The Line Between Fantasy and YA

Quote of the Day: "Into the pastures of our minds goes my nearly beloved and I."
--The Wallflowers, Nearly Beloved

So many things to blog about today! But not to worry, I'm saving most of them up to be released in a user-friendly, easily digestible format rather than cramming them all down your throat.

We'll start with another thing I learned at Tor yesterday, when I finally had the chance to ask an Editorial Assistant who deals with fantasy about where the line between Fantasy and YA Fantasy is drawn. Her answer?

"Good question."

Initially she suggested theme, but in the course of our discussion we discovered that since a great deal of fantasy deals with the quest of a hero, which typically involve a lot of steps that are very YA in theme (Youngish person discovers something new about themselves, has to learn how to use it, deal with the changes it brings about in their life, and eventually triumph either because of it or in spite of it. Sounds like puberty, eh?), and some YA fantasy deals with very dark, "adult" themes, theme doesn't really work as a criterion.

So finally she hit upon complexity, and I agreed entirely. YA fantasy tends to be simpler than adult fantasy. The worlds are less detailed (or at least tend to spread the detail out over multiple books rather than hitting it all at once), and the novels are shorter and tend to focus more on one particular plot, or two or three, rather than some of the sweeping, sixteen-characters-with-their-own-plot, full-of-intrigue epics you'll find without the YA designation.

Personally, I don't see this is as a value judgment. Lack of complexity does not make something inherently worse. See the music of Nirvana versus the music of Mozart. Both are incredible. One is more complex, but there are things that Nirvana's simplicity can accomplish that Mozart, for all his orchestra and musical brilliance, can't. Sometimes a more single-minded focus can reveal nuances of one particular plotline or story that would get lost in the more complex machinations of another book.

Either way, I'd love to hear opinions on this one. Complexity as the barrier between YA and adult fantasy---sound about right?