As someone who has been an obsessive bibliophile since before I was even literate, I can't tell you how many times I've come across a work of famed fiction and asked, "How did this even become a bestseller?" As I've gotten older and have since chosen a major that involves poring over literature with a fine-toothed comb, it seems that I am increasingly able to count on one hand the number of books that are truly worthy of being sent on a spacecraft to the extraterrestrial friends we haven't met yet.
My good friend, Emily, is no stranger to the level of dissatisfaction we have with the publishing industry, which seems to only publish works that pass the Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test. If we wanted pure entertainment value, we would've watched television or read a fanfic... but I digress. In honor of the day we met, which, coincidentally, was spent ranting about a book we mutually disliked, here are five things YA authors in particular need to stop doing:
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1. Creating Angsty, Mary-Sue Protagonists
As a woman, this is perhaps the most frustrating trope in all of YA lit. Enter Mary-Sue (or whoever your character may be), an average-looking, self-deprecating, painfully unexciting girl who gets decent grades but spends most of the book complaining about how her hair looks like straw or that her breasts are too flat. Throughout the course of the story her character development equates to a flat line and her source of strength is based on arbitrary standards--and is almost always tied to a (preferably hot) guy thinking she's the bee's knees.
I've always wanted to read a book that emphasizes the importance of having a boyfriend.
2. Writing Pseudoscience Fiction
I love me some good sci-fi, especially books concerning artificial intelligence. This is why, as an active member of the Goodreads community, I was dismayed to find that, while browsing for new releases in sci-fi, virtually all the covers featured shirtless guys, presumably aliens in disguise who also happen to look like they're from the cover of a Men's Health magazine. How am I supposed to take this seriously?
Aside from my beef with cliche apocalyptic, alien-invasion story lines and their photogenic characters, I often find myself asking, Where is the science? I realize that not everyone can be Asimov, but even if you're not scientifically inclined, wouldn't it be great if we could conduct research on how the natural world works? Also, as Emily says, Khan Academy exists. You, the author, need to convince me, the reader, that your starship design is plausible, even if deemed not possible by renowned physicists. Don't just pluck the term "centrifugal force" out of a physics glossary to make yourself sound science-y. These processes can be verified.
3. Drawing a Love Triangle
This wouldn't be a good rant post without mentioning a love triangle. I'll just quote Emily's thoughts starring the book Matched by Ally Condie because I couldn't have given a better diagnosis:
Xander will be the 'good guy', whereas Cassia will meet another dark haired, dark- or light-eyed (it's 50/50 in YA lit) bad boy who shows her the world and teaches her to challenge what she's learned. I'm on page 6.
4. Throwing in a Random SAT Word
One of my professors once pointed out to me that as children we're often impressed by big words. I am no stranger to this, having told a boy in fifth grade that he had halitosis and been tickled pink at his furrowed brow that suggested he had no idea what I was talking about.
It can be tempting to make yourself sound like a prolific reader and erudite writer, but I've since learned that if you cannot distinguish your voice from the character's voice--or one character's voice from another--then it's not good writing. The character controls you--not the other way around. If your character is a 19-year-old farmhand who never finished high school, I don't expect him--or anyone, for that matter--to haul off and use the word "maladroit" in everyday discourse.
5. Tokenism
We've all heard of the "Token Black Kid" syndrome. This is the syndrome that can also be read as the guy who often gets killed first. This often stems from some level of white guilt that white authors may or may not refuse to admit to themselves. Emily points out that ill-representation is worse than non-representation. I have to agree. On the other hand, I've had white writers tell me that they don't feel comfortable writing people of color because they think they are worlds apart. While I think it is important for POC authors to create representation, it's not totally impossible to write a POC as a white person without resorting to stereotype. If you start from the notion that minorities are human, with human ideas, ambitions, and dreams similar to yours, the rest should fall into place.
