The reason I haven’t blogged much this week is that I’m sick. I hate being sick. Hate hate hate. So when I’m sick, on top of feeling like crap, I’m in a pretty poisonous mood. At which point, it’s usually better that I just stay off my blog. Either that or share with you some real ranty mcrant-rants.
Don’t worry, I’ve spared you.
So what have I been up to? I’ve been reading. RITA entries and Golden Heart entries, mostly. I’ve been watching old romantic comedies on DVD. French Kiss is better than I remember it being. Overboard is not. I think it’s possible I’m just much more creeped out by the slavery aspects in the latter than I was when I saw it a long time ago.
I’ve also been reading many fascinating things on the internet. And I’m here to share them with you.
Justine Larbalestier’s blog vacation has made for some truly amazing guest posts. One of my favorites is the fabulous Lauren McLaughlin on how having a baby made her look at her fiction-writing in a totally new way. I really love the way Lauren is always so honest and forthright about her development as an artist. I think there are a lot of writers out there that feed into the myth that they popped out of the box full-formed, but that’s not the case, and reading articles like Lauren’s inspire me to talk more about my development as a writer. It’s also an interesting post because I always read the Cycler character of Ramie as being a person of color. (I see Filipino, actually — anyone else?)
My other favorite Larbalesti-guest post is from my newest object of professional-crushdom, Varian Johnson, on time management. Have I mentioned how Varian, upon hearing that we’d be at the same conference, brought me a bookstore newsletter that had an article about me all the way from Austin? As if I wasn’t already crushing on him because of the awesomeness that was My Life as a Rhombus. To wit: Varian’s books rock, and so does Varian. And so does Varian’s post on how he manages to be a civil engineer and a writing professor AND a writer AND help his (drop-dead gorgeous–I met her at the aforementioned conference) wife pick out granite countertops on the weekend. And here I am with a messy house, a fridge full of chicken soup and jello, and no other job but writing. I feel like such a slacker.
Speaking of the hard-working and prolific, another blog post I liked a lot recently was Lauren Baratz-Logsted’s take on the hated prologue on the Red Room. Lauren writes in half a dozen genres (at last count) and is as big a fan of the prologue as I am (her prologue count is 10/14, mine is 5/6). The prevailing opinion, however, is that one shouldn’t write prologues. Poppycock. What one should not write, under any circumstances, are bad beginnings, whether it’s labeled prologue, chapter 1, or nothing at all. (My prologues are rarely longer than a page, and are never labeled prologues.) For me, the prologues in my books that have prologues are all about setting a theme for exploration in the book, much like an epigraph of my own design.(Indeed, my only book that doesn’t have a prologue has an epigraph. So there.)
And, speaking of writing advice, a massive depository of such can be found in these two articles in the Guardian. It was interesting to read Elmore Leonard’s, which I either don’t agree with or disregard (perhaps to my detriment), especially given how much I always loved the advice I heard was his of “leave out the parts people skip.” However, apparently he wasn’t saying what I thought he was. I thought, you know, the boring bits. He thought, long paragraphs. Huh. I do like Roddy Doyle’s advice to give your work a name as soon as possible. I always find I work much better once I have a working title. It crystallizes my theme. Also, Geoff Dyer’s:
“Beware of clichés. Not just the clichés that Martin Amis is at war with. There are clichés of response as well as expression. There are clichés of observation and of thought – even of conception. Many novels, even quite a few adequately written ones, are clichés of form which conform to clichés of expectation.”
Which I think is very important for especially genre writers to remember. So often we fall into the trap of doing something because we believe (erroneously) that it’s expected by the readers. Have characters make the unexpected choice, have the unexpected reaction. Surprise the reader.
Richard Ford says, “Marry somebody you love and who thinks you being a writer’s a good idea.” That was probably one of the best decisions I’ve ever made, so I’m right there with Ford. Sailor Boy has thought I should be a writer from the word go. He bought me tickets to my first writing conference. He’s always been one of my biggest supporters. In fact, I was on the phone with him today about a new direction in my career, and he was really pushing me forward. I’m extremely fortunate.
Hilary Mantel advises: “Write a book you’d like to read. If you wouldn’t read it, why would anybody else? Don’t write for a perceived audience or market. It may well have vanished by the time your book’s ready.” So true. I was doing an interview recently, which asked what I’d write if I didn’t have to worry about money. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to be offended by that question. Because the answer is the same damn stuff I’m writing now. I write books I want to write, and books I’d like to read, and I always expect that I’m not the only one who feels that way. Yes, I get paid for projects, but I’ve also turned things down that were worth good money because I didn’t want to write them. I think you can feel that sort of thing in the writing. Write for yourself, and the rest will fall in line.
I also love everything Jeannette Winterson says. There’s a lot of good advice in these articles, and a lot I think is ehhhh, but, you know what they say about opinions.
What else have I been reading? Well, there’s this laughable suit going on against JK Rowling. Man, people will do anything for a buck, I think. And PublishAmerica, a vanity publishing house, is now telling their authors that they will submit their supposedly good-as-the-big-guys “published” book to Random House, because (this is my favorite part): “Every writer dreams about becoming a published author. Once they have reached that goal, as you have, many dream of the next step up: to become a Random House author. Random House is one of the most prestigious publishing names. Their extensive operation a few miles from our own headquarters makes them virtual neighbors.”
So apparently every published author’s dream is to become a Random House author? (Disclaimer: I actually am a Random House author, and happy about it.) But I know lots of writers who are perfectly happy not being Random House authors and, when given the choice, chose not to become Random House authors in favor of better contract terms at, say, Penguin or Little, Brown. The whole letter is worth reading for entertainment value though. In passing, last I heard, PA was in Frederick, Maryland. Random House is located on Broadway, in New York City. This “extensive operation a few miles” away the letter is talking about is actually a Random House distribution warehouse in Westminster (yay, Google Maps). Hint: they don’t acquire manuscripts there. I feel sorry for the RH mailroom clerks who are going to have to deal with this influx of bound slush from PA.
And, last but not least, I enjoyed this blog post by author Kate Douglas on the challenges of breaking into a new genre, and how to stay published, even when you’re being published very well.
Okay, so now that I have my toast and Rio’s dirty looks have morphed from their earlier, “You’re not really going to eat me, are you mommy?” tenor to “You’re not really going to share that toast and blackberry jam with me, are you Mommy?” tenor, I guess I can go on.
Mmmmm, toast.
So anyway, as you may have picked up from my oh-so-subtle hints (particularly on the last blog post), I have signed a new book contract. It is actually the second book contract I signed this year, but I got the offer for that one last year. Yes, it’s been a momentous year. This contract will keep Rio in kibble for another two years, so that’s good. It will also keep my readers (hi, readers!) in Diana Peterfreund books for the years 2011 and 2012. The contract is with Balzer & Bray, a team that I’m really excited to be working with, and my editor will again be the remarkable Kristin Daly.
I’m not saying what the first book in the contract is, though. That’s kind of a secret for now. But, when revealed (let’s say a month or two), it will probably surprise no one who knows me like, at all. Suffice to say for now, that this is a dream project, a project that I always thought I’d write, you know, someday, and I’m shocked that someday is suddenly now. This year. Today, in fact. It has a working title, but it’s a very working kind of working title. Maybe. I dunno.
I hate titles (until I hit upon the perfect one). Almost as much as I hate the snow.
You know what I don’t hate? Character names. The nice thing about starting a whole new book is that I get to come up with whole new character names. See, writing series, as I have been, means that I at best only get to come up with a few new names per book. Like Micah Price (and Jamie Orcutt) or Darren Gehry and Salt or Michelle Whitmore and Topher Cox (I was particularly proud of that one) in successive books in the SSG series. I came up with all the names for Rampant like five years ago, so being able to come up with a few new names (all French) for Ascendant was fun, too. I also got to come up with fantabulous new names for all the short stories I’ve been writing, and really, I think I outdid myself. Not having new characters to name for so long made each one all the more precious.
But these names for my new book? Oh, how I heart them! I hug each one too me, and pat them, my preciouses.
Also, don’t tell Carrie Ryan, but I think my name obsession is totally contagious. You should hear her talking about names these days. I did that.
I wonder, also, if readers care as much about the names I give my characters as I do. If they see a girl named Philippa and realize it means “Horse lover” or a set of characters named Cornelia and Cornelius and realize they have the names they do because of their unicorn hunting heritage. (An early reader — and really, I should just tell you, it was Carrie, which makes me all the more happy I’ve converted her to my evil, name-obsessive ways) was like “Do you realize you named two characters Cornelia and Cornelius?” and I was like, “Yes, because Cornelia’s mom, Sybil, gave her the female version of the family name Sybil’s brother has.” And it wasn’t like it was even confusing, since they went by Cory and Neil, which don’t look alike at all. I don’t like it when too many characters have names that look alike, which was annoying when I realized I’d gone ahead and named three of the most important characters in the SSG series all names that started with J. Oops. Who knew Josh and Jenny would end up being so important?
Also, you will be pleased to learn that I have broken through my A-obsession. The main character of this book does not have a name that starts with an A. Though she should. (That was a hint, people.)
Here I have had the opportunity to name like a dozen new characters. It’s so exciting. I’m drunk with options.
(I would like to point out that my husband shudders at the thought of someday naming a baby with me. You think I’m obsessive when it comes to fictional people? Ha. Ha ha. Though the benefit is that fictional people never have to endure playground taunts. I mean, except Astrid. Poor Astrid.)
Also, I really, really love these characters’ names. They might be my favorite names of all time. I’m having so much fun with their names, I am afraid I might be neglecting other things. Like, you know, actually writing the book.
So like every child of the nineties, I was obsessed with Calvin and Hobbes. We had all the collections in my house and I loved reading them, over and over. I really connected with Calvin — his limitless imagination, his ability to turn anything into a narrative, his love of nature. Sailor Boy and I often quote lines from our favorite comic strips, especially the one where Calvin comes upon Hobbes sleeping in the sun and begins to recite:
“My tiger, it seems, it running ’round nude,
His fur coat must have made him perspire.
It lies on the floor, should this be construed
As a permanent change of attire?
Perhaps he considered its colors passé,
Or maybe it fit him too snug.
Will he want it back? Should I put it away?
Or leave it right here as a rug?”
It should be noted that Rio, to whom this poem is most often directed, is about as amused by our efforts as Hobbes was in the strip.
At its height, C&H was subject to a ton of copyright violations. Though Watterson never licensed his images for commercialization. the streets were rife with cars bearing bumper stickers of an evil, peeing Calvin. And then, Watterson ended the strip (to a great fan outcry), and lived as a recluse. But recently he gave an interview to a local Cleveland reporter. Naturally, I was all over it.
My disappointment in the interview is mainly that, with all the opportunity the reporter had to ask BW about his long career, he settled for basically asking the same question over and over again. Look:
What do you think it was about “Calvin and Hobbes” that went beyond just capturing readers’ attention, but their hearts as well?
What are your thoughts about the legacy of your strip?
What would you like to tell the fans who are still grieving about the end of your strip?
Because your work touched so many people, fans feel a connection to you, like they know you. How do you deal with knowing that it’s going to follow you for the rest of your days?
How do you want people to remember that 6-year-old and his tiger?
You can actually see Watterson growing frustrated with having to answer it repeatedly over the course of the interview. There was literally only ONE question that veered from this repetitive pattern: “Do you like the idea of a C&H postage stamp?”
Watterson was pretty gracious though. He just kept beating the drum of: “The only part I understand is what went into the creation of the strip. What readers take away from it is up to them. Once the strip is published, readers bring their own experiences to it, and the work takes on a life of its own. Everyone responds differently to different parts.”
This is so true. Now, decades later, I’m an author myself, and I see that what people choose to take away from my book could be what I put in there or could not. It can sometimes be something that I never even saw in the text myself.
I spend a lot of time wrestling with the notion of “Why did Reader X get this part of the book, but Reader Y missed it? Why did Reader Z love this part of my other book but doesn’t love a similar part in my new book?” (Curse you, internet, and your proliferation of reader reaction blogs and websites!) BUt I can’t control what experiences the reader is bringing to my work, and how the simplest turn of phrase might jar something inside of him or her.
I wonder what the secret is to Watterson’s zen. How it is that he came to a place where he could say, “I just tried to write honestly, and I tried to make this little world fun to look at, so people would take the time to read it” and be done with it. Because when I’m writing, I believe that. When I’m writing, I think to myself, Oh, isn’t this fun. I really like this part. I think this part is fun to read, I think people are going to like this. I am writing for the reader’s entertainment. I want to make the experience of reading one of my books a good experience for the reader. I want it to be exciting and informative and romantic and scary and funny and sad.
But whether it IS to each individual reader — well, that’s up to them.
And, in passing, what a waste. What great questions the reporter could have asked! “What do you think Calvin is doing now, all grown up? Is he an astronaut? A writer? Is he a desk jockey with a marvelous inner life? Does he drive his wife crazy with sick snowman jokes every February? Does he take his kids for hikes through the woods? Does he recite poetry to his dogs while they nap on the rug?”
I was reading Justine’s blog the other day and saw her post talking about which of her old ideas she was writing and how few of them were things she thought she’d be working on. I went and looked back at my most recent post about the subject, which is from May of this year, and was kind of shocked. Because, um, I don’t even remember what two of the four projects I mentioned are right now. I do write all my ideas down, though, so I’m sure they are still around, but I haven’t the foggiest what in particular I was talking about.
As for the other two, things are still in progress. I’m still working on one of the projects, and I recently submitted a proposal that included the other. So… yay. We shall see if anything comes of those.
The two untitled 2010 releases I mentioned in that post now have titles: Ascendant, the second of the killer unicorn books; and “The Care and Feeding of Your Baby Killer Unicorn”, which will be released as part of the Zombies Vs. Unicorns anthology.
Also, in Brazil, we shall see the release of Rites of Spring (Break).
I also have two more releases planned for 2010, and hopefully I shall be able to talk about them soon. (!!!) Speaking of those two unnamed releases, that’s what I’m working on finishing up right now. Hardcore. And that’s basically the first month of 2010 for me right there.
And after that, we’ll see. What I work on come February of 2010 is a bright and beautiful mystery, dependent on the far more prosaic circumstances of what I sell. One of the interesting facets of this job is how much it changes depending on where I am in my contracts. What my “job” was in 2009 was a very different thing than it was in the three years of full time-writing that came before that.
2009 started out in a rough patch. One of my imprints was folded up; one of my books had its release date pushed back. That winter, I was pretty depressed about both of these things, but in retrospect, I realize I was lucky. Unlike a lot of titles in this recession, neither of my books was canceled. When Tap & Gown came out, it was well-received by my fans, and Rampant had an amazing release. During the spring, however, I was pretty sure the publication delay was going to kill me. I wasn’t used to the scheduling of YA, and I’d already waited so long for it to hit the shelves. To my regret, I let my disappointment and anxiety drag on me way too much last spring and summer. I’ve always thought my publisher made the correct decision in delaying the release, but given my massive anticipation, I felt like a kid being told I had to wait until Easter to open my Christmas presents. I’ve learned my lesson in that regard. Sometimes books come out when you expect them to. Sometimes not. Either way, moping’s not going to do me much good.
As the year progressed, things got considerably better, in large part because I was working hard. I was offered two short story contracts (my first two ever), as well as the secret project. I got my first-ever royalty check. I had my first viable “new ideas” since 2005 (the year I came up with Secret Society Girl and killer unicorns), and wrote proposals for them both. It actually turned out to be a pretty good year, though there were parts of it that had me worried.
My career is very young, and though I’ve been warned that in this business that there are up years and down years, I hadn’t properly prepared for it. And again, I’m really lucky. A NYT bestselling friend of mine told me about how she went 12 years between releases at one point in her career. Seen in perspective, 2009 wasn’t actually a “down year.” I had two books out (and a non-fiction collection) and I ended up selling several new projects. The moral of 2009 can be best summed up in the immortal words of Dorie the fish from FINDING NEMO: “Just keep swimming.” Just keep writing, keep getting projects out there, and see what happens. I took this mantra to heart especially in the latter half of 2009, accepting opportunities that came my way, and seeking out new ones.
(In fact, I just (this week) got an offer, which goes to show you that things do happen at Christmastime.)
That my takeaway from this last year is about focusing on my work will doubtless surprise no one who has been in this industry for any length of time. “Protect the work” is a truism for career writers, not only because the work is the only thing we have utter control over, but also because it’s the only thing that truly satisfies. However much I love a good review (and believe me, it’s a LOT), the thing that has me singing and skipping after a long day at the keyboard is having had a long, productive day at the keyboard. I adore “having written” (to misquote Dorothy Parker), because that — more than seeing my book on the shelves or getting an email from a fan or reading a good review — is what reminds me that I am working at my dream job. Creating these stories, getting so excited about them — that’s the very heart of my job.
Now I’m looking at 2010. What exactly it will contain isn’t clear to me yet. If everything goes as I hope it will, 2010 will be whirlwind of writing, even as it’s also a whirlwind of releases. (Again: four!!!). My goals are pretty lofty this year. We’ll see if I can hack them.
Goals for 2010:
Paint rooms in house I want painted.
Write at least two novels.
Finish Secret Project #2. (Please note: this might be one of the 2 novels, but I’m listing it separately, since I really want to write THIS ONE especially.)
Take Rio to agility classes.
Install bookshelves in rec room.
Go on a real vacation with Sailor Boy.
Redecorate master bedroom.
Make a podcast.
Sign a new contract.
Plant a garden again.
Read at least 50 books.
Write a totally unexpected project of some sort. (I did this in 2009 and it was inspiring.)
I kind of hate that we’ve decided that today marks the end of a decade, not least because I spent quite a lot of energy at the turn of 2000 trying to explain to people that it wasn’t, in fact, the first year of the decade at all. (There was no year zero, and decades start in the year with the last numeral of 1.) Given that, at the time, I was mostly surrounded by members of the college graduating class of 2001, this was an easy argument to make, as we’d all prefer to be the first graduating class of the new millennium than the second.
Apparently, in the intervening years, we’ve lost that argument. Seriously, I remember stopping my subscription to National Geographic because they made the argument that 2000 should start the millennium because — wait for it — it “sounded” better than 2001. Very scientific of you, NG.
So the prevailing opinion of the masses maintains the twenty-teens start tomorrow, and everyone is busy doing this whole “decade-in-review” thing. It’s made also very difficult for me, at least, because it’s tough to look back on this “decade” given that, for the first year of said “decade” I was still a college kid, and my life was extraordinarily different. If I was counting from 2001, as I should be (ahem!) and finishing up next year, as I should be, it would probably be even more notable and transformative.
Because, y’know, I expect 2010 to rock like a mountain.
So, what happened in the last decade of my life? (To keep this manageable, I’m focusing on personal and professional developments.)
in 2000: I began my first novel since I’d been a child. I didn’t get very far. It was an awkward, labored bit of category romance about a wedding coordinator who falls for one of her clients. My then boyfriend oh-so-helpfully pointed out the existence of the upcoming Matthew McConaghey/J-Lo vehicle, which pretty much killed any desire I had to keep working on that story. Also in 2000, I met Sailor Boy. Sailor Boy has been a massive influence on my writing life. I’m so lucky to have him.
In 2001: I took my one and only short story writing class in college, for which I wrote two short stories, both of which were entirely misunderstood by my rather short-sighted creative writing instructor. One was chick lit. The other was a ghost story. Both were overtly feminist. I’m sure it was a mix of the genre and the message that tripped him up. Sailor Boy loved them. I ended up with a B in the class. (Maybe a B+? I can’t remember.) I graduated from college. I started the first novel I was to ever finish, which was also an awkward, labored bit of category romance. I got on a New York City-bound plane the morning of September 11, 2001. I met Julie Leto. I got my first apartment, in Astoria (followed quickly by my second apartment in Astoria). I got my first full time post-college job.
In 2002: I lost my first full time job. I finished my first and second novel (also a category romance). I published my first feature article (a front page story about Julie Leto). I moved to Florida to write for a newspaper. I joined RWA. I sent out my first novel query letter and received my first request.
In 2003: I finalled in my first writing contest. I received my first (and second) rejection. I wrote a novella and my third novel (an action-adventure set in Europe). I started my fourth novel (as well as a bunch of other things). I attended my first RWA conference (care of a birthday present registration by Sailor Boy) and pitched to my first editors and agents. I got a request from the agent who would eventually come to represent me. I moved to Australia with Sailor Boy, and then to New Zealand.
In 2004: I returned to the United States. I got another job working for the newspaper. I won several writing contests. I got about 20 rejections for books I’d already written, including one from my now-agent. I worked on my fourth novel (a paranormal romance).
In 2005: I got the idea for Secret Society Girl. I moved with Sailor Boy to DC. I bought my first car. I finished my fourth novel. I wrote and submitted a proposal for Secret Society Girl. I got a job in DC. I got an agent and sold my first book, as well as a sequel, in an auction beyond my wildest dreams. I wrote my first published book. I stopped counting my rejections.
In 2006: I became a full time writer. My first book came out. I had my first (and so far only) New York launch party for my book. I got engaged. I wrote my sixth novel (second contracted). I wrote my first non-fic essay for publication in a book (Judy Blume).
In 2007: I sold my second contract (the third and fourth books in the secret society girl series). I sold my third contract (Rampant and its sequel), also at auction. (Sailor Boy had been in lvoe with the idea for several years.) I wrote my first critical essay for BenBella. I wrote my seventh novel (third contracted). My first and second book came out in paperback. I got married.
In 2008: I traveled to Europe to do research for Rampant, which I subsequently finished writing (#8). My third novel (seventh written) was published. I wrote my second and third critical essays on YA literature for BenBella. I bought a house. I got a dog, Rio. I wrote novel #9.
In 2009: I turned 30. I published my fourth book, which was the last book in my first series. I wrote and sold two short stories, my first ever for professional publication (they’ll both be out in 2010). My first YA/first fantasy was published. I finished writing my tenth book. I started work on a project unlike any I’ve ever done before.
Pretty good decade, no matter how you cut it. In my (mostly) twenties, I graduated from college, had a few random jobs, started my career, met a guy, got married, bought a house.
“Recently I’ve read a few books where a character is introduced a few chapters into the story and the narrator/main character describes her as “black” or “Asian” or “Hispanic.” It always jolts me because the rest of the characters in the book are not described as “white,” but it is assumed as a reader I know they are. Now if by saying a character has blue eyes and red hair the author figures I’ll know the character is white, why can’t he/she just say something like “her eyes were as brown as her skin” to describe someone who is black? It just comes across that the author assumes his/her readers are white. Does this bother anyone else? Am I being overly sensitive? For the record, I’m white.”
There have been several posts recently about the issue of describing race in novels, with the general complaint being that if a character is described as “black” or “Asian” or etc. then why aren’t white characters described as white?
“Doing good descriptions is hard, because you have to choose which facts are relevant to mention. How people *interpret* these facts–well, that’s another matter entirely. But when you write something, you have to have SOME sense of what impact your words are going to mean. That is pretty much the job description. Those descriptions are code–they should tell you something about the character, something aside from what’s there, flat, on the page.”
“When the characters, plot, or setting requires an author to define race, how does he or she accomplish this? Is there a “Korean kid” or a “black girl”? The problem is that socially constructed race words like African American, black, Asian American, and Latina are typically used only for characters who aren’t of European descent. North American authors conventionally don’t use “European American” or “white” to describe characters because to label every character’s race makes reading tedious. Why use any such labels at all, then? The best answer is because it made sense for a particular character or a first-person narrator to label people with those terms.
“If labels aren’t used, but you know a character is nonwhite, ask yourself and your students how the author communicated that fact. Check for tired food-related clichés about “coffee-colored” skin or “almond-shaped” eyes versus fresh, bold attempts to delineate race and culture in a story.”
And this is pretty much how I’ve gone about it. I’m sure it says something about me as a reader that despite living in a very multicultural world, I’m going to assume a character is white unless told otherwise (by the cover, the character themselves, or a description). Of course, there are exceptions — for instance, if I’m reading a novel about a prince in medieval Japan, I’m going to assume his ethnicity is, you know, Japanese. And it changes, too. If I’d picked up a novel a few years ago about the daughter of the President of the USA, I’d picture someone who looked like one of the Bush girls. Now, I’d picture one of the Obama girls. And that’s because my head goes to the “president’s daughter” file in my brain and the first picture that pops up is the REAL president’s daughters.
Or maybe Zoe Bartlett.
In SSG, the characters’ races/ethnicities/minority status were very much part of the story, as sometimes they were selected for the society to fulfill certain token spots. Rose & Grave needed the gay black member, the male Asian-American member, the Muslim Middle-Eastern member, the Jewish member. The narrator Amy, who is white, is also more likely to think of someone’s race if it’s a race different from her own.
In Rampant, the characters’ nationalities actually took precedence over their races, but it also didn’t make sense to me, knowing as I did that Alexander the Great started out from the eastern edge of Europe and moved east across the Middle East and Asia, and then the three thousand years of history that followed, that all the characters would be white. Most readers (rightly) assumed that Grace Bo, from Singapore (and an Asian hunting line), was of Asian descent. Funny story about Grace: in college, I wrote a short story about a girl named Grace (no last name) who was in medical school, and EVERY SINGLE PERSON who read it assumed (wrongly) that the short story Grace was Asian-American, probably because most of the people we knew who had names like Grace and were studying to be doctors were in fact Asian American. So maybe that contributed to my thought process when naming Grace Bo Grace. Well, that and the fact that Grace under pressure is the big discovery that character makes in Rampant. Readers also probably picked up on the fact that Ilesha, from India, was Southeast Asian, and knowing that Valerija comes from eastern Europe is enough to get a picture of her appearance in your head.
But this isn’t always the case. Despite quite explicitly describing the French hunter Zelda as having dark black skin, there were readers who translated that as “dark black hair” and I sometimes wonder if I made a mistake not being specific in my descriptions of Giovanni. Yes, he’s half-Italian, half-American. But when you picture Giovanni, do you see this?
Because that’s what he looks like. And though Astrid describes him in detail, she never specifically says he’s black. And a lot of readers have taken her descriptions of dark skin and curly, close cropped hair as being indicative of white Italians. I know many white Italians who have, for white people, “dark” skin and dark curly or wavy hair. My brother, for instance, who is practically as Italian as Giovanni.
I did not get the dark skin and hair in the genetic lottery. I REALLY did not get the curly hair. But I digress.
Anyway, I don’t know what the right answer is, and it’s one I’m going to revisit in every book, because I’m going to continue to write characters of many different ethnicities. In my experience, I think the possible danger of throwing a reader out of the story by explicitly describing a character’s race like the question on Daphne’s blog is probably a fair price to pay for making sure that your readers know the race of the character. YMMV.
Another challenge would be to describe the character’s race in a time when the words we use don’t mean anything. How would a character in, say, Carrie Ryan’s books describe people of different races? They don’t even believe in the ocean in that book. Do they believe in continents like Asia and Africa? You’re not Asian-American if there’s no America, if no one knows what happened to Asia.
The following post has spoilers for RAMPANT. If you haven’t read RAMPANT, consider yourself warned.
Yesterday, I discovered a review of Rampant online. Which pretty much makes it a day ending in -y, but this one had me on the verge of hysterics. I love reviews that make me look at my own work in a new way, and this one made me look at it in a way that was simultaneously off the wall and yet, made a lot of sense.
Here’s the part that had me and Sailor Boy laughing our butts off:
And oh yes, the tall mysterious stranger who regularly saves Astrid’s life, spouts meaningful broody comments about her destiny and is possibly flirting with her? The if-this-was-Buffy-he-would-be-Angel character? It’s a unicorn.
Now, my pal Sarah Rees Brennan has long advocated for an Astrid-hearts-Bucephalus love story, and I have long advocated that she should seek professional counseling on this matter, but I never put together the reason that she feels this is so right and true — and now I do. It’s because, in the story, Bucephalus’s role is the one usually filled by the wiser/more cynical/world-weary/advisor dude who totally has the hots (or vice versa, or mutual) for our naive heroine. Think Han Solo and the virginal, white-clad Leia. Think the Goblin King Jared and all the advantage he tries to take of the nubile Jennifer Connolly (man, that movie is disturbing. The more I think about it, the more disturbing it gets.) Aragorn and Eowyn. Buffy and Angel. Angel’s a few hundred years old and he spends the entirety of the first season ridiculing, reluctantly saving/assisting, advising, and blowing off Buffy (my favorite line of the series might be when Xander, by far a more noble character, is basically like, WTF, really?), and, also, he wants to get in her pants.
You see, boy heroes in fantasy get elderly wizard-types who are conveniently killed by the enemy. Girl heroes get sardonic older-but-sexy types who want to sleep with them.
So that’s interesting.
Ways that Bucephalus is like Angel:
Knows more about heroine’s powers than she does
Knows more about heroine’s enemies than she does
Has been secretly watching over heroine
Is older and more experienced than the heroine (bonus points for WAY older)
Possesses more than a little cynicism and world-weariness
Is not entirely trustworthy to heroine, not least because
Is someone that the heroine should, by rights, be killing.
Ways in which Bucephalus is nothing like Angel:
Does not want to have sex with the heroine.
Is not seeking redemption in any way.
And the redemption, to be honest, is pretty Angel-specific (or, hell, let’s say vampire specific, as another dozen examples pop into my head). Lord knows David Bowie’s not looking for any of that nonsense, and Han Solo is pretty much dragged kicking and screaming into the whole rebellion thing. So, aside from the sex, we’ve got ourselves a character type. A type that does not actually map to “large venomous bovid species” so much as “hot dude in tight pants.”
Sarah, everything makes so much more SENSE now!
And yet… no. There will be no hot hot hot Astrid/Bucephalus action in Ascendant.
Dmitri and Rose. Bill and Sookie. Eric and Sookie. Poor Sookie!
But I wonder how much our reactions as an audience are mapped out for us by these stock character roles. I remember watching Avatar: The Last Airbender (really hate that I have to specify lately) and waiting and waiting and waiting for the episode where Iroh dies. You know, because he’s the elderly wizard-like advisor who is coaxing Zuko back toward the side of good. And then, when he doesn’t (ironically, the actor voicing him did), being really shocked. Not really knowing what to make of it. You see, I’d had him written off as Merlin/Gandalf/Obi-Wan/Dumbledore. And he wasn’t.
So maybe Sarah’s theories about Bucephalus as tortured romantic hero weren’t — as I always accused her — a product of her unique and uncanny ability to latch on the most unlikely romantic pairing in any work of literature to great comic effect, but rather a reflection of our indoctrination into this trope of fantasy fiction — the sardonic older protector who takes the pretty young thing under his wing (or hoof, as the case may be) and is hella sexy to boot.
Poe and Amy. Yowza. And that’s not even fantasy.
And there’s a lot to be said here on the topic of why a (primarily female readership) is interested in this paradigm. Even if the women are strong, the men must be stronger? Does the girl have a special power? The men’s power has got to be bigger and better? He has to know more about it than she does? Is that true? I remember the guidelines for the old Silhouette Bombshell line of action-adventure romances. They were looking for strong heroines and heroes who were their match.
I wrote a book aimed at that market, about a very strong woman who owns a security company and hires an agent who doesn’t like to play by the rules. They fall in love. In the revision letter, I was told to cut her backstory (she started the company to avenge the kidnapping and death of her younger sister), make HIM the owner of the company, and have him hire her, who was to be reassigned a generic military background. Oh, and could I set it in South America instead of Europe? And dump the plot?
Suffice to say, I did not do those revisions. I’m not sure what kind of book they were looking for, but it clearly wasn’t the one I wrote. I offered to write them a different book. And what stuck with me most out of all the things they asked me to change was the way they wanted the power dynamic of the characters to switch. They didn’t want HER owning the company and hiring HIM (even though he was incredibly knowledgeable about both the business and the case they were on. (And therefore mapped pretty well to the paradigm.) He was as smart as she was, as good an agent as she was, as well trained in martial arts and use of weaponry as she was… (actually, he was an explosives expert).
It was many years later that I began writing Rampant, and from the beginning, I knew I had a very different romantic plan for Astrid. She’s strong, physically, and she’s very brave, and she has special powers, but the man for her is not the one who teaches her how to use a sword, or knows more about her magic than she does. Because I believe that strength can be complementary as well as corresponding. Giovanni strength is his normalcy. He’s a rock in her very unstable world. Which I suppose makes him the mirror of Bucephalus.
Seriously, this is all making sense to me now. I just thought that Irish dame was spouting nonsense.
So I know I owe y’all a big continuation of the Nice Guys exploration and I promise I’ll be getting to it, but I’m so ridiculously swamped right now, you have no idea. Meanwhile, here’s two interesting posts by Sarah Rees Brennan and Justine Larbalestier about the Blank Page Heroine — or the personality-less girl that often serves as either a male fantasy or a stand-in for female readers to insert themselves into the story and run off with the hot hero. One of the big tips in writing romance novels is to have a hero your reader wants to fall in love with an a heroine your reader wants to be. Relatable != Personality-free.
Go read those posts. In the comments section of Justine’s post, PixelFish brings up the topic of geeky characters, which is one type of personality that doesn’t get a lot of play in traditional romances:
I also wanna mention Meg Cabot who writes some geeky heroines in her adult romances. (My favourite is a short redhead who reads gossip columns, watches the weather channel and has a Princess Xen action figure.) I compare that to another writer who I will refrain from naming who claimed to write about geeks but only wrote Hollywood geeks–ie. beautiful people who just needed to take their glasses off to find love. Whereas Meg Cabot’s geeks are geeks to the bone. Her character wasn’t going to stop watching the Weather Channel or ditch the Xena figure just to get a guy.
I started thinking about geeky characters, and their portrayal in fiction. I have recently finished watching all the available episodes of GREEK, and among my myriad problems with the show (inconsistent characterizations, sexism, massively bad stereotyping) is the way they codify geekiness. It’s not “quite” as bad as watching an episode of Saved By the Bell, but it’s close.
For instance, the two main characters, Casey and Rusty Cartwright, are a brother and sister who fall firmly among the “popular cheerleader” “geek loser” lines. Casey, the older sister, is a gorgeous blonde who is the leader of her “best sorority on campus,” has an active social and sex life, and is time and again shown to be very shallow (picking taps pledges based on their hotness factor). It is established that her younger brother Rusty is a “loser” whom she doesn’t even acknowledge to her closest friends, predicated mainly on the fact that he wears striped polo shirts, turned down MIT to come to this state school and study “Honors engineering” and is a “genius” who doesn’t do tequila shots. Rusty wishes to join a fraternity, and is quickly welcomes into the embrace of the “loser” frat on campus, Gamma Tau. (And by “loser” they seem to mean “Animal House” not “Revenge of the Nerds” as this frat clearly throws amazing parties that seem to be populated every weekend by hundreds of students. Later in the series it is established that there is a frat for “nerds” called something that sounds like “sci fi” but is made of Greek letters, where the members all wear glasses and watch Star Trek.)
The members of Casey’s sorority, though they are the “hottest” girls on campus, are constantly worried about being associated more often with this “loser” party frat than with the blazer-wearing trust-fund frat Sigma Chi, who are supposedly the “hottest” guys on campus — DESPITE the fact that the leader of the “loser” frat is easily the most attractive and interesting person on the show, is tapped for the super special senior secret society that the leader of the “best” fraternity is also tapped for, has a long string of hotties to date and regularly dates the members of Casey’s so called “best” sorority (later, this becomes an issue, as apparently their intimate connection to the “loser” frat brings down their reputation on campus). Meanwhile, the members of this “hottest fraternity” are mostly either openly gay or closeted (thereby negating the purpose of being a source of dates for their “best sorority partners) or butt ugly (as evinced by the short, pale, pugilistic crew cut red head currenlty rallying the other frat members against the Jason Dohring lookalike frat leader)…
To make a long story short, I don’t really grok the understood and unstated value system which informs every plotline on the show, but that might be because I’m the kind of person who knows what grok means. To the characters of Greek, I would be a geek/loser relegated to (undeniably popular and sociable) fraternities, if I managed to make it into one at all.
I have a hard time understanding that. I didn’t go to a big frat school. I don’t even know if any of the frats were residential, but I do know that I had sorority girls as roommates (and my husband had fraternity boys) as upperclassmen. I always imagined there was a frat for every flavor at the schools where frats are a thing. And I have a really tough time understanding why the frat with the reputation for throwing the best parties on campus could be simultaneously regarded as “losers” — especially since time and again, the characters say they joined the greek system “for the parties.”
It’s a similar problem to the one I find watching The Big Bang Theory and How I Met Your Mother, where often, in adjacent episodes, the characters make the EXACT SAME geeky reference (often to Star Wars). In the former show, the characters are drawn as out of touch losers with no friends outside their circle and zero romantic opportunities. In the latter show, the characters are drawn as attractive, sociable members of society with hot wives, hot girlfriends, and an endless parade of hot one night stands. (Also in the latter, the hot girl dates make geeky references too.) Since when does liking science fiction and academia turn you into an unsocialized loser?
Honestly, HIMYM feels way more realistic to me. Geeks come in all shapes and sizes, and some of us have happy, sociable, romantically fulfilled lives with our cool, cute geek husbands, thank you very much. We don’t live in Revenge of the Nerds or Saved by the Bell, people. Look around. The geeks have inherited the Earth.
I didn’t set out to write “geek” characters. The characters of Secret Society Girl are, granted, far more “geeky” — by Greek standards! — just by dint of studying hard enough to make it into an Ivy League school. I had to laugh at Pixelfish’s suggestion of “taking off the glasses to find love,” since the hottest and most popular guy in my books by far is George Prescott, who wears glasses and gets the girl. He also rocks a mean Star Wars reference on many occasions.
Poe, however, is a character whose geekiness is overlaid by general anti-social behavior. It’s not just that he wears old, ill-fitting clothes as a poor undergrad and owns a giant pet snake named Voldemort and was probably a D&D Dungeonmaster growing up. It’s that he doesn’t seem to want to be friends with most people and most people return the favor.
None of the girls in SSG are coded as geeks, either, and really, that’s part of the point. When I got to college, I realized that many of the interests that might have gotten you in trouble in the rigid high school hierarchy no longer existed. There was a larger pool of students from which you could draw your own social group, and even the most party animal of kids (again, I suppose “party animal” is coded as “loser” on Greek) were bookish nerds about something, otherwise, they wouldn’t have been at Yale.
Jenny, probably the shyest of the taps, is a computer engineer, but she has a large group of friends in both her computer and religious circles and can hold her own in most social situations.Her shyness is a cover, because she also has a smart mouth, and I always imagine her being much more outspoken online and probably more used to that in her day to day life — until the Diggers got their hands on her.
And part of it also is that I was writing about young adults at a highly competitive college. They were 21 years old and, for the most part had come to terms with their personality types and the friendships those engendered. That was the whole point of the society — to break them out of that mold and make them friends with people that weren’t part of their social group. (Greek has something similar with the leaders of rival frats joining the same secret society.) But I could also play with the hierarchy label, especially in the first book, where Amy’s insecurities about George and Clarissa are not even recognized by the other two characters. Amy’s whole reason for hating Clarissa is because she knew that Clarissa talked bad about her freshman year. Back when they were teenagers. Back when Clarissa and Amy were both more caught up in the idea of high school-style hierarchy. Clarissa, at 21, doesn’t even remember it. It’s no longer part of her personality or worldview.
And then I wrote a YA novel, and I got to bring the whole high school hierarchy back into play.
Astrid, in Rampant, comes from a high school society far more focused on sports (Phil is popular because she plays volleyball, Brandt is popular because he swims) but her borderline status is due to her own shyness, her mother’s reputation around town and family as a crazy person, and the fact that a lot of 16 year old boys are put off by 16 year old girls who are smarter than them, especially in the sciences. Nevertheless, she is, at the start of the novel, dating someone, and she gets another boyfriend in Rome.
I didn’t realize this as writing it, but I’ve had teen girls come up to me and say that Astrid must be very beautiful and popular, to have two boyfriends. I don’t really think of it that way, given the nature of her relationship with Brandt. He was her first boyfriend, and he’s the kind of guy who dates a lot of girls. Personally, I think he’s taking advantage of Astrid’s place in the social pecking order, especially in her first year at school where she doesn’t have Phil around as an anchor. But though Astrid’s love of science might code her as a geek, her mother’s reputation pushes her more into the “freak” realm. Either way, her social standing at school is far from secure. And then I take her out of that environment and put her in the Cloisters, where she suddenly finds herself to be at the top of the totem pole, part of an inner clique among unicorn hunters — a social structure that would be utterly alien to the kids on Greek. And she feels just as uncomfortable there.
I wonder if YA fiction is written about more “geeks” — more people who feel out of place in their environment. Because I think almost every kid does, no matter where they truly stand in society. I can think of very few books (outside the Gossip Girl and knock off group) written about the most popular girl and usually they are “the popular girl brought low” variety — like SKINNED by Robin Wasserman, which is a futuristic sci-fi take on destroying the life of the popular girl. And even Gossip Girl has that outsider perspective, the perspective of the gossip girl narrator.
My own high school experience was fine. Don’t get me wrong, there was plenty of relationship drama, and a lot of the time I felt like I was on the outs with certain groups, but I also had plenty of friends. I went to a small high school (~60 people per grade) and lines weren’t drawn that way. The captain of the soccer team (we didn’t have football) was also the lead in the school play. The student body president was also the artsy, guitar-playing party kid (I dated him — in fact, he was my only high school boyfriend, an experience that proved I was so not ready for the whole boyfriend/girlfriend thing at 16). We didn’t have much of a geek/cool kid divide. People hung out in different groups, but there was also tons of crossover and no one really looked down on any other group. I remember talking to one of my good friends, who was definitely part of the jock crowd and partied more than most of my friends, but was also in highest AP calculus and ended up at Princeton, and he was marveling about how the stereotype at most schools is that the “mean, popular” kids were all the jocks, but the theater kids in my school were way more stuck up. I was a theater kid, and had been, I believe, regaling him with tales of the latest theater crowd drama.
What do you think? Do you like books about geeks? Do you like geeky romantic interests? Do you think that YA books get the lion’s share of geeky characters? What book reminds you most of your own high school experience?
Oh, and for those of you who went to large, frat-focused school. Is Greek right about their take on that society? Why would people join frats “for the parties” then look down on the frat that throws the best ones?
So, interesting commentary on my New Adult post. I’m not sure if my thoughts were quite as collected as I wanted them to be for a Sunday morning. I do wan to add that I think in many ways that it’s a difficult category to market, and I believe that Tiff’s comment on that post really illustrated why.
“It was like English literature was some sacred thing where no one could ever read or study anything that wasn’t “important.” So, of course, the second one gets out of college, one stops reading because reading has been so “important” and such a job for the past four years. And I think that’s where adult fiction is losing readers. Reading for fun becomes a kind of foreign concept. When you go out to brunch with those post-grad friends, and you talk about books, people don’t want to talk about the Dan Browns because, of course, you can’t learn anything from that (and don’t even get me started on YA books). It’s better not to have read anything at all than to have read something “trashy” or something off the bestseller list/front table of Chapters (or Borders, or Barnes and Noble).”
“‘New Adult?’ Really? Because when I was between the ages of 20 and 26, I was fine with reading adult novels. I didn’t need something that was more mature than YA, but not quite an adult novel yet. It sounds like a marketing ploy and a slightly insulting one at that.”
“WTF?!? Seriously???
The idea may be good, but the age range is ridiculous. When I was 20-26, I would’ve been seriously pissed at being targeted for “mature writing and ideas, but not full on adult stories.” Seriously. Pissed.
Who are these 20-26 year-olds? College students, possibly graduate students, studying science, philosophy, medicine, etc? How many are married and have children by 26? How many soldiers are that age? And they’re not ready for “full on adult stories?”
I find the whole idea distasteful.”
And I have to say I’m with them. I think they are misreading what is meant by “full on adult stories” however. It’s like the people who think that because a book is categorized as a YA it can’t have mature complex themes. (Guys, To Kill a Mockingbird is YA. Just saying. It’s an issue of subject matter, not of maturity level. Even if I am a married-with-kids soldier at 22, I’m still probably going to want to read about married with kids 22 year olds than 40 year olds. (And indeed, some of the books that SMP uses to illustrate this “new adult” range features teens who are married with kids — Hello Ice by Sarah Beth Durst.) Or I’ll want the escapist facotr — not being married or with kids. What SMP is saying is that there seems to be a gap in books ABOUT people that age, written for an adult audience.
That why it was so hard when my book came out to figure out who exactly our market was. Bridget Jones was ten years older than Amy. The Gossip Girls were six years younger. My book wasn’t as fluffy and brainless as some, but it was a far cry from serious literature. There weren’t other books out there like my book. And as chick lit crashed and there were fewer and fewer books that were “like mine but slightly older” most of the comparisons for my book came from “like mine but slightly younger” direction. They were frequently compared to the Kate Brian “Private” novels or Maureen Johnson’s books, all of which are YA.
I think it’s going to be a challenge to market “New Adult” as such. The last thing a 22 year old college graduate who just wrote her thesis on Proust is going to want to be told is that she’s not ready for “real books.” Part of the success of chick lit was because the packaging treated it more seriously. It was in trade paperback form, it was shelved in the “fiction and literature” section in the bookstore, it had Book Club questions in the back. People who would turn their nose up at a romance novel would have fun reading a chick lit and not feel guilty about it.
I’m a big believer in not talking down to readers. I write commercial fiction and I’m proud of it. I’m in this biz to show readers a good time, but I don’t believe that commercial fiction equates to brainless fiction, and I don’t “dumb down” anything I write, whether I’m writing it for an audience of forty year olds, twenty year olds, or 14 year olds. The only difference is the situations my characters are forced to face (if anything, my teen characters are in a much more mature and dire situation than my 20-somethings — but that’s a product of the type of story I’m telling) and the resources they’ve got on hand. I don’t take my readers for granted, I don’t believe that a touch of romance or humor brings the level of a book down, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with reading for fun.
Sailor Boy and I have an old joke based on something we once saw on Felicia Day’s blog, or perhaps twitter feed. Day said something to the effect of “Saw an audition announcement looking for ‘a Felicia Day type.’ Guys, I am a working actress.”
So according to all those Q&As, which time after time name-checked Secret Society Girl, I’m New Adult.
I’m intrigued by the team at St. Martins’ new mission. Intrigued because my standard answer to the dozens of emails I get every year from aspiring writers frustrated by all the rejections they’ve received from editors and agents calling their college-set books too old for YA, not of interest to adult readers and how did I do it is: it’s not an easy sell. The fact that my book sold in a week and a half after submission in a six way auction is a bit misleading and more a factor of the time period in which we sold the book (YA heating up, adult chick lit winding down, my book straddling the fence) and the subject matter of the book (not just “college” but “secret societies” in a year that The Da Vinci Code was king, and a short six months after 2 Skull & Bones members were vying for the US presidency).
Most of these writers end up revising their books down to high school and selling them as YA. I know one who revised it down to middle school and has a crackerjack MG series going on right now.When I sold SSG, we got rejections from YA houses for being “too old.” Some YA houses offered, and one even offered upon the condition that I rewrite the characters to be 18 year old college freshmen.
Those of you who have read the SSG series (oh, and I wholeheartedly recommend that each and every one of you who hope to write New Adult for St. Martins run out and buy the entire series right away — you know, for research purposes. I only have your best interest at heart) know how vastly that would have changed the tone and storyline.
When I wrote the proposal for SSG, I thought (like all those people who email me) that it was young adult. My agent very wisely realized it could go either way, and the rejections we received from young adult houses bore that out. After we sold it as adult novel, it was developed as such, completed as such, and the series was written with a slightly older audience in mind. If you recall, PREP was really big then. It was a story about a high school girl written for adults.
When SSG was sold and then came out, we were living in a very different literary marketplace. Young Adult as a marketing category to be reckoned with was just starting to heat up. Twilight came out late in 2005 (I sold SSG in April of 2005) and though a bestseller very soon after its release, was not the market juggernaut we know today. In the adult writing community, you were just starting to see established writers jumping the chick lit ship for YA: folks like Jenny O’Connell, Sarah Mlynowski, and Ally Carter. YA was still pretty young. You didn’t see quite so many –if any! — plotlines revolving around marriage and motherhood (hello, Breaking Dawn, Impossible, Ice, A Curse Dark as Gold, Madapple). It was an entirely different landscape.
Chick lit, which has enjoyed an enormous popularity for the first part of this decade, was also just fizzling out. The summer my book came out, marketed as chick lit, Curtis Sittenfeld (author of the aforementioned Prep) called chick lit writers sluts in The New York Times and participated with several other women writers in an ill-tempered anthology mocking and degrading their fellow writers who did write in that genre. Urban fantasy, which has now stepped in as the genre of choice for 20-something women, was barely a blip on the radar. The backlash against “pink books” (my hardcover was pink) was intense, and intensely disturbing for a baby debut author who got shoved into the middle of it and was asked at every interview to respond to the allegations that I was single handedly destroying the face of literature as we knew it. A New York Times bestselling author who gave my book away on her blog on its release date admitted it looked good, if you liked books about shoes. (Though my characters wear shoes — a common trait of characters in books of all genre — I don’t think they ever mention the fact.)
In passing, it’s interesting to me the way that urban fantasy has become the new chick lit. You’ve got the same, young, usually first person, almost always snarky, female voice. You’ve got the twenty-something character usually stuck in a scut job (before she realizes she’s the last in a long line of vampire slayers/werewolves/fallen angels/what-have-you), you have the romantic subplot, and you have the mockable/interchangeable covers (instead of candy colored headless chicks wearing high heels, you have magenta and indigo colored headless chicks in leather pants with swords).
Anyway, Secret Society Girl came out, an adult book in the adult section. Adults read it. And teens read it. Lots more teens, I htink, than anyone expected. It got named in the NYPL’s Books for the Teen Age list. My publisher looked at how well YAs like Gossip Girl and Traveling Pants were selling to the adult market (see, it was heating up) and rebranded my paperbacks with Gossip Girl style covers, hoping to hit a crossover market. They set the price of the trade paperback at a teen-friendly and “I’m living in a fifth floor walk up closet with three friends and eating ramen” post-grad-friendly $10 (except for the fourth one, and that’s a whole other story). Young, post grad, ramen-eating young adults read it. More teens read it. Some adults read it and were totally disgusted that it was not marketed to teens. Some adults read it and were totally disgusted that they thought it was marketed to teens.
In some places, it is. Many of my foreign rights sales were to teen imprints, and the books there are released as young adult novels. This is not unusual, in either direction. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak is published as teen here but adult in Australia. Ditto Graceling and Fire (teen here, adult in the UK). Some independent stores here in the U.S. (as well as a few chain stores where they know me) cross promote the books in the adult and YA section. I watch with interest the rebranding of Maria V. Snyder and PC Cast’s old adult novels as YA novels in the new HarlequinTeen imprint, and wonder if that would benefit the series.
And I watch with interest the creation of this new marketing category. “New Adult.” As with the explosion of chick lit in the early part of this decade, there are some YA titles out right now that probably shouldn’t be classified as such. Fire of Fire is a teen, I guess (barely), but I read plenty of “adult” romances where the heroine is nineteen as well, and they aren’t YA for all that. The ubiquitous talk of taking lovers and controlling one’s own landed property and armies and who sired who else’s illegitimate bastard children in Fire just didn’t have a YA feel to me. I mean, Hamlet’s a teen too, you know? (Cf. with Graceling, where you got the sense she was a child under the thumb of her uncle and how the book was about her escaping that). Fire, note, is not published as YA overseas. There are other books out, especially of the “I’m a successful UF writer doing YA UF right now” variety that read just like the adult versions of those authors books, except they say the protag is 16. There are “adult” UFs, like Rachel Vincent’s bestselling STRAY books that read younger to me than some of these new YAs. Faythe starts her journey from grad school.
I suppose that would fall under “New Adult” too.
I am curious to see how this does. I’m curious if, when there’s a place that the target market can go to for books, if it will increase the sales (much like creating a YA place did with YA). (however, it didn’t work for Dorchester’s Shomi line, though that might have been too focused on the niche market of futuristic cyberpunk, and did not have the leather-clad covers that were selling so well for the UF crowd).
I like that when people email me now I can tell them that there is possibly a place for their college-aged protag at St. Martins. Many of their strategies seem familiar to me: lowering the price point on the paperbacks to YA-friendly/ramen-friendly levels, marketing to a crossover audience while shelving in the adult section and hoping teens read up. And hey, if this becomes a thing, perhaps it will widen the audience for my SSG books. I’ve already seen folks going out to buy it because of the online discussions (thank you, St. Martins and everyone else, go check them out!)
And thank you also for making me feel, even for a moment, a little bit like Felicia Day.
