The line between Teenage/YA and Adult Fiction

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Jan Van Quirm

Sergeant-at-Arms
Nov 7, 2008
8,524
2,800
Dunheved, Kernow
www.janhawke.me.uk
#2
I think it's certainly to do with both of those aspects, but more importantly it's to do with social and biological sophistication which means that certain things cannot be dealt with specifically without scaling down on intensity in some areas, even in 'realistic' horror where I think today's young people are possibly much more resilient than I was at that age. In fact because of that I'd say gritty reality ought to be played down rather than up because these days they don't need that laid on the line to get what's happening... :(

For my own 'proper' writing I'd say young adults could probably cope with 'adult themes' but a friend who's pretty broad-minded was appalled that I could even think a section on infanticide and desecration of corpses (this was fantasy BTW ;) ) could remain in a PG13 area... :oops: National tolerances are tricky too - in general the farther east you travel the higher it goes in terms of relationships - 'naked' in some quarters means you've still got at least one layer of undergarments on! :laugh:

Blood and gore is different and in a lot of ways I'd say the average young gamer would cope with a lot worse things than I would now, at the tender age of 52 :p
 

raisindot

Sergeant-at-Arms
Oct 1, 2009
5,145
2,450
Boston, MA USA
#3
Gonna sound like an old fuddy duddy here, but I am absolutely amazed at what goes on in today's so-called "Young Adult" books aimed at tweens and pre-tweens.

My wife works as a librarian in the middle school (grades 6-8 ) in a neighboring town. The most popular books are filled with teenage sex, violence, and carousing. What's the most popular book? Eclipse, of course, featuring extremely rough sex and a gruesome pregnancy and birth scene (so says the wife; I don't read these).

It's quite a different world than my day, when parents were fighting with schoolboards to forbid Judy Blume books and "The Catcher in the Rye" from libraries and reading lists.

J-I-B
 

theoldlibrarian

Lance-Corporal
Dec 30, 2009
304
1,775
Dublin, Ireland
#4
Its to do with what a bunch of "intellectual" old men think that you'll be able to read depending on your age. I know kids who are given "kids" books but they really need more advanced reading and I know adults who have the literary capabilities of "kids".
 
#5
....I read adult books to avoid YA books. Even though most of the books I read are still extreamly bloodthirsty (Well of Echos or The Blade Itself, anyone?) I'm fine with any amount of blood and gore. YA books are about vampires. Because all the teenage boys go to the adult fantasy section.
 

chris.ph

Sergeant-at-Arms
Aug 12, 2008
7,991
2,350
swansea south wales
#6
brave new world was on the curriculem when i was in school and there is plenty of everything in that ;)
i dont think there is a line between these groups truely as i just read what i fancy and i dont care as long as its reasonably well written with some sort of a plot, i dont read mills and boon or barbera cartland tho and they are supposed tobe stinking :laugh: :laugh:
 

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