A wacky notion

[yendi]

So I've got a wacky notion for a YA novel that'll sell: A dystopia!

Awesome, right? No need for any details, it's a fucking dystopia. Someone will die, someone else will fall in love, and if the setup of the dystopia makes no logical sense, who cares? It's only the weird socially restrictive order that matters!

Seriously! It's like money in the bank!

Actually, the last two ones I read for PW were genuinely interesting takes, one taking a different structural approach, and the other presenting a POV character and some twists that really adds to the genre as a whole. And I firmly believe that When We Wake is next year's Printz winner (of course, I thought Code Name Verity would win this year's award, so what do I know?). But I sometimes worry that every good exception is only going to lead to dozens more cynically-written and even more cynically-acquired (and edited) books that are fucking carbon copies of each other and add nothing new or interesting to the field. It's not that every subgenre doesn't get this; I tend to get dystopias, mysteries, and contemporary problem novels as my big YA categories for PW, so I see the problems there, but not the eight zillion Twilight/Vampire Diaries knockoffs, or the Pretty Little Liar-wannabes (and, come to think of it, one of the three books I starred for YA in the last year could well be considered a PLL-style book). And I remember when Elayna was ten seeing four million books with covers designed to evoke Lemony Snicket.

But damn, sometimes I wish it weren't so obvious that some publishers and editors (and yes, authors) simply want to rake in some bonus cash on the long tail from The Hunger Games. Props to the ones who go above and beyond, but they're the exception.

Comments

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

I felt that way when I picked up an urban fantasy this weekend that was about a nurse in a preternatural ward. I thought: "Awesome! It will be more like a medical mystery, with elements of fantasy! I want to know what surgery on vampires is like! Or how you treat diseases in werefolk!"

And for the first few pages, it was like that. And then it veered into standard "we get in trouble with preternatural politics, big guys with guns show up to protect us, and the snarky girl with commitment issues starts acting like a detective/policewoman and gets in trouble because of it" story material.

I was so disappointed. :(

[greylistening.livejournal.com]

Gah. Yes.

[spacehawk.livejournal.com]

This slush pile reader sympathizes with you.

[yendi]

That's even more frustrating, and I get that a lot. It seems like there's a genuinely interesting hook, it works for a few pages, and then it just slips back into mediocrity. So disappointing, and it's hard not to be cynical about the decision and think the author either just wanted money, or just wanted to write Generic UF Variant #7 and used that hook to get there.

[yendi]

I can only imagine. I mean, I'm reading the stuff that survived slush.

[spacehawk.livejournal.com]

Sometimes the stuff that survived slush is better than slush. ...Not always, sadly.

the setup of the dystopia makes no logical sense, who cares? It's only the weird socially restrictive order that matters!

This is the line that had me going, "...yeah," because I've definitely seen my share of these. It's a dystopia -- who cares about the readers understanding "what is going on and why"? (In fact, often it very obviously makes no logical sense at all.)

[nevacaruso.livejournal.com]

But will there be a love triangle between the heroine and her two male suitors? Will the government have absurd control over and interest in a seemingly random aspect of society? I MUST KNOW!

[yendi]

OMIGOD! How did you figure all that out? Do you have a copy of the ARC, too?

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I think Anita Blake broke the urban fantasy genre. :,

[penmage.livejournal.com]

You do realize that the dystopias that are pubbing right now were bought two or three years ago, right? At this point, dystopias are nearly impossible to sell.

I brought a manuscript to our staff meeting a couple months ago that was hard to categorize. It was mildly futuristic, but not really science fiction, and that wasn't really the point, but one of the major concerns that people voiced was that they were worried it would get grouped with dystopias because of the setting, and the market is too glutted with dystopias. The actual words "we don't want another dystopia" were uttered.

And while raking in the cash is certainly very appealing (and would help pay for some of the more experimental projects that we take on because we love them, even when we know there's a good chance they won't sell well) I can't think of many times when we've bought a book JUST because we thought we could cash in on the Hunger Games train. Sure, that's unquestionably part of the conversation. How could it not be? It would be disingenuous to pretend not to be aware of a major industry trend/event. But while that may be part of the conversation, the reason the conversation starts in the first place is because an editor really loves the book--this book, this particular book, and wants it, regardless of genre.

[yendi]

Oh, I know it's a long cycle, but seeing as I'm on my fifth year of endless dystopia, I also know that if it's not true today (although I still see the occasional hint that some new ones are coming, generally from smaller markets), it was in recent times. And yes, I do believe that some editors are looking for interesting stuff (the two new ones I mention are examples of this, and it's clear from an author's note that in one case, the editor drastically reshaped things to make the new and appealing elements stronger). But honestly, the quality and (perhaps more importantly) the utter banality of some of the deluge that I've gotten makes it very hard to ascribe the best of intentions to some of the acquired books.

It's also notable that things like "vampire" and "dystopia" stand out more easily than, say, "problem novels about moody, depressed, and/or disaffected teen boys," a category I also see disproportionate numbers of, but which tends to be a little more nebulous.

FWIW, I'm only showing three books from your pub in my PW history that fit into the "dystopian" subgenre, which is a pretty small percentage (especially seeing as two are part of the same series).