Help! I need to learn how to write YA fanfic!

Okay, so my father-in-law has something to say about the quality of literature being produced. He’s concerned about errors in production. Apparently, in my haste, I mistook that for being his main concern. He also got his hands on some article that talked about kids having shorter attention spans and not reading as much as they used to. And another about children’s literature being darker and containing more adult concepts.

Suddenly my Twilight fan-fiction writer cover was going to come under scrutiny. I don’t write young adult, I don’t even read young adult literature. I write romance. Usually erotic romance. Can you get any farther from young adult literature than that? I hope not. The Girl still assures me she doesn’t see that stuff in the books she reads. The Boy would be mortified by a kiss in any book he picked up. (If it’s not death, destruction, and zombies, he’s not interested.)

"So who is watching what is being published for these kids to read?" Dad demands. Silence. Ahem, Tori, your turn. “The market.”

Again with the wrong answers. Okay, Hubby, give your dad a lesson in supply and demand economics. Go ahead. Nudge, nudge. Crickets chirp. Yeah. Right. Deep breath.

Okay, listen. Dark stuff was always out there, just not in bulk. The Lord of the Flies would be easily absorbed by today’s literary tone, I think I read somewhere that it even took a while to get attention in 1954. My high school senior English AP had The Catcher in the Rye on the reading list just to be edgy and be able to swear in class.

Yeah, YA lit is more open about some things that concern that age group: sex, cutting, drugs, peer pressure, suicide. It’s the same stuff that concerned teens in the 90’s and 80’s and 70’s. Now teens can look at how their teen protagonists in books are handling it. Because just like in the 90’s, 80’s, 70’s or whatever, odds are they’re a wee bit reluctant to sit down with the parents to have a heart to heart chat. Heaven knows every time I have a little time to loosen up The Girl and try to get her talking it’s like pulling teeth on an irate crocodile.

Did the father-in-law want to hear that? No. But The Girl backed me up. (Bless her.) So we’ll wait until he finds another article on the subject. And I better learn to write Twilight fanfic. Eek!

Writing Fanfic . . . or not

I had an interesting conversation at a family dinner with my father-in-law a few days ago. Sorry, that's a lie. The conversation was mostly boring and frustrating as hell because he's a wee bit on the senile side, but he made a point. We gave him a book for Christmas, which is pretty normal, (something about living during the time of Christ, honestly not important). What was a big deal was that there was an error. Not factual, but a typo. In three hundred pages, this eighty something year old caught a typo. Personally, I'm impressed. Not only that he caught it, but that there was only one, and I told him so.

That was, of course, the wrong answer. It spawned a big debate about the quality of the books being produced.

I write. My in-laws know I write, which is why I had this conversation with my father-in-law to begin with. They just don’t understand what I write. The word ‘romance’ is never, ever uttered in their presence. To them I write paranormal, because my first book was. So the whole family thinks I write Twilight fanfic, even though at the time I hadn’t heard of Twilight. Considering the truth . . . why yes, I write Twilight fanfic. Grit my teeth and smile.(The internet is a vague concept to them, and blogs are so far in left field I'm really not concerned.)

So you say there was an error in the book, Dad? That doesn't surprise me. Most books sent out by major publishing houses do go through an editor, but it’s a quick technical edit looking for major errors and plot holes. They’re human. They’re hopped up on caffeine. They’ve read four books already that week and have a virtual stack on their desktop to go. Give them a break. Don’t misunderstand, I respect these people. I cannot do what these editors do and I know that. When I pick up a book from a major publishing company and see the occasional error, I chalk it up to Starbucks and pressure from the independent publishing companies cranking out a hundred romance novelas a week in ebook format. They are many and they’re bringing the goliath ‘Big Six’ to their knees bit by bit. And don’t even get me started on editing in the self publishing market . . .

Father-in-law now has a slightly glazed look in his eyes and the rest of the family is horrified by my rant. Only the patriarch of the family is permitted to rant. And there’s a look in his eye like he has something to say. Heaven help us, a speech is coming.

I sat and made myself comfortable like a good little daughter-in-law who sits at home and writes Twilight fan-fiction. Which I don’t. Oh goodie.