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Writerly Ways
Aug. 5th, 2012 04:25 pmI read a lot of young adult literature (a little less this year than most) and it’s led me to ask one important question. Can most of the YA heroes & heroines exist with loving attentive parents in their lives? I think in many significant ways, no they can not. Generally speaking one or the other are missing (or the parents are entirely out of the picture).
Probably the most common trope is the orphan. I’m running behind on YA this year with only ten titles to date. Four of those are orphans. Harry Potter would fit this mold combined with the cruel/abusive (step) parent. If I expand this article to include all the manga I’ve read, the number goes up. It’s probably the easiest way for the author to have a teenager going about doing whatever they want. In the four I’ve read this year, I’ve had one girl sent off to a house of horrors, one who ran away from boarding school to join an intergalactic circus, one raised by cold and uncaring scientists and another dumped into a boarding school ‘on scholarship.’ (the usual explanation for how an orphan is at any expensive boarding school.) These kids have no one to care for or about them so it’s easier to believe they can run off and get involved in whatever they need to for the story’s purposes.
Another common trope is the present but distant parent. Sometimes this is accompanied by an abusive relationship, sometimes not. In this year’s lot, I only have one that is in this category (Young Sherlock Holmes as it turns out). These teens are either sent away at boarding school or feel like intruders in their own house. They are usually convinced that their parents see them as a burden and don’t really care about then or what they do so they feel free to do what they want without checking in.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a perfect example of another trope, the loving but distracted parent. Usually work or a break up/loss is taking up the parent’s time and they don’t know what their child is up to and would be upset if they did know. Joyce combines several of these things, the divorce from Buffy’s dad, moving to a new city to give her troubled daughter a new start plus a demanding new job. The times when she does know Buffy is up to something she is upset and strict. There is always that risk in this trope. I only have one YA in this category so far this year. Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys are classic examples of this (bordering on the distant parent trope). Joyce later embodies the next trope: The committed to cause parent.
This parent knows her/his child is special (oddly while I say his I can’t think of a dad off the top of my head other than Castle). They might hate that their child is in so much danger but they help none the less, or at least keep out of the way. I had two books like this so far (okay three but two are in the same series), Percy Jackson, Buffy and in Anna Dressed in Blood, we have moms who know their children have to fight horrible battles and try to help in their own way instead of doing what might be a more natural thing, like running away and taking their kid as far away as possible or locking them away somewhere safe.
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen (though I probably have) a loving parent who just accepts what their child is doing without crossing over into committed to the cause territory. Thoughts? What do you think about this?
As for me, I only have a couple that could be considered truly YA. In one, Makai has the distant parents (and adoptive ones at that). While he does have a loving parental surrogate, the man is lord of the castle so falls into the loving but distracted mode. Tazia and Killian’s story, Killian has the abusive step parents on his side and Taz’s parents are almost in the accepts without commitment area. Mom and Dad try to keep her safe. Dad eventually ends up somewhere between loving and distracted and committed to cause.
As for my writing, I’ve started making headway on editing the Scarred Soldier story. I can’t just let it sit like I have been because it will just go on the heap of done but never marketed stories and I can’t let that happen. Also I’ve written over 10K week before last. WOW. That’s stunning. (I should move this write up to Mondays to match the word count roundup for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
findyourwords. I really got moving with the prompts from origfic_bingo and wish they weren’t now nearly a week late with the prompt post.
Yearly Count -
112097 / 165000 words. 68% done!
Probably the most common trope is the orphan. I’m running behind on YA this year with only ten titles to date. Four of those are orphans. Harry Potter would fit this mold combined with the cruel/abusive (step) parent. If I expand this article to include all the manga I’ve read, the number goes up. It’s probably the easiest way for the author to have a teenager going about doing whatever they want. In the four I’ve read this year, I’ve had one girl sent off to a house of horrors, one who ran away from boarding school to join an intergalactic circus, one raised by cold and uncaring scientists and another dumped into a boarding school ‘on scholarship.’ (the usual explanation for how an orphan is at any expensive boarding school.) These kids have no one to care for or about them so it’s easier to believe they can run off and get involved in whatever they need to for the story’s purposes.
Another common trope is the present but distant parent. Sometimes this is accompanied by an abusive relationship, sometimes not. In this year’s lot, I only have one that is in this category (Young Sherlock Holmes as it turns out). These teens are either sent away at boarding school or feel like intruders in their own house. They are usually convinced that their parents see them as a burden and don’t really care about then or what they do so they feel free to do what they want without checking in.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a perfect example of another trope, the loving but distracted parent. Usually work or a break up/loss is taking up the parent’s time and they don’t know what their child is up to and would be upset if they did know. Joyce combines several of these things, the divorce from Buffy’s dad, moving to a new city to give her troubled daughter a new start plus a demanding new job. The times when she does know Buffy is up to something she is upset and strict. There is always that risk in this trope. I only have one YA in this category so far this year. Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys are classic examples of this (bordering on the distant parent trope). Joyce later embodies the next trope: The committed to cause parent.
This parent knows her/his child is special (oddly while I say his I can’t think of a dad off the top of my head other than Castle). They might hate that their child is in so much danger but they help none the less, or at least keep out of the way. I had two books like this so far (okay three but two are in the same series), Percy Jackson, Buffy and in Anna Dressed in Blood, we have moms who know their children have to fight horrible battles and try to help in their own way instead of doing what might be a more natural thing, like running away and taking their kid as far away as possible or locking them away somewhere safe.
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen (though I probably have) a loving parent who just accepts what their child is doing without crossing over into committed to the cause territory. Thoughts? What do you think about this?
As for me, I only have a couple that could be considered truly YA. In one, Makai has the distant parents (and adoptive ones at that). While he does have a loving parental surrogate, the man is lord of the castle so falls into the loving but distracted mode. Tazia and Killian’s story, Killian has the abusive step parents on his side and Taz’s parents are almost in the accepts without commitment area. Mom and Dad try to keep her safe. Dad eventually ends up somewhere between loving and distracted and committed to cause.
As for my writing, I’ve started making headway on editing the Scarred Soldier story. I can’t just let it sit like I have been because it will just go on the heap of done but never marketed stories and I can’t let that happen. Also I’ve written over 10K week before last. WOW. That’s stunning. (I should move this write up to Mondays to match the word count roundup for
findyourwords. I really got moving with the prompts from origfic_bingo and wish they weren’t now nearly a week late with the prompt post.Yearly Count -
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