Making My Own Worlds

Two weeks ago I flew halfway across the country to visit my mother and sister, AND my fabulous writing partner Jesilea . Over a delicious meal of Italian food, she mentioned that she was working on a “New Adult” project.

I blinked a couple times, because I had never heard of such a thing, and I asked her what that was.

“New Adult” is a relatively brand new category of fiction that covers the coming-of-age that happens in a person’s twenties. It’s that strange limbo between high school and becoming a “proper” adult. In 2009, St. Martin’s Press wanted to create a category for stories about young adults who are also legal young adults, but who were still finding their way in building a life and figuring out what it means to be an adult.

Yes, I just quoted wikipedia. What are you going to do about it?

The target audience is that cross-over range between 18 and 30, between what publishers consider young adult and adult audiences. I, for one, have been looking for this genre for a LONG time. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good YA novel (there are plenty of them out there) and I enjoy the novels about people in their late twenties and above, but where are all the novels about the college students and recent graduates? Don’t they have interesting stories to tell?

I read this blog and it makes an interesting point about perspective:

“One characteristic of adult literature is perspective. With the passing of childhood innocence comes experience, and with experience comes insight. With his/her adolescent years behind him/her, an adult can look back and see “what was then and what is now”… But what about “postadolescent” fiction? That’s a bit harder to articulate. We, the “new adults”, have some perspective on our lives, but scope? We’re not old enough, we’re not experienced enough, we’re simply not grown-up enough. Our lives have immediacy, just as a teenager’s does, but we also possess the wisdom to understand that this immediacy cannot last for long. It’s a curious place in life and … I feel that not enough fiction (or nonfiction) explore this nebulous time of life. The “quarter-life crisis”, if you will.”

In discussing this new category with my writing partner, I learned that the main reason publishers are afraid of this New Adult thing is because they have no idea how to market it. This is tragic, because there is a whole wealth of stories to be told from the perspective of a new adult.

When I started my adventure to become a writer, it was because I wanted to write the stories that I wanted to read. This isn’t just because I wanted to see my favorite characters get paired up. It was also because I wanted to see the perspectives I was experiencing, or was about to experience. One of my greatest annoyances in my senior year of high school was that there were no novels (that I could find, anyway) that were set during a character’s college years. I now know that I can blame frightened publishers for this.

On the bright side, this means they’ve left this category of fiction largely open for independent publishing. My current urban fantasy work-in-progress is set during my main character’s final year at university. Granted, her age has changed as I developed the story, but this feels right. She’s not a teenager, and she’s not a full-fledged adult either. She’s still trying to figure out what she wants to do with her life, what her goals are. Maybe I’m writing new adult because I’m in this stage of life myself (though I have graduated from both high school and university since beginning work on this story), but this also feels right for the story.

For the longest time I was wondering if my novel would be labeled as YA or adult fiction, when time to publish eventually arrives. Now I know, and so do you!

If you are looking for any New Adult novel recommendations, there is this group on Goodreads that has plenty of suggestions (complete with ratings! Isn’t Goodreads excellent? I swear they didn’t pay me to say that).

Once again, thank Morgan and Anne for making me update my blog again this week and welcome Emily to our blog pact circle! We all get frozen yogurt if we write in our blogs every week for a whole month. Yum.

Project Progress: I’m still working away at the revision outline of my urban fantasy new adult novel. I have about a quarter of the story to sort out, and then I can actually start the revisions!

Currently reading: Several things, among them “Legends of Blood” by Wayne Bartlett and Flavia Indriceanu – it’s about the vampire in history and myth. My current research novel.

Listening to: Fallulah’s “Black Cat Neighborhood” album. Check her out on Spotify or Grooveshark. She’s amazing. My writing partner introduced me to her, and now I’ve finally listened to her, I CAN’T STOP. This Danish girl has an amazing voice and style.