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About the author and blogger ...

Anne Goodwin’s drive to understand what makes people tick led to a career in clinical psychology. That same curiosity now powers her fiction.
A prize-winning short-story writer, she has published three novels and a short story collection with small independent press, Inspired Quill. Her debut novel, Sugar and Snails, was shortlisted for the 2016 Polari First Book Prize.
Away from her desk, Anne guides book-loving walkers through the Derbyshire landscape that inspired Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre.
Subscribers to her newsletter can download a free e-book of award-winning short stories.

TELL ME MORE

What is YA fiction? Learning from Paula Rawsthorne and Dorothy Winsor

29/7/2019

14 Comments

 
Around this time last year, I was 10,000 words short of finishing the first draft of a dystopian novel provisionally entitled Snowflake, but failed to meet my overambitious target  of getting it done before my “summer break”. Almost a year on, although I’ve done a fair amount ofsome editing, I still haven’t written those final scenes.
 
Aside from the usual dose of self-doubt, two things have held me back: one about plot, the other about genre. How do I get my characters in and out of the cave? With a fourteen-year-old narrator, ought I to position this novel as YA?

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I am interested in adolescence, and write about it quite a bit. It’s a major theme in my debut novel, Sugar and Snails, and Steve, the narrator of my second novel, Underneath, is a teenager in the body of a forty-year-old man. But to write for young people? In my long-ago youth there were books for adults and books for children, and YA as a genre didn’t exist.

But there must have been some overlap: Jane Eyre, for example, and other classics appealed to both old and young. Nowadays, lots of adults read fiction aimed at teenagers, but I’ve never felt the pull. How could I write what I don’t read? Well, I did enjoy A Jigsaw of Fire and Stars when I requested it by accident. Perhaps I could read a couple more.

So I turned to authors I trusted: Paula Rawsthorne because years ago I fell in love with one of her short stories; Dorothy Winsor because she’s published by Inspired Quill. I was heartily impressed by both The Wind Reader and Shell. As I know both authors I can’t review their novels impartially; nor am I best placed to judge YA (and especially not fantasy which Dorothy writes). If my single-sentence summaries entice you, you can find out more by following the links.

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In Shell, a sixteen-year-old girl terminally ill with cancer might have lost more than she’s gained when she wakes up fit and well in a body that isn’t hers.
 
In The Wind Reader, beautiful language transports the reader to an imaginary world, made credible by exquisite detail, to follow the fortunes of a fifteen-year-old boy struggling to survive long enough to make it home.
 
Both novels are strong on story, following the twisty-turny hero’s journey in some form. I particularly enjoyed the theme of forging an identity separate from one’s parents – a major task of adolescence – through confronting moral and ethical issues. For Lucy in Shell, it’s the survival of the rich at the expense of the poor; for Doniver in The Wind Reader, it’s loyalty to what’s right versus loyalty to the tribe. Big issues, relevant at any age; perhaps right-wing politicians need an injection of YA.
I was able to supplement this reading with a workshop led by Paula at the Writers’ Studio. My main takeaway points were the centrality of character, pace and conflict in YA; a teenage protagonist – preferably as first-person narrator – who makes things happen rather than the action being dependent on the adults; and – in answer to my main reservation – you can write about anything with no need to dumb down.
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The downside, which I’d read about in the Guardian, is the fundamentalist position taken by some readers on cultural appropriation and that sales are declining in YA. But I’ve been sufficiently encouraged to return to my manuscript; I’ll let you know how it goes.
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I thought I’d use this week’s flash fiction challenge -- For one day -- to help me nail the essentials of my main character’s  dark night of the soul. I’m not sure I’ve yet to come up with anything I didn’t already know, but the discipline of the 99-word story has certainly helped me focus. Not sure if it works if you haven’t been on my character’s journey, however!
Independence Day

For one day, Britons will feel great again, commemorating deliverance from fronceys and krauts. For one day, Nelson’s peers will admire him, as he steers the procession through flag-waving crowds. For one day, security will slacken at the borders, and Rommel’s determined to defect.

“Come with me, Nelson. You’ll die at Bootcamp if you don’t.”

Rommel’s dad can’t influence the Ministry. Rommel’s dad can’t trust him to infiltrate a traitors’ ring. When Nelson learns his dad’s limitations, he’s already jeopardised his friends.

For one day, Nelson must rise above his terrors. One day, one chance to save his skin.
 
The month’s end has crept up on me – amazing, hey, it comes around every 30 to 31 days! – so here’s a reminder of the seven other novels featured on Annecdotal in July.
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Thanks for reading. I'd love to know what you think. If you've enjoyed this post, you might like to sign up via the sidebar for regular email updates and/or my quarterly Newsletter.
14 Comments
Dorothy A. Winsor link
29/7/2019 12:24:37 pm

Holy cow, Anne. What a nice surprise. Thank you.

Reply
Anne Goodwin
30/7/2019 08:06:54 am

You're welcome, Dorothy. Glad it was a good surprise!

Reply
Norah Colvin
30/7/2019 12:57:04 pm

It's an interesting reflection on YA, Anne. I wasn't aware you had a YA novel on the go. Why am I out of the loop? YA seems to be popular here. There are many in my writing group writing in the genre and there seem to be a lot published. I think a good story is a good story, regardless of the age group. As you say, it didn't really exist as a genre in 'our' day.
Although you don't mention it here, and I will say more about it when I'm finished reading it, the voice of 'You Would Have Missed Me' is quite young, I think and wonder what audience it might have been intended for.
You seem to have combined some history with current affairs in your flash. For one day - indeed!

Reply
Anne Goodwin
30/7/2019 05:43:39 pm

I think you'll recall me mentioning a dystopian novel – unless you blocked it out given that you don't like dystopian fiction! But I didn't initially envisage it as YA, even when I gave it a fourteen-year-old narrator.

I don't think the age of the main character necessarily determines the readership. "You Would Have Missed Me" is about an even younger child but I wouldn't have thought it was suitable for children. There are aspects of childhood that make more sense to us in retrospect and so require a adult's eye.

Reply
Norah Colvin
3/8/2019 03:15:41 am

Ah yes, I do remember mention of a dystopian novel. :)
I agree with you that You Would Have Missed Me is written in a younger voice for an older audience. It is an interesting technique. I can't remember reading another quite like it. I think it's very effective in highlighting both the vulnerability and strength of the child narrator.

Norah Colvin
3/8/2019 03:16:55 am

Again, I forgot to ask about the girl in the photo. Is it you?

Anne Goodwin
3/8/2019 06:06:18 pm

Yes, it’s quite an achievement getting that sense of the young child’s mind, while hinting at the deeper family disturbance that the adult reader would be so concerned about.
And yes, that’s me on a walking holiday in Scotland. I think I was eleven, so not quite YA!

Norah Colvin
4/8/2019 12:15:49 pm

Thanks for confirming the reader is you, Anne. :)
The voice was achieved authentically.

Charli Mills link
31/7/2019 01:47:42 am

YA is interesting to consider with a teenaged protagonist and your interest in the development of that age. However, after reading The Guardian article, I was unsettled by the in-fighting of the "cancel culture" and deciding who polices sensitivity to culture and life-experiences. Recently, I posted several old cemetery photos on FB, as it is part of how I collect historical stories. A couple heard one of my 99-word stories based on a grave while I was in Vermont and wanted to share a local mystery with me. It's a small marker on the fringe of the cemetery inscribed, "Gypsy Baby." Local legend holds that a farmer found the wrapped body of a baby after "gypsies" left town. It brought to light that Native Americans often hid in plane sight around the early 1900s, locals calling the transients, "gypsies." A scholar on the culture is a friend, and he took me to task for posting the photo and myth, telling me I had no right to explore that particular history and to leave it to historians like him. Needless to say, the encounter frustrated me because my interest in history is the marginalized. How to you give voice to the voiceless or include diversity? Is your flash fiction insensitive because it calls out "fronceys" and "krauts"? How do we write about racism without showing it? I'm all for including feedback from cultural experts, but the violence expressed in the social media protests is just as disturbing as bigoted violence. Again, I feel we are in such a mad time. But hey--good job, using 99 words to prompt your difficult scene into a revelation.

Reply
D. Avery link
31/7/2019 04:43:04 am

Oh, my Charli. "No right to explore"? What would any of us be reading if writers had no right to explore? How could we learn and grow from reading if writers didn't explore?
Yikes.

Reply
Anne Goodwin
1/8/2019 11:55:07 am

Yes, it’s quite depressing, and I can’t help feeling there’s something mad going on when people who inadvertently cause offence are viciously attacked while the real bigots are promoted to positions of power and their policies directly harmed the vulnerable. Of course we all have our sensitivities, and the right to protect ourselves, but it seems like so much misdirected energy.
Such a shame about your “friend” – instead of questioning your right to relate the story he could have elaborated it. I imagine you’d have been interested to learn about other angles on the story. I’d expect a historian to be comfortable with multiple truths in the way that writers are. Telling the story one way doesn’t mean we believe that’s the ONLY way.
I think I get away with fronceys and krauts because they aren’t marginalised people, and I’d be more careful around other groups, even if my character wasn’t. It’s difficult, but we need to risk offending people to get to the truth.
I haven’t yet got round to it, but I’m hoping to use your TUFF framework to map out the crisis point in more detail.

Reply
Anne Goodwin
1/8/2019 11:55:58 am

Yikes indeed!

Reply
D. Avery link
31/7/2019 04:58:01 am

How much would your work with this novel change if you wrote for a younger audience? If not much, if you don't lose what's important, you could go YA. Its the same thing; an engaging story with believable characters. It is not watered down or dumbed down literature, just from or for a younger perspective.
Your flash works. Almost like a back of the book hook.

Reply
Anne Goodwin
1/8/2019 11:33:00 am

Thanks for that. I don’t think it would change much at all if it were targeted at younger readers – or the adolescent version of myself. But I’ll need to get feedback from people more tuned into the genre when it’s ready to share.

Reply



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