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Posted By: malvado_bruja Sep 21, 2004 - 12:29 am

Hi all,

I've been working on a novel I thought was young adult for the past couple of weeks. The difficulty is that I'm not entirely sure that it's the direction I want to take it in BUT I don't want to make my characters any older than they currently are (the chief protagonists are 16 and 17 respectively).

Their ages are incredibly important to the story, particularly the girl's, as much of it centre's on her discovery that she belongs to this rather 'independent' (shall we say), group of women. She's also been sold into marriage to the 'bad guy' of the whole thing, which of course is far from unheard of in older societies, and still occurs in plenty of places to this day.

I'm not having a problem either with swearing or including sex scenes, but am struggling more with the language and description, which tends to be older, plus some of the thematic stuff.

Does anybody else fell like they're doing a blancing act? At the moment, I'm just writing what comes up, and I guess audience will change (or not) according to this, but it's driving me up the wall!!!!

Posted By: Magus Sep 21, 2004 - 03:54 am

Not really. Write the story the way it should be written. Hold nothing back. Your only cheating yourself and the story if you don't write it exactly the way it comes to you.

Posted By: chowder Sep 21, 2004 - 11:13 am

Many adult fantasies have main characters who are teenagers. Good advice, Magus.

Posted By: Gnollslayer Sep 21, 2004 - 11:45 am

And many young adults read books with more mature themes.

Posted By: Aldan Sep 21, 2004 - 10:24 pm

I believe that it's more of a publishing issue, really. If you are specifically targeting a certain age group, then you do need to consider the content, but otherwise follow the advice of the Magus.

Posted By: malvado_bruja Sep 22, 2004 - 07:31 pm

Hi all. That's what I was considering, Aldan- more the publishing side- currently I'm just going with the flow, it's just a bit all over the place (not that that's a bad thing in the early stages). I think that's the problem with having preconceive notions sometimes.

Posted By: Some Idiot Oct 04, 2004 - 10:57 am

I agree with Magus - write the story not the genre. If you are specifically targetting a genre, then you can make those changes when it comes time to redraft.

Posted By: Spiderkeg Oct 04, 2004 - 11:45 am

I don't even keep track of sub-genres when it comes to books. I know there's horror, and drama, a fantasy, and etc. Beyond that, I just get fuzzy. I'm sure it works in my favor.

When it comes to movies, you have so many cross genres it gets confusing to determine where a movie needs to be cataloged. Such as, should the movie "Something Wicked This Way Comes" be filed under Children's or filed under Horror? It is a Disney movie though.

Posted By: Magus Oct 04, 2004 - 01:06 pm

I can help you there. My parents have said, both jokingly on not, that I am obsessive compulsive when it comes to movies.

I'll skip over the details, but I organize movies into "movie genres". They help in choosing the ones I want. Here they are, and I hope that they can help you.

Action/Adventure
Drama
Comedy
Thriller/Mystery
Animated
Holiday
Romance
Musicals

I find that "movie genres" tend to be a little less specific, a little more vauge. Because there is so much it requires it.

Thriller/Mystery also encorperates horror into that. Anything animated goes under "Animated" and anything holiday related goes under "Holiday". Any cross genres involved are just put under the one that best describes them.

I hope this helps.

Posted By: Spiderkeg Oct 05, 2004 - 04:55 am

I work at Blockbuster as a second job, so I know how there is about where movies fit and where movies SHOULD fit when it comes to the genres.

First of all, a thriller and a horror are not the same deal. A thriller can be both horror and drama. Typically, all of the stuff by Hitchcock is under drama. Slasher movies though are undoubtedly under horror, though something like "What Lies Beneath" is not horror but drama. Messed up system, I know. The AFI should really work out a better solution to catagorizing movies, since most of them do not fall under just one main type.

Most animated stuff goes under "Children" while Anime has its own section, for obvious reasons.

Not sure why we're on this subject, but it's something fun to debate.

Posted By: Starfire Oct 05, 2004 - 11:02 am

I just hate it when places put horror, Scifi, fanasy together. Suncaost does that. They are nothing alike. I hate horror moives. I could see putting Anime with in Scifi and fanasy, but horror? Some video stores do this too. I hate looking through gross video covers trying to find something worth watching.

Posted By: Magus Oct 05, 2004 - 03:06 pm

I agree. It's not a very smart thing to do. But I can even one up you at this point.

The Blockbuster near me has a very stupid policy. In lacking a "Musical" section they put ALL musicals in the comedy section. I'm sorry, but West Side Story and Fiddler on the Roof are by no meens comdic!

Posted By: Caegaraneva Dec 24, 2004 - 06:48 am

Wait...are any musicals really comedic?? Like...take Mary Poppins...you aren't supposed to be laughing at it! It's not drama, but it's not just comedy either. No musical should be put on the level of Mr. Deeds.

Posted By: Magus Dec 24, 2004 - 09:04 am

Blockbuster's stupid!

My sister and I went there the other day. She found the second and third season of Mutant X, but not the first. She asked and they didn't have it at all. She didn't rent either of the two others because they didn't have the first.

She also came up to me and asked if they had a TV section. I said I didn't know and she said that that was stupid and didn't make sense. I reminded her that it would make sense to have a Musical section and she agreed.

Stupid Blockbuster!!!