But I don't write about sex for today's teenagers. Or Doc Martens boots either. I'm more interested in exploring how exactly the world is run, which doesn't really change that much from one generation to another.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I focus a little more on pacing when I write books in the young adult category, and of course there's the great American fear of anything sexual, so that's somewhat backed off in YA.
Why not write a book which is as sophisticated as a book for an adult, but is about the concerns that teenagers actually have?
I don't write about adolescence. I write about war. For adolescents.
I avoid writing about sex out of a certainty that no matter how grown up and matter-of-fact I might try to be, there is a snickering yet nun-terrorized 12-year-old-boy inside me who would at some point be certain to grab the reins in his hairy palms.
You just write what you know, and I know what it's like to be a teenager in 1993,, and I'm a woman, so I'm definitely going to write from that point of view.
Everyone seems agreed that writing about sex is perilous, partly because it threatens to swamp highly individualised characters in a generic, featureless activity (much like coffee-cup dialogue, during which everyone sounds the same), and partly because it feels... tacky.
I cannot believe that my generation may very well have been the last one to have sex education in schools that was truly the complete and total package. I mean what are we doing? Are we in the future, but acting like it's The Dark Ages?
Teen fiction should be about teenagers - no matter how many arguments there are about what YA lit should be, this seems like the one thing we can all agree on.
Maybe our generation is more about sex, but it feels like romance is dying out.
As much as I'm drawn to writing about teenage girls, I like the idea of having the freedom to branch out and write about different ages, for different ages.