There's this idea I've been toying with for the last two years, dismantling and rearranging it as my own literary tastes and experiences progress. It is a coming-of-age tale containing elements of a urban fantasy, and epic in its scope. This is where the problem arises; I originally conceived the story in a Victorian Era period, though I feel that this limits the escapism provided by most successful YA Fiction in the market. To further my point: do you think that mega bestsellers such as Harry Potter and Twilight would have been as appealing to the audience if they had been situated in a different time period? I mean, who never dreamed of receiving a letter from Hogwarts?
It's all down to how you treat the story; would you write it in a contemporary way while keeping the Victorian setting, or would it be more faithful to the spirit of those times (and the literature of those times). If it's contemporary and accessible, then people will be able to escape into it regardless of the time period, but if you deviate from the tropes of contemporary YA fiction, then it may be harder to find the big markets those titles enjoyed.
