I like that idea, Jeanne…just writing it and letting the genre reveal itself along the way. It seems unfair, especially with fiction involving young people, that everything has to be categorized as YA, and thus missed by adult readers who think they wouldn’t be interested. Same with men who don’t read women’s fiction and yet like the stories when they read them!!

Good luck with your WIP. It sounds fascinating! And thanks for sharing this post. I appreciate it very much.

The same will be true of my current WIP – The Things We Do Not Speak Of. While the MC is a 14 year old Somali refugee, I doubt seriously it could be called YA any more than Jodi Picoult’s The Pact: A Love Story could be called that. I’m simply writing it, hoping the “genre” will be revealed to me somewhere along the way.

It’s nice to know that even established authors encounter a similar issue.

Jeanne Felfe
Author of The Art of Healing – A Novel

Thanks for your note, Dee. (And you’re not late at all!) I’ve been thinking about this a lot, as you have, and the only thing I can think is that I suppose it benefits some people to think of books in terms of categories. But one of the huge, hidden losses of putting books in these restrictive boxes is that it keeps us from the delightful surprise of discovering a book outside the categories we would normally read. I’ve had men (MEN! Creatures with Y chromosomes!) stumble upon my books and say, in shock, “But I think about those same topics! Why is this women’s fiction?” Wishing you the best with your books!!

Thanks for the great post.

Dee Willson
Author of A Keeper’s Truth and GOT (Gift of Travel)
http://www.deewillson.com

I agree! It’s as though they put novels in these tiny little boxes and don’t make room for anything surprising or unexpected or…real. We exclude so many people when we pigeon-hole novels this way. Thank you for your comment–and I wish you the best with your novel!