How can you determine if the story is aimed at Young adults or Adults?

[DAgent]

This is something I've gave a bit of thought about recently, as I've never really thought about who would be reading the stories I write, more what my story would be about. As such I've no idea if my work would need to be advertised as Young adult or Adult.

I'm fairly certain that if I was writing a story aimed at children it would need to be written in a far more simplistic way then a story aimed at adults, and would more than likely end up with kids of that age being the protagonists so the kids could relate to the heroes of the book more. But is a book target audience always based on the ages of the main characters? If my main character is a teenager, that does automatically mean it's a young adult novel, and if the main character is a twenty something does that pigeon hold it as an adult novel?

And what if you end up having several protagonists of different ages? Some teenagers, some older, if not various different ages?

Or is it an entirely different set of criteria?

 

[Mon0Zer0]

I'm fairly certain that if I was writing a story aimed at children it would need to be written in a far more simplistic way then a story aimed at adults, and would more than likely end up with kids of that age being the protagonists so the kids could relate to the heroes of the book more.

Hi @DAgent!

Other than much milder themes, less intense sex or violence, that's pretty much it. YA needs to be aimed at the kind of content teens are likely to be interested in - relationships, school, loved interests - all will be skewed towards a YA view of the world. The morality will likely be less grey and less nuanced with a clearer view of heroes and villains.

If my main character is a teenager, that does automatically mean it's a young adult novel, and if the main character is a twenty something does that pigeon hold it as an adult novel?

Nah, not really - plenty of adult stories where the protagonists are teens - look at Carrie or Christine by Stephen King.

If the MC is in their twenties - this might not class it as an adult novel, but it may limit your audience to older YA readers who are more likely to relate. YA readers are more likely to read stories about people their own age.

 

[Astro Pen]

I'd say Dandelion Wine (12 year old) is an adult novel whereas Biggles (adult serviceman) is definitely YA. So age of protagonist is not the criteria.
Graphic sexual content is a decider and I think to an extent the complexity of characters, i.e. more simplistic stereotypes who lack ambiguity might be also, but I am wary of underestimating YA readers. They are more capable than we as oldies realise of dealing with complex human issues and detecting patronising writing.

 

[tinkerdan]

I think, in general, if the characters are young enough then it will self regulate to YA--which means that if the material is all adult then you need to consider adjustments to bring it up to adult. However, i can almost agree that there are some times when it might work to have young adult characters in horribly adult situations--I'm not sure how imperative that is. There are some lines that you should be conscious of crossing if you use mostly YA characters in an adult situation--because you can be sure that it will at some point end up in YA hands.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Read young adult fiction, read new adult fiction and read crossover fiction, and you'll start to see where various things sit.

 

[Juliana]

If my main character is a teenager, that does automatically mean it's a young adult novel, and if the main character is a twenty something does that pigeon hold it as an adult novel?

A teen novel will usually have a teen protagonist, but not all novels with teen protagonists are YA. It's a little more nuanced than that.

YA needs to be aimed at the kind of content teens are likely to be interested in - relationships, school, loved interests - all will be skewed towards a YA view of the world.

This, exactly. If you're writing YA, you're aiming at a teen audience, and at what most teens generally want to read about (which can have violence, sex, etc, yes; it's more a mindset than anything!). And yes, many teens read adult novels with adult characters, but nothing is stopping them from doing exactly that. YA is still an age category all of its own.

Read young adult fiction, read new adult fiction and read crossover fiction, and you'll start to see where various things sit.

This!! Best way to get a feel for the differences. You can just get a bunch of YA books at the library and skim read a bit from beginning/middle/end.

 

[Dragonlady]

Young adult novels often have coming of age or romantic themes.