YA, MG, Seriously discussion

So this is a letter I just sent out to the fifteen high school students who are coming to my house in a few weeks. The workshop is on writing young adult literature. What is absolutely true is that I don't know the answers to the questions in this first part of the workshop, and I am hoping these young writers will have some good insights. Trying to answer these questions (without thinking I would ever get definitive answers) is partly why I started this book club. So, please, feel free to respond with your thoughts and ideas!

I'm including the entire letter since some of you are teachers and might have advice or comments and others of you have been in similar workshops and might have advice or comments. (I have taught writing and writing workshops for over thirty years, yes, but almost exclusively to ages 18 and up. I'm excited to be with this particular group who attend a local charter school that emphasizes the environment and living in place.)

Hello, everyone!

I look forward to seeing you this March 28 at my house.

After we introduce ourselves, I might talk a bit about the changing conventions of young adult literature, and we’ll exchange ideas about the field. What draws you to write young adult literature? Does YA have any particular themes? Constraints? How does YA differ from middle-grade or “adult” literature? Why do so many adults of all ages read and enjoy this genre? What makes YA (and MG) so compelling and special?

Then I’d like to get a “chorus” of your voices and your work. If you each read about three minutes or 1-2 double-spaced pages, we can do this in under an hour. If you don’t want to read your work out loud, ask a friend to do that. Or ask me to read it. The introduction to your piece and the actual reading should be three minutes or less. We won’t comment or “workshop” each piece at this time, but we can talk about individual pieces and our responses to them when we talk about this presentation/group reading as a whole.

So, if you are already writing YA memoir, bring 1-2 pages of that work. OR write something new to this prompt: describe a time in which you were frightened for yourself or for someone else. Feel free to write this as a scene with dialogue resurrected from memory or other knowledge.

If you are writing YA fiction, bring 1-2 pages of that work. OR write something new to this prompt: write a scene in which someone gains some kind of power over someone else.

In our response to the readings, if some of you want to comment on individual pieces, that’s great. I will ask you to comment only on pieces you resonate with positively in some way. This is not the kind of workshop where we have the time or have set up a culture and structure in which to offer significant suggestions for improvement and revision. Instead we will be looking at the strengths of these pieces as a way to encourage the writer to keep moving forward. This is the first part of any kind of successful critique—starting with the positive and building on that.

The last third of the workshop will focus on the writing process and the writing life. Feel free to ask me any questions! About anything at all concerning writing.

I’m looking forward to a pleasant, entertaining, informative afternoon.

All best, Sharman

Did not see your post until after your meeting. What a great idea and hope it went well. As a writer of middle grade, I think there are some subjects that are still taboo for this group. Where as in Young Adult, I've read about anything and everything. There is no subject matter that hasn't been covered by YA. My teenagers are so much more worldly than I was at their age. Maybe it's because of social media? Looking forward to hearing how the workshop goes.

Hi, Natalie, the workshop was good. I ended up having them do a writing exercise. before they came, I had a big duh moment: these readers can't yet talk about young adult in comparison to, say adult. Well, obviously! We did compare to middle grade a bit. But mainly they are just immersed in the literature they read, swimming in it. I agree that YA is about everything. This particular crowd seemed a little more sheltered. But that diversity is what YA is about.

I work with teenagers and I find that if I use adult books along with YA books, I do a lot better with them. But I use a lot of classics. I still use Jane Eyre a lot. And Lord of the Flies, and so forth. You are so right, many of my young readers do not read adult fiction at all or classics, not even comics, which was disturbing to me. I hate to write this on a public board, but some of this love of YA is what I call self-indulgent and may even border on narcissism as a social or group behavior. Hence why so many books are "I" and multiple "I" instead of third person viewpoints.
I am working on a project about this, so I give it special attention.

I'd like to read and hear more about this idea. But YA has partly gotten larger (and more commercially viable) because so many adults read this genre, too. Isn't that true? I could go over and google that, but won't at the moment. ;) So there is something also compelling to all ages about this time in life or about those themes (both of which may involve some self-obsession or self-absorption). Other readers have suggested that adults like YA because the titles are often quick reads, with engaging stories, and because the genre is attracting some talented writers. Etc.

Professor Sharman, I too am drawn to reading mostly middle grade and young adult books. I think the allure of young adult books lies in it's transitory position between a child and an adult. Young adulthood holds a possibility for more exploration of the world that seems to not be restricted by age. I see it as a time of more potential, romance, action, drama, etc. Maybe this is why so many adults like me love to read it more than adult books which seem to encompass the pressures and responsibilities of the real world that we are trying to escape.

That idea of transition is wonderful and fruitful, Janelle. And, really, aren't we in some kind of transition for most of our lives? When we are young--at least, I did--we think we are going to plateau somewhere, reach some stable place or location or state. Instead, it's just transition after transition.

Sharman wrote: "That idea of transition is wonderful and fruitful, Janelle. And, really, aren't we in some kind of transition for most of our lives? When we are young--at least, I did--we think we are going to pla..."

Yes, indeed. There are these times in our life we categorize like mid-life crisis, adolescence, etc. but we never seem to reach a point in which we are fully enmeshed and satisfied with our lives. Instead we keep finding areas that we feel need improvement. Many people still feel the need to travel and explore the world when they are in their 60s and 70s and I think this is wonderful, that there is still so much we don't know and thus we can constantly change our perspectives on life and thus the experiences we have. I feel this concept is integrated into a lot of young adult novels and is quite appealing.

I'm 23, and I read almost exclusively YA because it's what I enjoy. The characters are no longer constrained by being little kids and having limited agency, but their lives can still turn out any which way. Essentially what Janelle said in Message 6. I've not felt the need to transition to "adult" books, because I don't know of anything that's in adult books that I can't also find in YA - minus the swearing and sex, which I can really do without.

YA books seem (most often) to be about pretty serious subjects--even when they are humorous like Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. Waking up to the world. Looking at the world. Looking inside and out.

hpboy13 wrote: "I'm 23, and I read almost exclusively YA because it's what I enjoy. The characters are no longer constrained by being little kids and having limited agency, but their lives can still turn out any ..."
I agree. I am into the fantasy genre and its something about the time of young adult that just draws me in/ Children's books have a similar effect but the preteen and teenage years are just so interesting in the impact they have on young minds.