Helen Stringer's Blog - Posts Tagged "ya"

I've been working on a new book called "Paradigm." It's a departure for me in that it's YA and is from a boy's POV. I sent it to a couple of agents (changing agents is a pain) and received a response from one today.

She had asked for the first 10 pages, which I sent a little over a month ago. She very politely declined because, "...it’s a hard sell as publishers get hooked on the ‘boys stop reading at 12.'"

Now, I know that it is true that boys tend to lose interest in reading at around that age, but is that any reason to give up on them entirely? My nephew is twelve and loves to read, but it's really difficult to find anything for him when we go to the book store. Parents of boys have told me that they have the same problems. It's one of the reasons I wrote "Paradigm" in the first place.

Has anyone else noticed that there isn't much for older boys to read? If not, what titles/authors do you think really do succeed in keeping the love of reading alive?

A recent article in Studio System News (SSN) discussed the appeal of what it described as "YA lit" to studios and motion picture production companies. (You can read the original article here.) The writer of the article described all literature aimed at children and teens as "YA." This is not uncommon, but it goes quite a long way toward explaining why Hollywood keeps making movies based on successful book series and ends up scratching its collective head when the box office results are disappointing. I initially wrote this article in the comments section of the article, but I think it bears repeating.

Basically, there seems to be some confusion in the entertainment industry as to what exactly constitutes a YA novel. The publishing industry sees Middle Grade (books intended for 10+) and YA (books intended for teens) as distinct markets. While there is a great deal of crossover between the Middle Grade age group and the age group that reads YA, the publisher-imposed definitions have a great effect on what actually makes it to market.

My first two novels Spellbinder and The Midnight Gate are Middle Grade. Those books feature a girl, Belladonna Johnson, and a boy, Steve Evans, who travel to the Land of the Dead. My third novel (as you know if you've been following this blog) is Paradigm , a scfi story with a male lead, Sam Cooper. This was when my troubles began.

Publishers love Middle Grade books with boys as the central character. The Harry Potter books, Percy Jackson, Ender’s Game, The Wardstone Chronicles, The Golden Compass, City of Ember, The Giver, and Artemis Fowl (all categorized in the article as YA) are actually Middle Grade. However, The Hunger Games, The Mortal Instruments, and Divergent are squarely YA and aimed at teen readers.

What do the YA books have in common? They all have a girl as the central character. When I approached publishers and agents with Paradigm, I was told “boys over the age of 12 don’t read” (direct quote from an email). Everyone enjoyed the book, but agents, in particular, said it wasn’t worth the struggle to try to get publishers to read a book with a male lead. It was suggested that I change Sam to Samantha, but the idea of giving up on an entire gender just because it might be more difficult to reach them seemed too much like a self-fulfilling prophecy. So I self-published.

But that’s publishing, I hear you say, not film or TV. However, it’s worth noting, that with the exception of the Harry Potter franchise, films based on Middle Grade books have struggled, while those based on female-centric YA have done well. The initial negative reaction of fans of Twilight to the casting of the leads, illustrates the difference. Younger children enjoy their books, but tend not to get so emotionally attached to the characters. YA novels on the other hand appeal primarily to teenage girls, and generally include an overwrought romantic triangle. Teen girls have ready access to money and make their own purchasing decisions. The result is that they are much more personally invested in the characters, feel emotionally attached to them and communicate those feelings to their peers who then go out and purchase the same books. The same might be true of teen boys, but there are far fewer books aimed at that market.

Of course, this is not true when it comes to going to the movies – teen boys go in droves. They will also see movies they like multiple times. The studios know this, which is why they keep optioning Middle Grade books with male leads, apparently thinking they will appeal to teen boys. But they have misread the market for those books, which are aimed at younger children who have to be taken to a movie. Teens go to movies by themselves, but most teen boys are no longer reading books like Artemis Fowl. They're also not reading The Hunger Games. They're certainly not reading any of the vast majority of YA books which feature a morose-looking girl on the cover -- because who wants to be caught doing that?

All of which leaves teen boys out in the proverbial cold. Publishers aren't interested in them because they believe that they don't read, while the entertainment industry continually makes movies that miss their target demographic because they apparently don't understand the difference between Middle Grade and YA. But it doesn't end there -- the obsession with the idea of making a movie based on an already successful property (which will therefore deliver its fan base to the theater), serves no one well. It results in films that fail to reach the audience the studios hanker for, and it makes original screenplays that would appeal to that demographic increasingly difficult to sell.