12-year-old protag = deal breaker?

amergina

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Does he *start* the book as a 12-year old? because that's pretty much the midpoint for boys to hit puberty (between 9-14).

I'm not sure that 12-year-olds are all that innocent, either. (Unless you're strictly talking sexual innocence. Then sure. Especially if puberty hadn't hit.)

Sure, they don't have all the emotional and decision-making capacity of adults, but they can lie. And cheat. And steal. And hurt people. And bully.

I'd actually buy it more if he were... I don't know... a six-year old. A kind of Charles Wallace (Wrinkle in Time) type character.

Presumably by the end of the series, he'll be older? So if you *do* have him as 12 now, in later books, he'll be older so... you're going to lose that visual child-like impact anyway. (Not that 12-year-old boys are exactly child-like.)

So maybe age him *down?
 

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Just wanted to jump in to say that this is not always the case. Rick Yancey's THE MONSTRUMOLOGIST has a twelve-year-old protagonist and that book is definitely YA.

As to the thread as a whole, I agree with pretty much what everyone else has said. Advice re: the query fourthed.

That might be the exception that proves the rule then. I think one ought to be wary advising someone though that it's cool to have a 12 yearold in a YA. Especially someone who has said she has had responses from people saying the age threw them. I honestly don't see what the big deal is to say the book is adult, since she is talking about it being for adults anyway. It would be one thing if she was saying it was MG and we were saying it had to be adult, that would require an entire re-write with tone etc. But saying something is YA but we are saying say it's adult requires nothing but changing a few words in a query.

Regardless, I don't really know what the big deal is. Call it adult and Bob's your uncle. Why even discuss ageing up the character to be a teen to fit YA if the author really feels ageing up the character ruins the heart of the book? This isn't that hard a thing to solve really.

Quite honestly my thinking is that there's a greater issue with the sample chapters than just age and market. I feel like even if the author mislabeled those things, an agent could help reframe how to sell it. So I'm thinking something isn't quite selling the book within the actual chapters. And I'm wondering if it doesn't actually read as adult as the author thinks it does, and that possibly it does read really YA and THEN there's an issue, because despite one or two examples, selling a YA with a non-teen protagonist is a REALLY tough sell.

ETA: I also believe that those rare YAs that have non-teen protags are quite literary and dark and would otherwise be considered MG except it's a bit too difficult a read for that age group. If that's the tone of her book, then maybe that could work. OP is that the tone of your work?
 
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Putputt

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I would call it adult. Have you read Room? It's an adult novel written from the PoV of a five-year-old. So you can go young in adult novel.

But, more importantly than that, like people have said, if you are consistently getting rejected from your query, take a look at your query again. Have you posted it on QLH? Also, if you're pasting the first ten pages of your MS onto the body of the e-mail, maybe try posting them on SYW.
 

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I really appreciate these examples of YA/adult novels with child POVs.

So maybe age him *down?
I don't want to evoke Charles Wallace; his character is a subversion of that trope. But he was originally 11, and I changed him to 12 to see if that would make a difference. I should change him back to 11.

Why are you so married to the YA label?
I'm not. But I think this novel has crossover appeal. I've had a bunch of beta readers on the whole series, and teens seem to love it as much as adults. Also, my style is minimalist rather than prose-heavy, so the story has a YA pace to it.

I'm considering changing his age to 18 in the first three chapters, just to see if that leads to a full manuscript request. If it does, then ... I'll panic? :) I can change his age in this novel, to the detriment of the story [see my post #23]. Maybe it will make the difference between getting the mss read or not.

But, more importantly than that, like people have said, if you are consistently getting rejected from your query, take a look at your query again. Have you posted it on QLH? Also, if you're pasting the first ten pages of your MS onto the body of the e-mail, maybe try posting them on SYW.
Yes, done it. I've rewritten the query about 108x, and the first three chapters more than 150x. I've gotten loads of feedback--enough to realize that his age is one of the major factors leading to auto-rejections.

There's another major factor, as well, which is trope assumption. It seems that many readers (and about 100% of industry professionals) assume that this character is going to follow the typical child-genius-saves-the-day trope. My novel takes an unexpected twist and subverts that trope, but the agent isn't going to read far enough to see that. So I'm working on figuring out a way to signal the trope subversion in chapter 1, and/or in the query letter.
 
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Agents don't offer feedback when they auto-reject. However, I've had a lot of feedback on the first three chapters from industry professionals. The age thing is consistently mentioned by them.

You've mentioned these industry professionals before: I wonder who they are, and where you've found them.

Former assistant editors (at major publishers, such as Tor and Daw), and agented and published novelists.

Working literary agents and editors generally don't have time for beta reading. If you know one who's willing, please let me know.

Ah.

You realise that you have a similar range of industry professionals responding to you here, at AW, some of them in this very thread?

*glances at own CV*

*glances at the many books on my shelves written, represented and edited by AW members*

It's true that few of us will be able to beta-read a full novel. But we do have time to give our opinions here, and because we've read so many queries and submissions, and have seen many of the books connected to those submissions, we can usually identify where the problems are. I do think the age of your main character is problematic, as has been discussed elsewhere.

Does he *start* the book as a 12-year old? because that's pretty much the midpoint for boys to hit puberty (between 9-14).

I'm not sure that 12-year-olds are all that innocent, either. (Unless you're strictly talking sexual innocence. Then sure. Especially if puberty hadn't hit.)

Sure, they don't have all the emotional and decision-making capacity of adults, but they can lie. And cheat. And steal. And hurt people. And bully.

I'd actually buy it more if he were... I don't know... a six-year old. A kind of Charles Wallace (Wrinkle in Time) type character.

Presumably by the end of the series, he'll be older? So if you *do* have him as 12 now, in later books, he'll be older so... you're going to lose that visual child-like impact anyway. (Not that 12-year-old boys are exactly child-like.)

So maybe age him *down?

My bold.

I think that could be a brilliant solution.

He's not working as he is now. He just seems over-preciocious, and unbelievable. If he were significantly younger, it would be obvious that he was behaving in this way because of how extraordinary he was. I think it would work much better.

Why are you so married to the YA label?

Good question.

I would call it adult. Have you read Room? It's an adult novel written from the PoV of a five-year-old. So you can go young in adult novel.

I loved the first half of Room. But I thought it lost impetus in its second half, which was a shame.

But, more importantly than that, like people have said, if you are consistently getting rejected from your query, take a look at your query again. Have you posted it on QLH? Also, if you're pasting the first ten pages of your MS onto the body of the e-mail, maybe try posting them on SYW.

The OP does indeed have a thread in QLH. It's here, and there's a lot of discussion about the age of her MC in that thread too.

The OP also has another thread in which she talks about why her book was rejected: she links to it in the first post of this thread. I'm concerned that they represent a duplication of discussions, to some extent, so perhaps we should do our best to focus very specifically in this thread on the question she asked here.
 

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I don't want to evoke Charles Wallace; his character is a subversion of that trope. But he was originally 11, and I changed him to 12 to see if that would make a difference. I should change him back to 11.

You mention Ender's Game as your example. If you've read the novel, you'd know they start Ender at age 6 (Unlike the mess of a movie.) I think the suggestion to age him DOWN is better, because of the innocence factor, especially with the way American Society is with regard to anything over age 10 these days...

I think this novel has crossover appeal.

:gaah Please drop the whole crossover thing. When I was a teen, I read mostly adult books. There is NO crossover. It's what people want to read. Some adults now read MG book, because they want to, not because of "crossover."
 

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I'm not. But I think this novel has crossover appeal. I've had a bunch of beta readers on the whole series, and teens seem to love it as much as adults. Just to play devil's advocate, I read several books by King before I was ten. My daughter, in the same age group, read Twilight. My son read Phantoms. Help me out, where are those shelved? Oh, that's right....adult, YA or whatever the fuck Twilight is, and adult again.

The simple truth is, most folks read more than one genre or age grouping. They just do. At the same time, MOST books get shelved in a single spot.

You aren't in Marketing, particularly not of books. What sounds lovely to you ("I can sell to tow or three groups, and get my jet-money twice as quickly!") may not to folks who have to 1) sell the book as effectively as possible and 2) deal with you, the author, who is possibly already coming off as a snowflake at worst, and naive at best, with this line of argument. I get where you're coming from, but your logic is flawed. Pick the correct genre, and stop muddying your own waters.


Also, my style is minimalist rather than prose-heavy, so the story has a YA pace to it. aaah, like famed YA author Ernest Hemingway. Yeah....prose style does not automatically determine where it goes either. My prose is also sparse, but writing about 30-ish people fucking and killing and loving and hating doesn't turn it into YA because I don't write purple.

I'm considering changing his age to 18 in the first three chapters, just to see if that leads to a full manuscript request. I doubt it will, fwiw. you can certainly try, but I really think this is like suggesting you could take a car with a flat tire and make it run by replacing the muffler. If it does, then ... I'll panic? :) I can change his age in this novel, to the detriment of the story [see my post #23]. Maybe it will make the difference between getting the mss read or not.

Yes, done it. I've rewritten the query about 108x, and the first three chapters more than 150x. I've gotten loads of feedback--enough to realize that his age is one of the major factors leading to auto-rejections.

There's another major factor, as well, which is trope assumption. It seems that many readers (and about 100% of industry professionals) assume that this character is going to follow the typical child-genius-saves-the-day trope. My novel takes an unexpected twist and subverts that trope, but the agent isn't going to read far enough to see that. So I'm working on figuring out a way to signal the trope subversion in chapter 1, and/or in the query letter.


I remember your query. A bit. I left the thread early, so I can't comment on that specifically.

That said, I suspect your trope subversion (or inability to communicate it in the query) and attempts to turn this book into a thnead (remember The Lorax? A thnead was the pajamas the Onceler made from those trees, and in the cartoon there was a whole song where those pajamas weren't just pajamas, they could be used to thicken soups, and do a million other things) are killing you.

As a last thought on multi-marketing, put it this way: I'm no agent, but I've been in QLH a few years now. I roll my jaded brown eyes when folks mention crossover appeal because at a guess 90% of those folks are very new or very difficult. Their query threads bear that out. NOT EVERYONE, but a lot of them.

So, how jaded do you think an agent is?

How well do you think you're presenting this crossover bit? (bearing in mind you have agents, writers, and editors in this very thread, telling you to pick and move ahead)

just worth a ponder.....
 

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You've mentioned these industry professionals before: I wonder who they are, and where you've found them.





.


I also wonder this. Because there are a lot of scammers out there, and there are also a lot of folks just plain out of touch. King's advice on how to break in in On Writing for example is a model that still works, but is more exception than rule now, and has been since maybe the mid-1990s.....
 

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The audience will determine whether there's crossover appeal. A publisher or agent may feel strongly that the novel will appeal to multiple audiences, but if so, you don't have to tell them that. Market it to the intended audience.

If an agent thinks a book has promise from the query or pages, but they think that you're marketing the wrong audience, they will tell you. I had a book that had three agents request that I age it up from MG to YA.
 

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I'm just a wannabe writer, but my understanding of "crossover appeal" in a query is that it signals "I don't actually know my audience" to an agent. What kinds of comp titles do you have for this MS, AbbyBabble?

I don't want to evoke Charles Wallace; his character is a subversion of that trope. But he was originally 11, and I changed him to 12 to see if that would make a difference. I should change him back to 11.

How is he a subversion of this trope? I haven't really figured that out yet, and I've been following this thread and your others. He sounds like your typical young kid with a disability who saves the world. (Like Charles Wallace, like Bran...) What are the subversive elements?

I'm considering changing his age to 18 in the first three chapters, just to see if that leads to a full manuscript request. If it does, then ... I'll panic? :) I can change his age in this novel, to the detriment of the story [see my post #23]. Maybe it will make the difference between getting the mss read or not.

Definitely don't do this unless you're committed to rewriting the whole MS that way and keeping it. It's misrepresentative of your work, which doesn't bode well for a business relationship. I understand the frustration of endless form Rs. But this is a bad idea.

There's another major factor, as well, which is trope assumption. It seems that many readers (and about 100% of industry professionals) assume that this character is going to follow the typical child-genius-saves-the-day trope. My novel takes an unexpected twist and subverts that trope, but the agent isn't going to read far enough to see that. So I'm working on figuring out a way to signal the trope subversion in chapter 1, and/or in the query letter.

I think that this is a good idea. As a reader, if I get the sense that something is obviously and un-self-consciously a trope without any hint whatsoever that I'm about to be proved wrong or that it's being used intentionally, I don't keep reading.
 

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Signal the trope inversion. How far into the book is it? If it's over halfway you run a HUGE risk: the people who wants to see the trope inverted gave up at chapter one, and the people who are still reading LIKE the trope and when you invert it, will throw the book at the wall.

I hate hate hate books where I get to some twist and realize that the author intended for me to feel stupid at this point. Not the "ah ha, of course that's what's really going on, Poirot, how clever of you to have seen that the butler did it" but "Seriously, Sherlock, aliens came down in a spaceship and murdered the guy and framed the butler?" So... send the right signals early, ok?
 

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Sounds like a grownup book to me. Plenty of teens read grownup books, that doesn't mean you have to call it YA.

PROBLEM SOLVED.
 

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I'm feeling marginally ignored. OP, are you interested in writing into your query about subverting tropes? I notice nowhere in your query do you even hint at the fact that this is a subversive story.
 

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The audience will determine whether there's crossover appeal.

Agreed. Crossover is what happens after a book is published, when different people find the book and their kids or parents read it too.

Sounds like a grownup book to me. Plenty of teens read grownup books, that doesn't mean you have to call it YA.

PROBLEM SOLVED.

Agreed.

I'm feeling marginally ignored. OP, are you interested in writing into your query about subverting tropes? I notice nowhere in your query do you even hint at the fact that this is a subversive story.

I don't know many agents who are keen to read about how tropes are subverted. I do know a lot who are keen to read great stories, skillfully told.

If the OP writes a great query which grabs the agents' attention, her book--or at least a partial--will be read. If she doesn't, it won't.
 

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Yes, but maybe I misread, but I thought she was getting feedback on her pages that suggested folks were tired of the same old same old. Now yes, that might have to do with the writing itself not being compelling, or it could be that agents are tired of seeing the same tropes trotted out and are looking for a fresh spin. I guess I just don't see what harm it would be to say that there is a subversive spin on the story. That what starts as your standard SF fair takes a turn for the unexpected. I've read the query, in no way does any of it sound subversive or like the story is trying to play with tropes. It reads very standard SF hero saves the day kind of thing. Why not hint at what makes one's book unique within the query? I mean, you wouldn't try to sell THE PRINCESS BRIDE just as a standard fairytale would you?
 

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Sounds like a grownup book to me. Plenty of teens read grownup books, that doesn't mean you have to call it YA.

PROBLEM SOLVED.

In case the OP is unaware, I wanted to point out that this is an industry pro who deals with books for all age groups. She knows. (Google her.)
 

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There are YA books with young protagonists though. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas had the main character as nine, and Sign Language by Amy Ackley had the main protagonist as twelve.

And I can see why OP wants the YA label; it's easily the most booming genre at the moment. It gives the book a chance to be found in a section frequented by all ages and for school libraries to buy a book.

Is it possible you could just mention the main character as "young" without specifying a certain age? I think that'd be okay in YA.
 
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Wasn't Harry Potter 12? I'm pretty sure it was all adults that bought those books and read them.... So I always say Harry Potter is an adult book. I wouldn't change the age.
 

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Wasn't Harry Potter 12? I'm pretty sure it was all adults that bought those books and read them.... So I always say Harry Potter is an adult book. I wouldn't change the age.

while the OP's book appears to be an adult book, and she's been told as much by several folks in-thread who are part of the publishing industry, HP was middle-grad; it is a marketing term, based upon intended readership audience.

That said, no, she shouldn't change the age to try to pander to a non-problem, I agree to that part
 

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Ender's Game

Ender was six I think, and played video games. Seemed to do OK.

It's all about the writing style. Young kids can be terrifying. Just ask any horror novelist.
 

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The first three Harry Potter books are solidly middle grade. After that he goes a little more YA where he solidly ends up. Tough on the third grader reading him now who may not be ready for those older books.