I'm trying to work out what makes a YA novel so popular and able to affect millions of people. For example, The Hunger Games? Of course we have the basics: solid plot and characters, but there's something else. It's to do with human relationships - new, strange, fertile ground for 'young adults' indeed, what with young love and exploring sexuality etc. So in the Hunger Games we have the latter but framed by a dystopian socio-political order that at all points threatens and disrupts those emotional bonds.
YA writers, what else goes into a great Ya novel? What makes it connect and affect millions of people?
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Teenage girl with two orbiters and they have a weird, unrealistic love triangle that is blatantly favoring one of the orbiters
An authoritarian government with a very non-descript name and their motives can just be " Grrrrrr, we must be evil and oppress people but comically blunder in every way when we try to do anything to stop the main character"
Worldbuilding doesn't matter that much, have it take place in eitehr some generic fantasy world or balkanized America
don’t forget the mc has to experience trauma (death of close relative or friend, implied sexual assault, ‘skipping meals’ poverty, etc.) and push everyone away while other characters fight to comfort her for the bullshit ‘dark feminine’ behaviour
You're almost there but you're missing the biggest point which is that it needs to be something teenagers can easily self insert into
The whole appeal of the hunger games is that it made kids imagine "what would I do if I were in the hunger games"
The books have a plot but it's basically just "the MC enters the hunger games" and it doesn't get more complicated than that until she's actually in them
>diversity
>inclusion
>queer representation
>strong female characters fighting against a fascist dystopia
boilerplate Jungian archetypes
no
There are no good YA novels, kids too young to read grown up literature are too young for the more explicit things typically found in YA novels so should stick to children’s books. Kids too grown up for children’s books should read grown up literature. This inbetween of validly themed books serves to just hamper the development of teenagers and infantilise adults.
As to what makes it popular you want something that is easy to self insert into whilst simultaneously provide huge wish fulfilment and faux tribalism that act like star signs or Myers Briggs results for the (inevitably primarily female) audience, Harry Potter does this most enticingly to people as an ordinary child is revealed to be a magical wizard millionaire and goes to magic school where you are put in a house with an animal mascot based on your personality (this competitive house system is a real thing in British schools but the placement is pretty much arbitrary irl). As other anons have said you want a fmm love triangle because it strikes the egos of the female dorks reading this garbage.
>connect with millions
By being lowest common denominator, like crap tv shows and superhero movies
Agreed. I know an 'I love books' manic pixie dream girl and it's all vampire and werewolf trash. She's 30 btw.
I'll disagree with you. YA novels are to tv-shows what light novels are to anime - essentially the same thing in written form. When you're 12-15 years old, you don't want IQfy, and even if you read it, you mostly won't understand it. YA mends the hole by letting books still be read while being easy and fun to understand. However they shouldn't be much read by people older than the intended age group of the novels.
>What makes it connect and affect millions of people?
They have to be written effectively - characterization, construction of scenes, syntax etc. Otherwise following some pattern pobably won't work.
It should be fun
It has to be a millennial power fantasy, specifically for the mediocre white female ones who peaked in high school and can't get over Chad picking Stacy over them. Or you could can go the John Green route and reverse it. Basically, pander to millennials, 'cause no ACTUAL young adults read this shit.
I just need to pander to more easily spellbound demographic, I guess. I'm only interested in money here.
just write and self-publish romance or erotica
Make sure it's full of lesbians. Millennials on Book Twitter will go crazy for that shit. You could even do what Bischoff said (controversy creates cash) and have one of 'em be a troony and rake in the dough.
don’t even joke. I am seriously considering writing homosexual supernatural romances under a pseudonym for some cash
Do post anon if you do. Also consider checking out the new 'dark academia' and english inspired 'cottagecore' thing this is currently very very popular with rich white and second generation brown teen girls. Lmao good luck anon if you do it Im rooting for you go make some money off these b***hes
Popularity is either stochastic or manufactured
https://www.city-journal.org/why-is-young-adult-fiction-so-popular
Good YA novel:
>Catcher in the Rye
Popular YA novel:
>whatever gets the most marketing $$$, ad space, and has a white foid with her rack out to promote it
Lesbian Urban Fantasy Vampire Romance got pretty high ratings
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35992313-the-one-who-eats-monsters
THG was good precisely because it did more than just the usual "teenage angst in written form + authority is BAD" stuff most YA books do.
Of course quality doesn't sell in todays market. What matters, especially for YA works, is to be as inclusive as possible. The more BIPOC LGBTQ+ characters you can cram into a pseudo-story set in a comically evil dystopia ruled by a totally-not-Trump leader, the better.
Additionally, you'll need a twitter account that averages at least 20 tweets per day about either current political issues or quirky tumblresque writing tipps.
Then, and only then, will you become a successful YA author.
I see . . . agents/publishers won't take submissions without a strong social media presense? Seems cringe.
Oh no, it's worse than you think.
The social media presence is for advertising your work that you self-published on Amazon.
Are John Greene's books read because of his YouTube channel?
partially, his fame extended to tumblr during its prime. he was incredibly active on both platforms, but as soon as tumblr got sold out to yahoo AND his books/film adaptations were criticised for their cringe factor (and the fact he was a man writing YA for young girls primarily), his popularity fizzled out
is Wattpad a good place to start a YA career?
no idea bud. I don’t write YA
the only good YA is Maximum Ride outside of that fantasy-like stuff like redwall
hate to tell you but MR was trash
>reading that prologue
Holy cringe, I hope the rest of the book is better
monetizable value
You have to be willing to participate in cancelling campaigns against other YA authors in order to get rid of your competition.
https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/10/the-8-habits-of-highly-successful-young-adult-fiction-authors/280722/
YA is such trash. everyone over 22 who reads it seriously needs to be killed.
The truth is that the majority of entertainment media, literature and music included, is either for children and teens, or appeals to childlike sensibilities of immature adults.
>appeals to childlike sensibilities of immature women
fixed
Fair enough
there isn't a special ingredient that made Harry Potter or The Hunger Games more popular than every other YA novel. They just got lucky.