So, my first book is published and I'm writing my sequel. I came across a huge problem. The whole series is for mainly young adults, but I've had readers from 18 to 85 that are happy with it. The problem is that the main characters in the first book are adults, and therefor the book itself is easily understood and enjoyed by adults. The sequel is centered around teenagers. After writing the first book, as I write the second I feel like everything I'm writing now is childish and silly. In fact I feel like the characters themselves are... well childish and silly, but on the other hand they are teenagers, going through high school, and they are being forced into adult situations. The whole thing is just very conflicting in my mind. Now I'm to the point where I have no idea how to fix this, or if there really is anything to fix or if it's just me being silly. Any advice at all would be HUGELY appreciated.
Usually YA novels have YA protagonists - I'm having trouble thinking of one that has adult main characters. So possibly your first book wasn't really YA? In which case it's probably best if your second isn't, either, since it's usually best to stick to the same market segment for all the books in a series. I'm not sure what to say beyond that... it's certainly possible to have books with teen characters that aren't YA books... maybe that's what you should be shooting for?
I feel like that's what I want to go for, but as I'm writing, it just doesn't seem like my original readers will be as interested in the sequal. I'm having trouble making my teenage characters appeal to a more mature market.
How old are your characters? If they're childish and silly, I agree that's a problem, but if you can give them some extra depth, their age shouldn't get in the way of adults reading it. I'm thinking of, for example, The Girl with All the Gifts, a novel with a young MC but written for an adult audience. Maybe also The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, although I didn't like it as much. Both of them have MCs who are somewhat precocious and special, but they're also fairly clearly children in their levels of understanding. I think they're kept interesting by having the children interact with adults fairly often, not locking them away in YA-land where everyone is a teen. Room, Secret Life of Bees, Life of Pi, The Reader, The Goldfinch, Lives of Girls and Women, Lullabies for Little Criminals, The Kite Runner, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Bastard Out of Carolina... Lots of examples of books for adults with young protagonists. Maybe read a few and see how they're done?
Thank you! I will definitely be reading those! My MC's are just turning sixteen, but it's fiction and the world they live in considers them to be adults at that age, but they still have to go high school and deal with teenage drama while dealing with their own adult lives at home. I'm having a hard time finding a balance.
