This post on YA Highway made me reflect on my favorite tropes. Here is a list that is in no way exhaustive. It includes tropes I like in YA fiction as well as things I'd like to see. A lot of these are from TV shows, as I am unapologetically a huge fangirl when it comes to TV. If I were an agent, these things would make me very inclined to request more:
1. Road trips
2. Summer
3. Couples that start out hating each other
4. Unlikely friendships
5. Friendships like Shawn and Gus from Psych
6. Characters who reject fate and destiny
7. Parental substitutes; Giles from Buffy, Bobby from Supernatural
8. Wanderers
9. Characters that usually play the field falling in love
10. Tarot
11. Estranged brothers getting to know each other again (a la Stefan and Damon from Vampire Diaries or Sam and Dean from Supernatural)
12. Characters getting to know each other through dance
13. Characters making music together
14. One character being in unrequited love with another, then later the dynamic flips
15. Evil uncles
16. People who used to be friends but fell apart
17. Stories that take place over one day or night
18. Forbidden love
19. Love story that's not romantic: friends, parent/child, siblings, etc.
20. Fantasy or sci-fi from non-Western cultural perspectives
21. Teenage private detectives
Showing posts with label ya fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ya fiction. Show all posts
Friday, March 22, 2013
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Misguided YA Novel Adaptations: If I Stay by Gayle Forman
So apparently the YA novel If I Stay by Gayle Forman is becoming a movie. It gives me pause that it's being described as a "supernatural music pic" and the article says it "revolves around the relationship between a femme classical musician and her indie rock-star boyfriend." That is just...completely not what the book is about. Yes, the main character is a classical musician and she's dating a boy who's in a rock band on the verge of huge success, but the story is about her decision whether or not to stay living despite how much she's lost. I love this novel, and I just don't want to see it ruined. I mean, I'm glad the author gets paid for the rights, but I don't know if I can see the movie unless I see proof that it's going to be anything resembling faithful to the original story.
Monday, March 18, 2013
Top Ten Books on my Spring TBR List
This list comes from the Top Ten Tuesday meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. But I never get around to doing this stuff on schedule.
1. Requiem by Lauren Oliver. I'm so excited for this conclusion to the Delirium trilogy, I'm almost afraid to read it.
2. Pretty Sly by Elisa Ludwig. I liked the first book a lot more than I expected. I like books that are fun but have depth. I thought it was going to be a stand alone, but the ending had me screaming, "WHAT?!" So I'm really excited for this sequel.
3. Fox Forever by Mary E. Pearson. I know other people weren't really into the second book in this series, The Fox Inheritance, but I liked it. This series really makes me think and I'm excited for this next book. I like that each book kind of stands on its own while still exploring the same story.
4. Invisibility by Andrea Cremer and David Levithan. David Levithan is an auto buy author for me, and I'm really interested to see what his take on a story with spellcasters will be like, as he traditionally writes thought experiments that seem magical but still count as YA contemporary fiction.
5. The Lives We Lost by Megan Crewe. I was so captivated by the first installment in this series about an island quarantined due to a strange sickness. I'm interested to see what direction this story will take in this sequel.
6. The Madness Underneath by Maureen Johnson. I really enjoyed the first book, and although I've heard mixed reviews about the sequel, I'm still excited to read it.
7. Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Search - Part 1 by Gene Luen Yang. Does this count as YA? I don't even care. I MUST FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENED TO ZUKO'S MOTHER.
8. If He Had Been With Me by Laura Nowlin. I love the cover for this book, but I also love stories about people who used to be inseperable but are now estranged.
9. Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys. Historical YA set in New Orleans during the 50s? Sold.
10. The Summer I Became a Nerd by Leah Rae Miller. I like stories about people learning not to be afraid of who they really are. And I also like comic books. And I'm just jazzed that YA contemporary fiction seems to have a lot of promising debuts in 2013.
Top Ten Books on my Spring TBR List
1. Requiem by Lauren Oliver. I'm so excited for this conclusion to the Delirium trilogy, I'm almost afraid to read it.
2. Pretty Sly by Elisa Ludwig. I liked the first book a lot more than I expected. I like books that are fun but have depth. I thought it was going to be a stand alone, but the ending had me screaming, "WHAT?!" So I'm really excited for this sequel.
3. Fox Forever by Mary E. Pearson. I know other people weren't really into the second book in this series, The Fox Inheritance, but I liked it. This series really makes me think and I'm excited for this next book. I like that each book kind of stands on its own while still exploring the same story.
4. Invisibility by Andrea Cremer and David Levithan. David Levithan is an auto buy author for me, and I'm really interested to see what his take on a story with spellcasters will be like, as he traditionally writes thought experiments that seem magical but still count as YA contemporary fiction.
5. The Lives We Lost by Megan Crewe. I was so captivated by the first installment in this series about an island quarantined due to a strange sickness. I'm interested to see what direction this story will take in this sequel.
6. The Madness Underneath by Maureen Johnson. I really enjoyed the first book, and although I've heard mixed reviews about the sequel, I'm still excited to read it.
7. Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Search - Part 1 by Gene Luen Yang. Does this count as YA? I don't even care. I MUST FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENED TO ZUKO'S MOTHER.
8. If He Had Been With Me by Laura Nowlin. I love the cover for this book, but I also love stories about people who used to be inseperable but are now estranged.
9. Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys. Historical YA set in New Orleans during the 50s? Sold.
10. The Summer I Became a Nerd by Leah Rae Miller. I like stories about people learning not to be afraid of who they really are. And I also like comic books. And I'm just jazzed that YA contemporary fiction seems to have a lot of promising debuts in 2013.
Monday, February 25, 2013
What Makes a Story Compelling: An Intern's Perspective
For those wondering about what makes a great story from an agent's perspective, this post from the Greenhouse Literary blog as well as its second part are a great read. The author of the posts breaks down how she knows when she's reading a submission if she's got something she wants to take on, both something that's a great story and something that's going to sell. Because make no mistakes, publishing is a business and anyone who doesn't treat it as such is going to get burned.
I agree with her wholeheartedly on all her points. If a manuscript isn't making me want to know what happens next, I already know I'm going to reject it. If I get interrupted after twenty pages and I come back to it and think, "Eh, if I didn't finish this, I wouldn't really care," that's a problem. I can't agree more with her points about the emotional resonance and themes of a novel being so important. Oftentimes when I can't put my finger on what's wrong with a manuscript at first, it's that the characters don't feel real. Their struggles don't resonate with me emotionally. I want the author to convince me to care fiercely about these characters. For me personally, plot can always be fixed, but characters are so important and hard to get right. And if you have well-developed characters, the plot will follow from putting them in challenging situations.
I like that she points out that the stakes can be high even in contemporary stories. Just because it's about a high school girl living in an ordinary town doesn't mean the stakes can't be high. What does she want most? Put that in jeopardy. And likewise, just because a story is set in a world alien to our own doesn't mean it doesn't need to feel real. For example, Marissa Meyer's Cinder sounds absolutely insane: a retelling of Cinderella where she's a cyborg in future Beijing, oh yeah and there's a race of people that live on the moon. But our protagonist wants what we all want: acceptance, freedom, love. She wants to move out on her own, away from her stepmother who hates her. She wants desperately to help her stepsister when she gets sick. She decides to try to help the prince even though it might mean revealing herself as a cyborg in a society where her kind are reviled.
Oftentimes, I read something and think, what is the point of this manuscript? The author introduces all these themes or motifs but doesn't say anything about them. To use another YA example, Across the Universe takes place in a setting alien to our own: a giant, self-sustaining spaceship. Many people dismiss science fiction stories as "not good literature," but the best science fiction stories are about what it means to be human (see The Twilight Zone if you want some amazing examples). And the Across the Universe trilogy (without giving too much away) explores what it means to be human when you've never lived on a planet. How much of our humanity comes from living on Earth? Can we still be human in an artificial world? How will a person who has only known life on a planet react to this spaceship? It also explores secrets and knowledge. The whole trilogy is like an onion, peeling back layers of secrets to get to the truth. When is it okay to keep secrets for the greater good? Do people always deserve the truth? Can you really love someone when you have no other options? In the face of unspeakable atrocities, how do you go on? Can you maintain hope and faith even when everything inside you wants to give up? I could go on and on about this novel, but I'll stop here.
I think something important to think about when writing is what makes you as a reader, engaged in a story? What about those characters and plots keeps you turning the pages? Use those techniques to construct your story, while adding an element that is completely your own.
I agree with her wholeheartedly on all her points. If a manuscript isn't making me want to know what happens next, I already know I'm going to reject it. If I get interrupted after twenty pages and I come back to it and think, "Eh, if I didn't finish this, I wouldn't really care," that's a problem. I can't agree more with her points about the emotional resonance and themes of a novel being so important. Oftentimes when I can't put my finger on what's wrong with a manuscript at first, it's that the characters don't feel real. Their struggles don't resonate with me emotionally. I want the author to convince me to care fiercely about these characters. For me personally, plot can always be fixed, but characters are so important and hard to get right. And if you have well-developed characters, the plot will follow from putting them in challenging situations.
I like that she points out that the stakes can be high even in contemporary stories. Just because it's about a high school girl living in an ordinary town doesn't mean the stakes can't be high. What does she want most? Put that in jeopardy. And likewise, just because a story is set in a world alien to our own doesn't mean it doesn't need to feel real. For example, Marissa Meyer's Cinder sounds absolutely insane: a retelling of Cinderella where she's a cyborg in future Beijing, oh yeah and there's a race of people that live on the moon. But our protagonist wants what we all want: acceptance, freedom, love. She wants to move out on her own, away from her stepmother who hates her. She wants desperately to help her stepsister when she gets sick. She decides to try to help the prince even though it might mean revealing herself as a cyborg in a society where her kind are reviled.
Oftentimes, I read something and think, what is the point of this manuscript? The author introduces all these themes or motifs but doesn't say anything about them. To use another YA example, Across the Universe takes place in a setting alien to our own: a giant, self-sustaining spaceship. Many people dismiss science fiction stories as "not good literature," but the best science fiction stories are about what it means to be human (see The Twilight Zone if you want some amazing examples). And the Across the Universe trilogy (without giving too much away) explores what it means to be human when you've never lived on a planet. How much of our humanity comes from living on Earth? Can we still be human in an artificial world? How will a person who has only known life on a planet react to this spaceship? It also explores secrets and knowledge. The whole trilogy is like an onion, peeling back layers of secrets to get to the truth. When is it okay to keep secrets for the greater good? Do people always deserve the truth? Can you really love someone when you have no other options? In the face of unspeakable atrocities, how do you go on? Can you maintain hope and faith even when everything inside you wants to give up? I could go on and on about this novel, but I'll stop here.
I think something important to think about when writing is what makes you as a reader, engaged in a story? What about those characters and plots keeps you turning the pages? Use those techniques to construct your story, while adding an element that is completely your own.
Thursday, February 21, 2013
A New Kind of Book Packager?
I've been very interested in the development of Paper Lantern Lit. Lauren Oliver is one of the co-founders, and she is one of my favorite YA authors. Her writing is beautiful and I will literally read anything she writes. For those not familiar with the concept, Paper Lantern Lit conceives of a concept and chapter outlines for the book and then audition people to write the story. On some levels, it makes sense. I see some agents putting in a lot of time and effort shaping a first time manuscript, that it makes sense to take that to the next step and become a book packager/agency hybrid. And because they provide an outline, there are no surprises plotwise when they get the finished product from an author. They can control the topics based on the trends they see being profitable. But I still feel like a book packager and an agency fulfill different roles in an author's career and in the marketplace. However, they have been very successful so far, so I'll definitely be keeping an eye on them as they grow.
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