Re: The Future of Young Adult Fiction?


"Alma Hromic Deckert" <anghara@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:lbhnv39b8u9cu9a51spc5pr2kll723l193@xxxxxxxxxx
On Tue, 08 Apr 2008 11:20:28 -0800, Bill Swears <wswears@xxxxxxx>
wrote:

CharlesRCaplan@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
So, is this something that will catch on in the US/UK? I think it
will, but more importantly will there be room for English speaking
authors to move in and capitalize on the new market? If there is room,
would "respectable" novel writers want to "slum" down there with the
under-literate masses?

Sorry, but I have to laugh. This reminds me *so* much of the all the various
and sundry "death of the book" scenarios that the literati have been
bemoaning and bewailing for the last 70 or so years, since around the
invention of the mass market paperback.

If Japanese-style "light novels" catch on in the US/UK, some authors will
write them and others will sneer at them. This seems to me like a no-brainer
prediction, and not anything that ought to be new news to anyone.

I think we're coming farther and farther from sharing a definition of
literacy with our potential audiences, and it's hurting creative people
in the pocketbook. I love to write, and fully intend to keep marketing
my written language. But I'd love to be involved in a streamlined
literacy as a major part of my stories, and I'd envision success in a
single story appealing to a set of markets.

What is "streamlined literacy"?

Novels, movies,
RPG/computer games, and illustrated stories for adults seem to all have
there market share for the entertainment dollar. I think a good story
should be able to find a niche in each of these arenas.

Some stories can; others can't. The things that are required to make a good
RPG/computer game are not all the same things that are required to make a
good novel, and the things that make for a good novel are not necessarily
the things that make a good movie, and so on. There's overlap, certainly,
but not always as much as you might think. *Some* novels translate very well
to film or games, but other books need so much adaptation to fit a different
media that they can hardly be said to be the same story in both book and
film, or book and game, or whatever (if, indeed, you could make the
transition at all -- consider trying to make an RPG out of "The Time
Traveler's Wife"...I really don't think so).


That's all fine - but I am a writer. I am not a game writer - I've
done my share of role-playing games back in my salad days, and yes,
I've even written up some of the games I've been involved in, but
please note that this was done to scratch a writer's itch to produce a
narrative rather than writing a "game module" of any sort. I've NEVER
written a screenplay; should anyone decide to make an offer for any of
my books to be turned into movies someone else will have to transform
the story into the moving-picture format. I could probably DO it - I
know enough about the format to begin it and I could learn what more I
needed from how-to books and from just DOING as I went along - but it
isn't my strength, it isn't want I want to do, and it isn't something
that dramatically appeals to me. I have no objection to books being
illustrated, be they for adults for for children, but once again this
is an adjunct to story which I am not qualified to produce because,
well, I can't *draw*.

Which is what publishers and subrights licenses are *for*. Japanese light
novels are seldom written and illustrated by the same person, any more than
most lower grade-level children's books with pictures are in the U.S. Comics
have been a collaboration between writer and illustrator since forever.
Quite a few SF and YA authors have already licensed RPG rights to their
books. There's no particular need for one author to do it all.

Of course, some authors *want* to do it all. Others don't want to do it
themselves, but equally don't want other people "messing with their words."
I don't see that as a particular problem.

I sincerely hope that even in the MTV-generation's limited attention
span there is room for a good story well told. Because that's what I
do. I'm a writer. I write. I hvae to hope there will be enough readers
out there who still want to READ rather than veg out in front of a TV
or play computer games to the exclusion of all else. I am perfectly
happy for the alternative forms of entertainment - the more media-tied
kind - to coexist with what I do, but I cannot and will not start
dumbing down prose, using "simple" vocabulary, using short sentences
accessible to the emergent-reader-level audience and even then only if
accompanied by a joystick or a picture book. I was a kid who craved
stories when I was little. I have to hope that my particular kind of
child is not completely extinct in this world.

As far as I can tell, and after having a lot of talks with the editors who
came to Minicon this year, the YA field for fiction is currently a lot
healthier than a lot of adult-fiction markets.

Patricia C. Wrede


.

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