For the actual young adult audience, there’s a sense of understanding that others too have gone through this and they’ve emerged stronger, so why not meIJ Beyond that, I’m not really sure because as a writer, my intention is to tell a good story. But I think one of the reasons YA is so popular with an older audience too is because everyone has been through some of the situations at some point or the other in their lives.Ĭrush on a boy/girl in class who doesn’t know you existIJ Check.Ĭan’t get along with mom or siblings but have at least one good friend who knows everything about youIJ Check.Ĭonstantly hungry, love food and don’t care if you can’t fit into your jeansIJ (For the moment at least) Check.īeing young is a universal experience and although we’re eager to move on to adulthood (how little we knew), no one forgets what it was like being a teen and not in control of your life, most of the time. You don’t even have to be young at heart, although it certainly helps you empathise with the characters.
You don’t have to be a young adult to enjoy young adult fiction. It will take time, say at least two decades, but it will be all right.īut who are the people who read young adult fictionIJ Are they all teenagersIJ Do they have to beIJ I hate how genres define reading patterns but my readership base tells me that people of all ages enjoy reading YA. Coming from an orthodox family set up where I was expected to conform to the roles assigned to me by society, I’ve managed to find my own footing in the world and I wish I could tell my 17-year-old self not to worry so much, that things will be good one day. I like writing young adult fiction because it feels freeing in a way for me. Instead, I like to put my 17-year-old self into various situations and come up with what things could have been like if my life was different. Since I’ve been asked how I manage to write about young adults with a certain level of authenticity, let me clarify at the outset that having a 17-year-old son has been no help at all.
It helps me get into the heads of my protagonists more easily and things move forward from there smoothly. As someone who writes young adult fiction, I think that’s a good thing actually. Nobody gets to go back to when they were 17 and do over their life, but being a young adult writer is the closest I can get to that, without time travel, writes ANDAlEEB WAJID
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