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Edgy thoughts vs. edgy events
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From: AlwaysErin at aol.com <AlwaysErin>
Date: Tue, 6 May 2003 11:30:59 EDT
I'm enjoying this discussion very much!
I'm glad Olgy brought up Julie Anne Peters. I loved DEFINE NORMAL and am now looking forward to reading her new release, KEEPING A SECRET.
When I read DEFINE NORMAL, I described it to a client who was struggling with how far to push the edge in one of her YA manuscripts. (In fact, I ended up using it as an example with more than one client, but that is beside the point...) I sent it to this writer, whose WJD (worthless day job, as she calls it) is practicing clinical psychology, and the book made its way into the hands of one of her patients, a teenage girl, self?scribed "Goth," member of a comfortable family who is nonetheless troubled in her own way. This patient was always complaining that in YA books, edgy had to do with situations the characters were in--sex, drugs, living with mentally ill or otherwise incompetent parents, abuse, etc. This teen's own life did not echo this (to my memory, which of course is vague because the writer-psychologist couldn't go into any details). The teen was looking for more books in which characters were "normal," part of "normal" families, but still struggling with many of the social and personal issues that teens go through as part of growing up. So the thoughts might be edgy, but the situations are not.
I thought this was interesting, to think of this sort of distinction, as I tend to break YA books into edgy/non?gy categories along the parameters that Janette Rallison pointed out--what is the "topic" of the book, the hook, how do you describe it? etc. I don't much like that this is where I place the line, though, and am glad to realize I do that.
Much of my approach to YA literature is from a development standpoint, rather than an after-publication reader standpoint (although of course I am a reader as well as an agent!). I often deal with issues of edginess in terms of encouraging clients to push the edge in a developing manuscript. Whether a book is edgy (a term that seems too convenient and catch-all) or not is rather an organic thing. Some stories just plain aren't. Others feel as though they need to be--it's plain that the writer has skirted something big, something important, in the manuscript, and needs to go to a difficult place in her/himself and with the character in order to give the story its full life. I find that usually when a client warns me that a manuscript is probably "too edgy," it's not so edgy after all--but it feels so from the emotional process that happened in the writing. In fact, in many of these cases, what they think is edgy is in fact profound.
Enough rambling... Erin Murphy
Received on Tue 06 May 2003 10:30:59 AM CDT
Date: Tue, 6 May 2003 11:30:59 EDT
I'm enjoying this discussion very much!
I'm glad Olgy brought up Julie Anne Peters. I loved DEFINE NORMAL and am now looking forward to reading her new release, KEEPING A SECRET.
When I read DEFINE NORMAL, I described it to a client who was struggling with how far to push the edge in one of her YA manuscripts. (In fact, I ended up using it as an example with more than one client, but that is beside the point...) I sent it to this writer, whose WJD (worthless day job, as she calls it) is practicing clinical psychology, and the book made its way into the hands of one of her patients, a teenage girl, self?scribed "Goth," member of a comfortable family who is nonetheless troubled in her own way. This patient was always complaining that in YA books, edgy had to do with situations the characters were in--sex, drugs, living with mentally ill or otherwise incompetent parents, abuse, etc. This teen's own life did not echo this (to my memory, which of course is vague because the writer-psychologist couldn't go into any details). The teen was looking for more books in which characters were "normal," part of "normal" families, but still struggling with many of the social and personal issues that teens go through as part of growing up. So the thoughts might be edgy, but the situations are not.
I thought this was interesting, to think of this sort of distinction, as I tend to break YA books into edgy/non?gy categories along the parameters that Janette Rallison pointed out--what is the "topic" of the book, the hook, how do you describe it? etc. I don't much like that this is where I place the line, though, and am glad to realize I do that.
Much of my approach to YA literature is from a development standpoint, rather than an after-publication reader standpoint (although of course I am a reader as well as an agent!). I often deal with issues of edginess in terms of encouraging clients to push the edge in a developing manuscript. Whether a book is edgy (a term that seems too convenient and catch-all) or not is rather an organic thing. Some stories just plain aren't. Others feel as though they need to be--it's plain that the writer has skirted something big, something important, in the manuscript, and needs to go to a difficult place in her/himself and with the character in order to give the story its full life. I find that usually when a client warns me that a manuscript is probably "too edgy," it's not so edgy after all--but it feels so from the emotional process that happened in the writing. In fact, in many of these cases, what they think is edgy is in fact profound.
Enough rambling... Erin Murphy
Received on Tue 06 May 2003 10:30:59 AM CDT
