The YA Author Who Hates YA?

I'm confused.

This is about to be one of those posts where I'm not sure what I need to say, so I ramble until we figure it out together.

Sort of like the exact opposite of a good essay. Or a good novel.

Some of y'all know I'm trying to write a young adult fantasy novel. One of my editors, Chersti, reminded me that the best continuing education I can do is read current YA fantasy novels: see what's out there, what young adults are enjoying, how the characters and stories feel.

In the spring of 2021, I read An Ember in the Ashes and The Wicked Prince. I didn't particularly enjoy either (though I liked Wicked Prince more), for several reasons:

1) I read them quickly, mostly "to have read them," rather than to enjoy them. (I've recently learned that that's a very ENFJ thing to do.)

2) I was haunted by the fear that they'd somehow invalidate the Fire Faery Story, that they'd be too similar, or much better.

3) They were written in present tense, which I hate.

4) The characters and stories felt thin and pale.

5) I felt like I was too close to the book-writing process to enjoy them as literature, like a freshly graduated magician watching someone do tricks at a kid's birthday party. I saw all the fishing line hanging from the authors' props, all the ways they'd choreographed situations to tell the reader what the characters looked like, how old they were, what different world-building terms meant, what the characters' "story goals" were. Everything felt clumsy and contrived.

This weekend, I started reading The Stardust Thief. It is blessedly past tense, but that's my favorite thing about it so far. I'm still nearly paralyzed by the fear that something about this book will hurt the process of my own novel. I still see fishing line everywhere.

And what's worse is that the author is doing tons of things that I did or wanted to do in the Fire Faery Story, but was told "you can't do that" (e.g., italicized flashbacks in the middle of a chapter). It makes me angry and indignant. If this author can break "the rules," why can't I? Why was I hamstrung into writing something that felt forced and soulless when CLEARLY doing what I wanted to do would not have been the authorial suicide I was led to believe? I may be flattering myself, but I do not think Abdullah is doing it significantly "better" than I was.

As far as I can tell, reading current YA isn't working for me. I hate it. I hate the process, I hate the stories, I hate the characters, I hate the conflicts. (At least part of this isn't YA's fault; my current state of mind is partly to blame.) I hate that current YA feels different from the YA I knew and loved as a kid. What's changed? Is it really me, or are "kids these days" wanting something different than what I grew up reading?

I decided that maybe it would be better to reread some YA that I loved as a teenager. I Googled "YA fantasy books 2007–2014" and started skimming some titles. I remembered a lot of them. And you know what feeling welled up in me as I read probably 80% the titles I recognized?

Disdain.

WHAT?!

YA fantasy was my drug of CHOICE back in the day. YA fantasy is THE ONLY type of story I have ever wanted to write, or ever tried to write.

And yet, if memory is serving me as I scroll through titles, I disliked the majority of YA fantasy even as a young adult myself (looking at you, Wicked Lovely, Divergent, Maximum Ride, Dark Angel, Across the Universe, etc.)

I tried to think of the YA fantasy books that I remember loving: Inkheart, the Mortal Instruments trilogy, the Twilight saga (yes, I would be happy to have a conversation about that with you, thanks for asking), the Hunger Games trilogy, the Inheritance cycle (ONLY the first two) the Uglies series, the Farsala trilogy.

But like...that's it. Those are IT. Those are the sum total of the YA fantasy books that evoke good feelings off the top of my head.

That...is not a lot of books. That doesn't feel like a wide enough sample for me to have branded myself as a lover of YA fantasy for MY ENTIRE LIFE.

What does this mean?!

I just glanced over at my bookshelves and saw non-YA fantasy titles that I loved as a teenager: Homeless Bird, Angel on the Square, Homecoming, The Thief Lord, From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, On to Oregon. Very few of those conform to the "rules" I'm told I need to follow if I'm going to be successful as a YA writer. In fact, by today's standards, many of those probably wouldn't fit into the YA genre at all.

So I'm left with lots of overwhelming questions, in no particular order:

1) Did I actually love "YA fantasy" as a kid, or did I just like well-written books?

2) Are kids these days THAT fundamentally different from kids who were fourteen in 2008?

3) If I follow my gut/heart and write the way I want, will my story actually flop, or will it just appeal to a narrower slice of the demographic (which might be the same thing to publishers)?

I'm so confused. I'm confused about what made me like certain books as a teen, and what to do with all these modern rules and standards and exceptions that make a YA fantasy book marketable. If Chelsea Abdullah can splice loosely-related italicized flashbacks into the middle of chapters in The Stardust Thief (published 2022), why the hell can't I? And if Angel on the Square (published 2001) had a time skip of four years, can I really not have a one-year time skip in my book?

I know writing books is both an art and a science, but I'm having trouble knowing when to break the rules and when to keep them. When is it wise to be the artist, and when is it wise to the the scientist?

I also know that this is probably what all first-time aspiring authors go through. I know this is what good editors will help me navigate. I know life is full of calculated risks. I know there's no way to know what will work until I just do it.

But it's really frustrating and confusing. I can do hard things, but this isn't just a hard thing, it's a...I don't even know what it is. I think that's what makes it so hard. It's not like trying to do a maze in the dark, it's like walking around in the dark not knowing if it's a maze, or someone's house, or the middle of a forest, or a different planet, or if everyone else has night vision, or if you're actually dead or—

It's just a lot.

~Stephanie

The Only Reason You Should Read This is If You Want to Know About the War Inside My Brain

And possibly to become aware of the one inside your own.

Y'all know I've gotten a lot out of the Enneagram. It's been the biggest game changer for Gabe's and my growth in communication. It's helped us have a lot of moments where we go, "Ohhh, you're not mean/stupid/weak/oblivious, you're just seeing this in a completely different way than I am, and THAT'S why this is so painful/annoying/infuriating/confusing. Why don't you try to see X, and I'll try to see Y, and let's try this again."

I'm an Enneagram Eight, which means my core fear is betrayed or controlled; my most accessible emotion is anger; and I prefer to make decisions based on gut instinct, followed closely by reason, and I have to reach much deeper down to access my heart/feelings.

However, I've actually struggled a lot which whether I'm really an eight. Gabe and Cassidy are sure that I am, and their combined knowledge of me + the Enneagram leads me to believe they're right.

But I am so unlike other Eights.

Enneagram is cool because it allows for lots of variation. It's like me saying, "Stephanie is a white female with brown hair and green eyes." There are MILLIONS of other people on the planet who fit that description, and ZERO of them really look like me. Likewise, the fact that I'm an Eight means that I'll have some core things in common with other Eights, but I'll still be a completely different person.

But, I repeat, I am so unlike other Eights.

Enter MBTI.

For a while, Gabe and I had been wanted to learn more about Myers-Briggs personality types. And by that I mean, I've been wanting to learn about it, but haven't been willing to do the research, and Gabe will only do research via books and not the internet, so we were waiting for Christmas when we both knew I was going to get him books on the subject.

Which I did.

Gabe spent a lot of Christmas break reading about this type of personality assessment. Then we talked about it, and we discovered another game changer for me.

I've always thought that I was an ENTP ("The Debator") or maybe an ENTJ ("The Leader"):

an Extroverted (prefer to DO things rather than THINK about things)

iNtuitive (make leaps rather than love information)

Thinking (as opposed to Feeling)

Perceiving (see the world descriptively—the way things simply are)

or

Judging (see the world prescriptively—considering the way things should be)

Gabe cautiously put to me that he thought I was actually an ENFJ: a Feeling type rather than a Thinking type.

My whole life, I've believed that thinking is superior to feeling. In fact, feelings can sit quietly or get out. Intelligent people don't use feelings to make decisions. Some people may include feelings in a decision-making process, and that's fine if they need to do that to make themselves feel better, but really, the ideal way is to use reason and logic alone. Sort of like the apostle Paul and marriage: like, if you have to, fine, but not if you can resist.

My Enneagram Eightness fully supports this mindset. Go with your gut, make sure it makes sense, then move on. My whole life, I've cultivated my faculty of thinking and tried to become more and more reasonable. I equated becoming more reasonable with becoming smarter, wiser, and more actualized.

But...MBTI isn't about what you've cultivated—it's the opposite. MBTI is about your natural, initial, easiest-to-access preferences. MBTI says that everyone should work on cultivating their non-preferred "letter." Healthy Extroverts should develop their Introvert muscles, iNtuitive types should develop their ability to Sense, Thinkers should develop their Feeling skills, and Perceivers should develop their Judging faculties. MBTI isn't about limiting you; it's about helping you see where your natural limits are so that you're aware of them enough to move beyond them.

The very fact that I've spent my whole life leaning into Thinking as hard as I possibly can, with every tooth-gritted fiber of my being, so help me God, might be an indication that that is not my natural tendency.

It would also explain a lot of the asterisks and struggles to my being an Eight.

Eights thrive on controversy; ENFJs are friendly and considerate.

Eights are feelings repressed; ENFJs are feeling dominant.

Eights are generally in the "facts don't care about your feelings camp"; ENFJs are acutely aware of the way people are feeling.

Eights have tough shells; ENFJs are sensitive to criticism.

Eights just want to do their own things and let other people do their own things; ENFJs are kindergarten-teacher-type helpers.

Eights are big-pictured minded and tend to steamroll; ENFJs want to slow down and hear your life story, and how you feel about it.

Eights don't particularly care what you think about them; ENFJs want to be fun and popular.

Gabe and I really believe I'm both these types.

My Eightness + the way I was raised led me to bury my Feeling self as deeply as I could. Eights don't want to be hurt, and having feelings is the way you get hurt.

When I discovered I was an Eight, it was like unlocking the key to why I was the way I was—but there were also things that didn't make sense. Like, why did I sometimes shy away from confrontation depending on the makeup of the group I was in? Why was I sometimes more likely to validate someone's perspective, when in another context, I might eviscerate it with logic? Why did arguments sometimes make my chest squeeze when Eights were supposed to love them?

These questions made me feel weak and wrong—the Eightness again.

I know I don't need some stupid personality test to give me permission to feel—but in a (stupid, embarrassing) way, MBTI kind of did that for me. It explained why I feel sensitive to people's emotional states even though another part of me loves confrontation and arguments. It explained why I don't always assert myself and my point of view with all the conviction of a CEO-type Enneagram Eight.

I know some people are going to read this and roll their eyes, thinking, "Yeah, this is literally why personality tests—both Enneagram and MBTI—are silly and useless. These two paradigms are telling you something completely different. Clearly one of them (I mean, both of them, if we're being rational) is incorrect. People cannot be reduced to 'types' and any attempt to do so will lead to wild rationalization of results, and tons of asterisks and exceptions. People just are who they are; there are no types."

To which my ENFJ says, "I totally get that. People are super complicated. Personality types might not be for you, although I really think you'd benefit from doing a legitimate study of them—like reading books and talking to experts, not taking quizzes on Google and following Instagram accounts. Don't be dismissive of something you don't fully understand."

You don't wanna know what my Eight says.

~Stephanie