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*I definitely don’t think age does matter much. (Just wanted to clarify that because rereading the original line was confusing me so much and I had to use context of what I said later on to figured it out. XD)
Thank you! I do have to give you some credit for helping me better flesh out this understanding where I won’t limit myself from good options just because of being too strict about age. I genuinely appreciate it! 😀
Oh, I love how Calligraphy Guild is for everyone! That you’re clear about your target audience but also open to other audiences without compromising for one or the other, if that makes sense. Considering how a lot of adults and people in middle grade read YA fiction, it could reach out to those adults who either don’t mind clean YA or actually like to see clean YA and don’t expose younger readers to the explicit content that YA is displaying. It’s definitely a cool book!
Oh, that’s a good point! It’s so true! It really depends on the story and what it needs to talk about, and what the author wants readers to know about or think on because of the world, plot or what the characters are dealing with personally or in response to the world or plot.
For sure! My original statement works best in the planning/brainstorming stage of writing a story (being revised and updated with the new information from this discussion of course). It doesn’t have much place once you have set your tone for your story, unless you want to suddenly change it in the next book (which might be misleading but I’m not sure).
@joy-caroline
Ohhh, that’s a good rule to have! I should that in mind! 😀
I completely agree with everything @r-m-archer said! I was going to mention similar things to she what she talked about. I’m not sure about younger teens just wanting to read about teenagers, but I avoided YA as a young teen though because it was too scary to navigate at the time. Though once I was older, I was a lot more interested in reading outside my comfort zone, like trying new genres and I think that can be the same as having main characters with different ages (though I don’t really know as I haven’t experienced it).
I completely agree with you! You put it much better than I did. XD
To be honest, considering everything you said, I definitely don’t think age doesn’t matter much. Probably a little but not in the way it does for me. I just happened to have characters in their 20s that deal with adult-like content but that fact doesn’t mean it automatically means all characters in their 20s can’t be in the YA fiction just because of their age. I realise that now. Also I know I’m being overly cautious right now (really just for the sake of my conscience at present) and will probably be less strict on the ages for myself later on. At my stage of writing, I guess it just helps me personally to be more mindful as I like to dig deeper into the hard and dark topics a lot for some reason. That’s just me though. I know that your recent story has main characters in their 20s (if I remembered their ages correctly) and I would put in the YA fiction section (though even people in middle grade would have no problem reading it too, if I’m correct on that). Like I said, I definitely didn’t think that one through. It just came to mind and I thought it was a good point to have with series? … I don’t agree with past me, considering everything we have discussed. Thanks for pointing it out!
Fair points. I’m probably too strict about the age for characters a little too much, and thinking on it, if you’re writing Christian fiction it’s way less of a problem than writing for the secular audience. There are of course will be always exceptions to this “rule” of mine, which I probably should have mentioned before.
Harry Potter, as you mentioned, is a good example. But personally I actually think Harry Potter growing up with its audience has issues for the future audience. It’s marketed as middle grade but technically it grows into being YA, being more mature and darker as it goes along and maybe is a little too much for a middle grade audience whether they know it or not. I haven’t read most of the books, so I don’t know personally how much it matures and gets darker. I know from second sources, which it isn’t good I’ll admit but I just haven’t been able to read the rest right now. I may still think it’s a problem or I wrongly judged how it actually is and is actually okay for children in the middle grade age to read even though the characters get way older than them.
I’m still learning but I just know that taking care with the character’s ages will avoid the wrong audience reading stuff that is too mature. Again, I think it’s way more a problem with both writing for a secular audience and traditional publishing. Indie has a lot more freedom with its age audience and the middle grade, YA, NA and Adult genres. I guess as I have been reading about the problem that YA is facing nowadays I guess kinda of freak out unnecessarily. The expectations for more mature content follows character’s ages closely, though again there will be a bunch of exceptions to this. I just know from personal experience recently that I have found a lot of my characters implicitly deal with things that should be NA rather than YA, which is mostly influenced by their age because they are mature enough to deal with these things than teenagers would and I would just personally like for YA to have less mature content than it currently does, even though I will never be explicit about my mature content of course. Personally I aim to have my YA to be a lot more cleaner (even implicitly) than it needs to be just because there’s a lot of explicit content in YA and I think that the intended target audience would appreciate it, especially the ones on the younger side.
I realise now that this whole thing is completely a personal preference and probably should be ignore when considering a series. I don’t think people care as much as I do about this topic nor would actually encounter these problems at all (considering we are all Christians here).
@joy-caroline
Just ignore no 1. It basically isn’t important at all. I didn’t think through the context for that one. Sorry about that.
@joy-caroline
Like everyone is saying, your intuition tells you whether or not a book needs to be a standalone or a series. I definitely work that way too, but I’m also learning to be cautious when considering making a book that was originally a standalone have a sequel or a series. Also even books you planned as a series need to have caution too, especially when considering how many books you need in the series. I say this because so many times I’ve seen and heard book series that really shouldn’t have had that sequel or had way too many books in that one series and the author should have stopped ages ago or even just at their recent one before they failed with their latest book in the series. I’m starting to realise that care needs to be taken in this area. Though in a lot of cases, a lot of authors know when to stop so it isn’t that common but it’s important to keep in mind so you will only write the strongest novels for your audience and avoid a pitfall that a bunch of authors have fallen into.
This consideration is personally really important to me as I am the sort of author who makes any world big as time goes on. I technically don’t have an end for my stories as they go beyond what I originally planned, but I also know when to stop because I have certain things I like to keep in mind when creating my stories.
(1) The age of the characters and the target audience. As an example, if you were writing for YA, you can’t really have your main characters aged beyond 18. If your story causes your characters to grow older, you need to stop while they at the right age, just before they’re not or reconsider your target audience. Age is important because your characters can’t be the same age forever if your story expands over a year or years.
(2) Does the protagonist(s) need another arc. I think this sometimes gets overlooked, but it’s genuinely one of the things I consider the most in this area. I recently like to think of book series as stages, each one a different type of character growth (but are all tightly connected to each other). If the protagonist has one lesson they need to learn, it’s likely to be a standalone. If they have several, spreading them out in a series is a good idea (just make sure to connect them all to one big final overarching arc). As an example, my current WIP is a four book series. The first book is basically a negative arc but it’s important for my character to be broken in book 1 so he can grow positively in book 2. The positive arc starts in book 2 but continues in book 3 and 4, but in different ways. My protagonist doesn’t learn all he needs to learn in just one book. Since he starts in such an unhealthy place, it takes him awhile to overcome his many lies, fears and scars he’s gotten in his past as a child and young teenager. As the plot shifts into a new face in each different book, each time does it trigger another misbelief he needs to defeat in order to win the battle he’s fighting. But at the end of book 4, he grows enough (not completely) that he is in a healthy place now and the story can end there because I know the audience doesn’t need to know the rest of his journey as he has overcame his biggest hardships in those four books.
(3) How realistically the protagonist(s) needs to deal with something. As examples, characters dealing with grief probably don’t need a sequel or a series unless they grow out of their grief or changed how they grieve. (As we all know, grief isn’t easily overcame in a few months or years but also at the same time there isn’t a lot you can write about grief until it’s the same thing over and over again. At least that’s my experience of it in real life and in fiction.) On the other hand, characters in a war or rebellion might need more time, at least a sequel, to properly show those things. Though it heavily depends on the genre, when the war or rebellion starts in the book, and how long it really needs to be for the story. For these sort of things you just need to think about how logically a situation needs to go on for.
(4) If the story is too long for a standalone (in the case of sequel(s) only). Sometimes the lesson and situation your protagonist is dealing with is just too long for a single book and can be better consumed over two books or more. Though you don’t want to milk the story either just for the sake of making a series because it’s seems reasonable to make it that way because it’s so long. Sometimes it just needs to be a long standalone.
(5) Does continuing the same story or the same world adds anything new or important for the audience to know. This one is a little tricky to figured out at a glance, it usually takes some time, some thinking, to know for sure in my experience. I think this is the one that authors can get stuck on. I definitely do! Though no. 2 does help a lot in deciding yes or no in the end.
Sorry this is so long! I seem to have a lot to say on this topic (despite the fact I have never finished series before, haha).
I loved first person POV, just it being in present tense bothered me for quite a while. I can’t remember which books I read that were present tense or past tense first person POV. XD I know that Hunger Games was one of them. And maybe Instant Karma by Marissa Meyer? And Summer Blue Bird by Akemi Bird Blue? Oh, also 100 days of Sunlight by Abbie Emmons and How We Rise by Brooke Riley. Those ones really sold me on how amazing present tense first person is. OH, also Ignite by Jenna Terese! *just realised I read three present tense first person books in a row* Anyway, I feel like I may have read more but those are the only ones I remember.
Hmmm, I think I should try the second book just to make sure I don’t like it…
I have only ever read the first book in Percy Jackson series and that’s it. I know that’s probably not a good judge for the whole series, I just really don’t care for the Greek mythology at all, which is the whole point of the series, right? Exploring Greek Mythology in the modern times and all that? I’m sorry. I feel bad for not liking it when so many people are touched by it. *hides again*
Present tense first person is definitely special, haha. I 100% get it why a bunch of people would dislike it. But it can work really well in the story it’s in cause I don’t even notice it anymore once I’m past the first page now.
Also I am the only one here who disliked Percy Jackson? *hides*
This is a small thing, but I use to hate present tense first person. It really bothered me and it was hard to read for a while. But after reading it several times, plus enjoying most of the stories with this, it grew on me. Now I quite like it. Not my favourite type for POV, but I could see myself writing in that style one day…
No worries! I enjoyed reading your answer to the last question! You are so right about that. 🙂 Book genres is such an interesting topic, hey!
Ohh, literary fiction? That’s awesome! I’m excited for these stories!
*stumbles into the room* *notices new person* Oh, hey! I’m Ribbon Ash! Or Miranda. I have two names haha and I love them both, but I digress. Welcome fellow writer and reader!
I would say I’m a fantasy and dystopian writer, but honestly considering the sort of ideas I get these days I think it’s best to say I’m a multi-genre writer. On top of fantasy and dystopian, I also get stories ideas for science fiction, superhero, contemporary, paranormal, futuristic and steampunk. I know a lot of these are subgenres and can fit into the broader term genres that I just mentioned, but I think subgenres are different enough to be their own thing. Plus a bunch of my story ideas involve two or more genres together, so another reason why my interest for writing are all over the place a bit. I don’t know if any of this made sense, so welcome to my imagination! XD
Okay, enough about me, here’s some questions:
Why did you decide to write the genre you’re writing?
Do you plan to write another genre that you haven’t written about yet?
Do you genre-blend or stick to one genre?
Do you think subgenres are different enough from the main types to be their own genre?
My brain seems to be only focused on genres at the moment. XD
Anyway, I’m not on here much because life is a bit chaotic, so much stuff to do each day, but I pop in from time to time, mainly when people tag me. So that’s the best way to reach me or come join in a conversation or topic. I may be late, I may forgot to read the previous conversation for context sometimes because I am too busy and then forgot to reply to it at all and just have it bookmarked for when I have time, but generally I’ll try to come as soon as possible and have a chat! 🙂
Thank you for the encouragement. I’m definitely trying to be mindful of this and give myself a lot of grace. It’s hard but it is worth it in the end. <3 <3 <3
Ahh, I would love to help but I’m a bit too busy right now. 🙁
YES! Like everyone. XD Okay, okay, just to pick a few, I loved Peter, Reagan, Evan, Jackson and Spencer the most. 😀
It was an indie book called How We Rise by Brooke Riley. It was amazing. I could talk about it all day! The characters were so lovable and relatable. The world was the perfect blend of contemporary and dystopian that you feel at home but also horrified (the best way to explain it). The plot is both chill and thrilling (much like the world). I just love every aspect of it. It has brought me a lot of comfort and is giving the experience again of getting another fandom for myself. Which is pretty cool because I’m not a fandom person.
Oh, that’s so cool! I wished I owned them! I read them originally from the library. I would love to own my copies because it is my childhood favourite series! 🙂 Hehe, I took advantage of that. XD
