When you write young-adult fiction, do you have to “dumb it down” to the level of teens, or can you write as if they were adults?
Kathleen posted this question on my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page:
Randy — I’m writing YA and have begun to realize that I’m not really holding back when it comes to reading level or word choice. In other words, for me, it’s reading at the level of general commercial fiction. My protaganist is a very bright 14-year-old and I’m writing from his POV. Still, I keep reading that there are different conventions for YA and adult.
Randy sez: In recent years, there’ve been several major YA novel series that have been big hits with adults. Let’s look at each of them:
HARRY POTTER. The first book in this series is written at a bit lower level than any of the others. It’s shorter and tends to have a bit more juvenile humor. The next couple of books really stepped up the level until by book 4, the reading level was clearly for adults.
TWILIGHT and its sequels. Even the first book in this series was clearly written for older teens and so the word usage is at an adult level. Adults may gag at the massive amounts of teen-girl angst in the story, but they certainly won’t feel that the vocabulary is limited. And most adults can remember their own teen angst.
THE HUNGER GAMES and its sequels. This series has been first-rate from the get-go. The language and style work just fine for adults. (I’m hoping my copy of MOCKINGJAY arrives today!) The only reason this series was classified as YA is that the protagonist is 16 years old.
I’m not an expert on the conventions of YA, but it seems to me that the above examples prove that you can write a very successful YA series without limiting the language or treating your readers like dummies. I’m also reminded that Orson Scott Card’s books ENDER’S GAME and ENDER’S SHADOW featured preteen characters, but the books were targeted to adults. Card was criticized for making his characters “too smart.” Fans of the series know that a lot of kids that age really are that smart. Many fans of the series actually were that smart when they were kids.
So I’d say, go for it Kathleen. There’s no reason to dumb down the reading level on a YA book. Teens are not stupid and they don’t like being talked down to. Many 7th graders are completely able to handle adult-level books. Write a great story and you’ll have no shortage of fans.
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I am never in favor of dumbing down YA fiction.
Teenagers are smart. Some of them are writing their own books. 😉
When I was around 16, I couldn’t find anything to read except mushy Christian romance/drama in the adult section. YA was mostly dumb stuff, and everything else had content I wasn’t comfortable reading.
I completely agree!
You have to realize that many teens deliberately seek out adult novels simply because so much YA fiction IS dumbed down, and that’s annoying! When I was a teen, I was reading Stephen King and Anne Rice. Even in English class at school, teens are being assigned homework to read Shakespeare and George Orwell. If they’re expected to be capable of grasping that, then there is absolutely no reason to dumb things down for them in YA fiction.
Besides, if they don’t know a word they can look it up. And that’s how knowledge increases when you read – by coming across new words and new concepts. So it’s PERFECTLY okay for there to be an occasional word or few that sends a reader to the dictionary (or dictionary.com)… as long as you’re not intentionally trying to write something too cerebral, any writing that is readable to an average adult is going to be just fine for most teens. Usually the only reason a book is classified as YA versus adult is age of the protagonist character and the theme and content of the work.
(And actually, based on interviews I have read, Stephanie Meyer actually originally wrote Twilight intending it to be geared toward an adult audience, and was surprised when it was suggested that it would be better marketed as a YA novel.)
7th grade was a very memorable year in my life, so I remember a lot of the books I read then. Here’s a sample of my list: Bourne Identity, Jurassic Park, Sphere, Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption. In fact, everything I read at that time was geared towards adults. Though I was at the higher end of the reading spectrum, I don’t think I was so far out there that others my age would not have enjoyed them as well. Many of my friends enjoyed the above works as well around the same age.
I’m currently 17, and read both YA and adult. There are a lot of great YA novels out there, but the thing that drives me crazy (and has since I was 14) is when the authors dumb it down for ‘the kids.’ Also, when the kids in the story act younger than they are. (IE, a 13-year-old doesn’t typically think of adults as ‘grown-ups’ they’re adults, at least in my experience.) My advice: if you’re writing YA, ask a teen or pre-teen you know to read and see what they think. (Hint: If they say ‘eh, it was ok,’ and that’s it, it might or might not be a dumb-ing down issue.)
No need to dumb-down for YA — most enthusastic readers I know were or are reading adult-level (as distinct from adult-themed) fiction at thirteen or so.
But…If you have a 14-year old protagonist, then some publishers and agents are going to tell you that you’re writing for the middle-grade market, below YA. (I think you’re right on the edge, and it depends on the story.) Kids like to read about protagonists a couple (or more) years older than they are. You might think about bumping the protagonist’s age up.
I was talking with a writing friend today. She suggested maybe YA books are generally better edited and therefore better fiction than adult. Looking forward to my copy of Mockingjay too.
Realize too that the audience for YA fiction is not limited to school age readers. The readership being targeted AND that reads the YA list is from about 13 to 30.
That age group has the same problems as older readers–relationship issues, economic burdens, career pressures, etc.–and they want fiction that respects them for it. So what’s required is not dumbing down the stories but rather a zeroing in on how those problems are met by an age group with different priorities, constraints, and tools.
Great website you have here, much useful info.
Just wanted to rectify, i read somewhere that Orson Scott card was aiming his book at YA, and was actually surprised when it became such a hit with more adult readers. Also, point of fact, and total digression, he’s kind of a christian nut… Almost extremist. he has some really controversial articles out there.
Love the book though, despite all that.
And yeah, enough dumbing down in the world. keep the level up, i say. (what, you think reading books is supposed to be easy…? git to work!)
I was thinking about asking this question myself, so am glad someone else did and it’s been answered. My character is a really intelligent sixteen year old, and because I was so ahead of my age when I was twelve (people used to tell me all the time and I knew it), I was finding it difficult how to tone down my character. I was getting the feeling he might be deemed too smart, but now I know it’s okay.
If the story is interesting and good I think both will work equally well, but dumbed down language may be friendly to more people.
Thanks for touching on this topic. I agree. YA books are read by such a wide age range that dumbing them down would only limit your audience… What teen wants to be treated like a kid anyway? I have an awesome teen but he basically claims in so many words to know everything so I might as well write as though he does, LOL.
I think most of the people who would require the language to be dumbed down are not folks who regularly read for pleasure anyway. They’re watching Jersey Shore. 😛 Someone who selects reading for enjoyment is likely to have sufficient vocabulary and reading skills to not want their reading material to be dumbed down anyway.
The incredible late Robert Cormier said that he wrote for the smartest reader he could imagine–and that reader was 16. I read YA for fun–because those were the best stories I could find–long before I studied it in college. Although I read in all genres, YA is my favorite. The #1 rule of writing for teens is NOT to “write down” to your readers. Write the best book you can. Also, read a ton of YA. Not just the mega-sellers like Twilight, Harry Potter and Mockingjay…but the stuff that is winning the Printz (from the American Library Association) and the National Book Award. These are sophisticated, wonderful stories. A final word: One of my favorite things about YA is that these books constantly are pushing traditional story-telling boundaries long before adult commercial or literary fiction. Novels in free verse, graphic novels about serious and funny subjects, novels told in texts, blog posts and email…. YA allows authors to be creative in how they tell their stories. ENJOY!
Between the ages of 12 and 15 my vocabulary grew massively BECAUSE I was reading adult lit. Having taught that age group now, I can see their minds are hungering for new words to describe the world around them. And the novels they read are a combination of YA and adult works. We’re doing them a disservice (and we’ll lose them as audiences) if we dumb dowm.