers never experienced, wondered about, or grappled with. But those aren't the settings I chose.

Likewise, in the modern world I might have decided to portray a different type of teenager in
Fat Kid Rules the World.
Perhaps, I might have chosen a very sheltered six-foot-one, three hundred-pound teen boy who never swore and refused to get involved in the punk rock scene because he objected to the drug use and swearing, but what a different book that would be!

Each author must make her choices about the book she wants to write. What is your premise? Who are your characters? Where is your book set? When is your book set? These choices will inform your decisions about what language and issues exist in your story. No agenda, either pro or con, can do anything but draw from the integrity of your novel.

SLANG, TECHNOLOGY, AND FADS

If sex, drugs, and bad language present types of difficulties when writing for teens, dealing with slang, technology, and fads present a whole different can of worms. Here, it's not the protective, judging eyes of

adults you need to be concerned with, but the sharp, assessing eyes of teens themselves. The modern world changes very rapidly, and just about the time you've filled your book with all the "hip" references you can muster, you'll probably find some teen snickering at you, saying, "Did she just say 'hip'? No one says 'hip' anymore!"

The same is true of technology. The moment you think you've been clever by incorporating the newest technological gadget, another greatly improved one is sure to come along. Computers, cell phones, iPods ... all of these are evolving right before our eyes, and new inventions we could never have imagined are just moments away from being thrust into the marketplace.

Staying abreast of what's happening in the world is important. You certainly don't want to make outdated references in a modern novel, but it's also important not to let the quest for relevance outweigh your characters and plot. Remember, it's the timeless aspects of a book that will make a reader want to keep reading, not the references to what's new and fashionable.

When you
do
need to refer to a cultural phenomenon—whether it's a celebrity, a musical group, a technological invention, a fashion piece, or a slang word—you can handle it in several different ways.

First, you can choose to accept your limitations. Some books are going to become dated. There will always be classics that seem as relevant today as they did when they were written—so much so that you might unconsciously remember them as if they took place today even though the setting might have been decades prior—but there are other books that are meant to capture a specific moment in time and their intent is to appeal to fast-paced modern readers who are interested in what's hot
right now.

One example of these sorts of books would be the novels that came out right about the time when the Internet was becoming popular and used the e-mail format as something new and seductive to teen readers. Looking at many of these novels now, in the age of instant messaging and MySpace pages, they often seem simple and dated in terms of their technological references, but for the authors who wrote these books, the current appeal outweighed the future chance of the technology becoming obsolete or being replaced by something newer or better.

Another way to handle the ever-changing cultural scene is to invent a new one, unique to your book. Depending on what type of book you're writing, this may or may not work for you, but some authors have pulled it off brilliantly. In the futuristic novel
Rash
by Pete Hautman, the author invents new slang, popular foods, technology, clothes ... everything you can think of that makes a teenager cool. The same is true for M.T. Anderson's
Feed,
which also takes place in the future.

But what about contemporary novels? There's no reason you can't invent popular fads in a book that takes place today. Want to reference a well-known music group? Make it a local group that all the kids love. Having difficulty choosing a wardrobe for your fashion-conscious character? Give her the type of fashion sense that's both personal and eclectic, or make up some fabulous new item she finds on a trip to Soho.

Finally, you can take the approach of choosing the classics. When it comes to fashion, celebrities, movies, and music there will always be certain references that will stand the test of time. How do you know? Because they already have. The Beatles might not be the "new" thing anymore, but if your character loves them you can guarantee kids will know who they are and the reference will have meaning. One word of warning, though. Too many classic references can get old real quick.

Another one of my pet peeves in teen novels is that so many characters watch and adore classic, black-and-white films, while in real life I know of very few teens who actually watch them. It's the equivalent of giving your character red hair and green eyes. Are there people out there with red hair and green eyes? Certainly, but the literary usage has become so common as to be cliche.

I'd suggest you use some mix of all these techniques to give your novel a timeless feel. And of course, your choices will have to be defined by the characters and the setting. For some books, the issue of modern relevance—or the hip factor—simply won't matter, either because the book is historical or because the character is withdrawn from the modern world, paying no attention to what's popular and what is not.