Writing
& Reading Young Adult Fiction
While Raising Young Adults
On a recent road trip with my husband
and two teenagers, I brought along the audio book of Tina Fey’s Bossypants. The first half was fantastic:
insightfully funny, forthright, loving toward the father, theater geeks and
other people who shaped Fey’s suburban Pennsylvania teenhood. My husband and I
laughed a lot and ruefully “oh yeah-ed” almost as much. Somewhere in the
middle of the book, however, something changed. Fey was still her intelligent,
witty self but, as the book eased from high school and its affiliate, Saturday Night Live, into Thirty Rock and the Sarah Palin
imitation season, the reading began to feel a touch shrill, the observations
faintly defensive.
I admire Tina Fey’s
comedy and, frankly, her whole persona. I didn’t want to see the insecure and
cranky side of her that periodically emerged in the final chapters of her
memoir. “I’m disappointed,” I said uncomfortably to my husband. “My idol
has clay feet.”
“Nah,” replied this
man who has never written so much as a short story and reads only non-fiction
(plus my books, sort of). I should also add that he finds Tina Fey totally hot.
“She just doesn’t have perspective on the recent stuff.”
And there it was: the
answer I’d been seeking about why I write Young Adult Fiction. Why so
many people are writing YA. Why so many people love reading YA. It isn’t the
oft-reference “time of discovery” or “building identity” or “helping kids get
through stuff” mumbo-jumbo that we YA authors mutter desperately when called
out on this question. It’s that we have actual
perspective on memories of our teen years. We have emerged (more or less
successfully) from that hideous celebrity-imitating haircut and humiliating
no-date-to-prom epoch and can now turn back and write something intelligent
about it. I write stories inspired by things I want to say to my teens when
they’re about to do something unwise but will be infuriated if I try to share
insights from my own experience. Is there a nice way to put this? My teens
inspire me!
As a twenty-something writer, I
remember having pride in my ability to turn a phrase but feeling trapped by the
sensation that I had nothing of value to actually say. I had craft but no voice. It took the birth of four babies
before I finally found myself. I hope that’s not the case for everyone or the
world is going to have a serious population problem because, let’s admit,
this planet is also rife with people who aspire to one day write the Great
American Novel. But I digress.
What is perspective?
It is being able to take a look at a situation from outside your own
point-of-view and get a grip on yourself. Even if your novel is written in
first-person, present-tense, as is trendy in today’s YA, you, as author, can
see the perspectives of the boyfriend, the mom, the obnoxious soccer coach and
encouraging teacher. You can let the teen protagonist react in character while
still offering readers a rounder view and a conclusion that offers some sort of
insight or hopeful forward-moving suggestion. As a writer, stumbling
around the middle of a manuscript with that icky feeling that it will never be
a book, having a true understanding of your characters is a lifeline. It is
also interesting to note here that many writers set novels in towns like those
they grew up in—not towns they came to as adults. Hmmm. Perspective again? Yes.
Writers feel confident writing about things they can see clearly enough to
describe.
Who likes to read
books with perspective? Well, teens because of the, you know, earlier
“discovery” reasons but also because, in the books, the protagonists figure
things out in ways they can’t. It’s not relatabiliy that teen readers are
looking for, but exit strategies—reassurance that there is a way to see through
that angsty, hormonal fog to a solution, even if they themselves still haven’t
found the right lenses. Adults are likely reading about a perspective they have
discovered and can delight in cheering for these teens who’ve sorted things
out. Plus, it’s lovely to recall the intense heat of crushes or the drugless
high of winning a big game artfully worded and conveniently on one's Kindle.
Yes, I am
generalizing. Yes, there are phenoms like Divergent
author Veronica Roth, who seemed to have been born with more perspective than
others will gain in a lifetime and who can write best-sellers in their twenties.
In the same vein there are prodigies in all artistic and scientific
pursuits. Think Shirley Temple, Mozart, Pascal, Piaget. But I think most
of us come to a sense of self, a world view, much later than we care to admit.
Stir in some reasonable writing skills and you get yourself a middle-aged debut
novelist in the YA category. (see a picture of me)
Truth be told, I’d
like to write in more genres, including adult fiction. I’ll probably never
try a picture book since I honestly don’t understand how anyone has the
maturity to construct truly great one (how do you do it, Kevin Henkes?).
But, given the pace of my maturation thus far, I suspect I won’t have
perspective on being forty-something until I’m close to death, when the goal of
writing the Great American Novel may be trumped by playing card games
with grandchildren, filling prescriptions, or other currently
unimaginable activities.
So, for today, I
shall return to my YA work-in-progress, grateful for what I think I do know—for
my shard of perspective on this scary, evolutionary thing we call life on
Earth.
