My latest work is about a young group of 18 to 22 years old that involves a few sexual innuendos. Nothing worse than David and Bathsheba, but yeah it happened. There is an FBI agent that drops the F bomb a few times, but the rest is PG. My question is. Will this 60,000 word novel that no one will ever read qualify as YA?
I've wondered this as well, most of the characters in my novel are 18-23. I read somewhere that there's a genre called "new adult", but I don't know if it's widely accepted.
New Adult is an accepted genre. if you’re worried about foul language and sexual content in YA, you should read more in the genre. There is plenty of this in YA. I’ve read YA novels with oral sex, sex for money, foul language—you name it. If it exists in the lives of real-world YA-aged people, it exists in YA writing.
Main characters are 27, and 21. Not really YA, and probably not even NA, so probably not a good comparison.
Really? I haven't seen anything that explicit. I'm sure it exists, I just haven't seen it. Usually the language is strong but sex is often alluded to, not outright, "Hey, give me $200 (or whatever) and I'll fuck your brains out!" Were these books you saw this stuff in marketed to the YA market? Any warnings on the books like "mature content"? Just curious. I've shied away from using graphic language but maybe that's the wrong way to go. Something to ponder.
Yes, they were marketed to YA audience. There wasn't explicit description of the act, but one character comes across two others engaged in it. I think a lot of people underestimate the subject matter that YA/Teen and even younger stories cover.
It is much misunderstood, YA. Bookshops treat it as adult, when recommending books, to avoid complaints. Personally, I veer towards permissiveness when it comes to fiction, but others differ... So, for instance, I dipped into a YA novel recently which opened with a scene of anal rape The difference, I suppose, is that YA authors on the whole tend to have a less exploitative / sensationalist approach. Tbey handle their subjects sensitively, and so it works.
