When the Wall Street Journal/YA Lit brouhaha erupted Saturday, I read the article and posted a link with the following tweet:
Wow. Broad brushes, cherry-picked examples, misinterpretations and exaggerations, bald-faced lies: http://on.wsj.com/lVxoqs
But then followed it up with this:
I actually think it’s possible to make a rational argument that some YA might be too dark, but that article is definitely not it.
The thing is, I actually agree that some select bits of YA cross a line that YA lit probably ought not cross. However, I define that line very differently than does Meghan Cox Gurdon, the author of that article. She defines it merely as content: this book contains rape, and that book contains self-mutilation, and this other book contains violence. True, but it ignores the much more important question: what does that “dark” content mean, and how is it treated?
“Hell”
For those of you who only know me from my upcoming national-release book, let me fill you in on a little of my background. I had my first novel published in 2004, in the niche LDS market. If you live outside of the intermountain west, you’ve likely never heard of the LDS (Latter-day Saint, or Mormon) fiction market; it’s similar, in some ways, to the Christian fiction market: these are books written by LDS people for an LDS audience. They may or may not be religious. Generally speaking, they are books with characters who are members of the LDS church–but they can still be any genre from romance to mystery to historical to whatever.
I published three books in this market: a romantic comedy, and two political thrillers (a weird mix, I know). While the LDS market is (and other Christian markets are) notoriously conservative in terms of content, and I was well aware of that, I ran into a situation that surprised even me.
The following conversation took place in one of the books. The two characters are both LDS, both early twenties. The girl is playfully trying to get the guy to tell her something:
“You know where liars go?” she said, looking stern.
Thrust down to hell. Yep. 2 Nephi 9:34. My Mom had it embroidered on a pillow.
For those who aren’t LDS, “2 Nephi” is a book in the Book of Mormon. So what I was doing here was quoting LDS scripture, in a book targeted at an LDS audience, about LDS characters.
So what’s the problem?
Well, jumping to the end of a drawn-out battle that involved me having to escalate the situation past my editor and up to the managing editor and eventually up to the managing committee: this is how the book looked in print:
“You know where liars go?” she said, looking stern.
Thrust down to … Yep. 2 Nephi 9:34. My Mom had it embroidered on a pillow.
Yep, despite the context, despite it being a direct quote from scripture, despite me giving the scripture reference, the word “hell” was removed. The managing editor insisted that she got angry letters over this very type of thing, so it had to go.
Meaning and Context
I hope that the reason I brought this story up is obvious. There are some people who are so concerned about the specifics of “dark” content that they completely ignore everything else. (“Hell” is a swear word, so regardless of context it has to get cut!) My example above is simple and ridiculous, and if it hadn’t happened to me I’d have a hard time believing it. But the Wall Street Journal article is different: it’s both more important and more common.
Look at what Gurdon does, over and over; she references a YA book, cites the specific content she find objectionable, and then moves on to another book. She never attempts to analyze why that content is there, or what purpose it serves to the character or the story. The one that I find most maddening (though it’s hard to pick just one):
In a letter excerpted by the industry magazine, the Horn Book, several years ago, an editor bemoaned the need, in order to get the book into schools, to strip expletives from Chris Lynch’s 2005 novel, “Inexcusable,” which revolves around a thuggish jock and the rape he commits.
So, she cites expletives, thuggishness and rape. Never once does she pause over the very title of the book! It’s called Inexcusable. That might be a tip that the book is not claiming that expletives, thuggishness and rapes are fantastic things that all kids really ought to try.
Look at every single one of Gurdon’s examples, and you’ll see a complete disregard for meaning and context. Hunger Games is “hyper-violent”! Shine is about drug use and sexual assault! OF COURSE these books are bad; they have bad things in them!
So What?
Like I said at the beginning, I think a rational argument could be made that some books cross a line that a YA book ought not to cross, but that line has nothing to do with the specifics of objectionable content and everything to do with context and meaning. If Inexcusable was called Excusable, and it was about how wonderful rape is, then yes, I think Gurdon would have a valid complaint.
Ultimately, I don’t think her op-ed will mean much. In some ways, it’s good that she wrote this–the articles that have already been written to counter Gurdon’s blind, irrational attack have done far more good for the benefit of quality literature than she and the Wall Street Journal have ever done to undermine it.
Variant, named as one of Publisher's Weekly's Best Books of 2012. A YALSA Pick for Reluctant Readers. Click here for more information.
Feedback, sequel to Variant, was released October 2nd, 2012. Click here for more information.
Blackout, a new series coming October 2013. Click here for more information.
Going Dark is a novella prequel to Blackout, to be released September 3rd, 2013. Click here for more information.
Wow, great blog post. I completely agree. If a YA book is violent with the purpose of showing the negatives of violence, to me that’s okay. Also, in literature an author can depict something graphic while at the same time . . . I guess the word I’m looking for is desensitize, the graphic nature through the prose while still getting its point across (and this is the way most of YA is written).
Great post. Organized, thoughtful, even entertaining in spots. Your approach to content vs. context is going into my parenting toolbox.
James, I’m glad you brought up the desensitize issue, because I’ve been thinking about that, too. You look at a movie like Saving Private Ryan, and the violence is horrible and shocking–and it hurts to watch it. But you look at something like the trenchcoat scene in The Matrix, and that ridiculous level of violence is filmed in an almost beautiful way that makes you want more. I think the difference between the two is that one (Saving Private Ryan) cares about meaning and consequences, while The Matrix cares about being cool and fun to watch. I think the latter is much more desensitizing than the former, because The Matrix is almost telling us “These deaths don’t matter, so you shouldn’t care about them.”
Mark, thanks! Glad it could help.
I think one of those fair arguments is around balance and market share.
It’s been argued, for example, that YA was the one safe haven where we could deal with some difficult issues without crossing certain lines of explicitness. The mainstream book market meets the need for vividly described unpleasantness; YA was the safe haven where the same issues could be addressed without all of the details.
I’m not a big fan of telling authors what they should write or readers what they should read. But with authors rushing to where the market leads–to more vividly described and largely hopeless societies–I think we are inevitably pushing less vivid authors and titles further to the margins. We are thinning the range of available titles in the name of verity and market forces. We write about dystopia everywhere, but see nary a champion of the utopia.
My argument is not against explicit content, but in favor of preserving some market category that is less explicit while still being strongly concept-driven.
That used to be YA. Both parents and teens knew that this market category maintained an arbitrary line on explicit detail, and that made it a safe alternative to the general book market.
If the market no longer demands a safe haven, then so be it. But asking if we really want to eliminate that safe haven is not at all the same thing as censorship or gatekeeping or even prudishness. I would never advocate for eliminating any category or title, only for preserving a single safe haven within the vast diversity already out there.
Your example from your published book for the LDS market is interesting to me. What’s the difference between printing the actual word and leaving the reader to infer it? Once the reader has correctly deduced what the missing word is, they’ve internalized it, made it more memorable, when if the word had been there all along, they might have skimmed right past it without a second thought. It’s kind of like a scary movie can be scarier when they don’t show exactly what happened.
Scott,
You’ve raised a really interesting point that a lot of commenters on this issue seem to miss: that publishing is still a business. While publishers can definitely choose what to accept and what to reject, I think it’s hard to make the argument that a big segment of the general public doesn’t want to read about violence or vampires or steamy romance (according to the YA bestseller lists).
On the other hand, I think there is a false belief that publishers require authors to push the envelope. With my upcoming book, Variant, I was surprised to see the publisher actually remove some of the swearing because she didn’t feel it fit the characters/story. I have a good friend (a NYTimes bestseller) who was asked to cut a sex scene from his book. Or even look at Ally Condie’s Matched–the publisher gave her a seven-figure advance, and it’s about the cleanest novel you could find outside a Deseret Book: no swearing, no sex, not even any violence. I really do think that, as you’re saying, there are still plenty of books out there to meet the needs of consumers who want something “safe”.
Brent,
You’re totally right. But no amount of discussion could convince them otherwise. (The good news is that managing editor is no longer there, and the company has been bought by someone else. It’s still an LDS publisher and very conservative, but I like to think that most of this kind of absurdity is gone.
Publishers exist to make money by exploiting markets as they see them—which is why we saw so many YA fantasy books after Harry Potter and so many vampire books after Twilight. When the bills are paid a publisher can worry about making statements or shaping genres.
Still, they can only publish what they get, and if authors are so busy riding the last wave that they don’t create the next one, we won’t see an end to the current trend any time soon.
While there may be books that are “safe,” my question is what marketing category remains so? While I disagree with most of what Ms. Gurdon offers, her point that YA is no longer “safe” is a good one.
If age is no longer a fair boundary for declaring some editorial limits, what is—or at least what can be? Is the suggestion that there shouldn’t be a safe category?
DB/Covenant is a different problem entirely.
A well thought-out response–and one that’s sorely needed. While I didn’t agree with the WSJ’s view of the subject, I understood the reason it cropped up. I think you’ve done a better job of seeing the issue on a “whole” because it’s not enough to say “XYZ” can/should be published and we draw the line at “ABC.”
I applaud books that make me think and helps me grow but I also just like a book that entertains me, too.
Scott, you make a good point. I wonder if it’s the publishing industry’s role to present a “safe” category (or if they’d even dare)? In other entertainment industries, like music or video games, the content issues are judged by a third party. That has been talked about before with books, and there is usually a lot of resistance to it. However, there are many websites devoted to outlining “objectionable” content. Maybe that ought to be left to consumers?
I think the Deseret Book/Covenant situation actually relates here, because they’ve tried to set themselves up as “safe”, and it’s been one pain the neck and double standard after another. “Safe” is such a subjective term that not only might it be impossible to determine, but would almost certainly lead to complaints of censorship. (Then again, in publishing, almost everything leads to complaints of censorship.)
This is where the conversation gets odd.
I don’t think publishers have any moral obligation to define a “safe” genre, but I do think there’s significant marginal utility in doing so.
The reason publishers identify market categories in the first place is as an aid to readers (and purchasers) to self-select which books they want to start browsing. It’s the simplest, least precise way of grouping titles, but it’s still distinctly useful and it comes from the most authoritative source—the publishers themselves.
Titles cross over those arbitrary categories all the time, but are still identified with a core genre—which is precisely why YA was such a useful category; it easily blended historical, sf, mystery, slice-of-life, etc. under a single banner. Because the arbitrary line is based on the age of the intended reader (as opposed to an interpreted level of maturity), YA provided a convenient flag (not unlike an MPAA rating) that said certain depictions would not occur here—regardless of how artistically rendered, morally relevant, or aesthetically defensible those elements may be. It was a simple (and simplistic) bright line that set an easily understood baseline for buyers.
Was it fair? I don’t think that matters because it was consistent and predictable. Did it limit the titles that could be published under that rubric? Of course—with the assumption that those titles could simply be published as general market fiction.
It was a useful line demarcated by levels of explicit detail, and said nothing about value. Value was left up to the Newberry committee, ALA, and the New York Review of Books.
But that line has shifted, and those details are now regularly included in books with the YA label—meaning that the label is no longer useful as a simple demarcation line.
There’s nothing wrong with that, but it does functionally eliminate what I saw as a useful line that provided a clear signpost to a large number of readers.
Which is where DB’s attempt to interpret “appropriateness” demonstrates the difficulty of making a moral judgment rather than using those simple (and simplistic) definitional lines. The inconsistent application of subjective measures undermines the consistency and predictability of the model.
Having said that, I appreciate what DB is trying to do in terms of market segmentation even if I disagree with their measures. The problem I have is that DB didn’t segment a market, they defined it entirely and locked down access to the broader marketplace based on what should have been a category boundary, not a market boundary.
So…
Yes, of course readers need to make their own decisions based on good report and praise from trusted sources. The publisher’s categories are simply an aid to that process, and while the publishers are free to draw the line anywhere they want, I think a very useful (if simplistic) line between YA and general market fiction has shifted far enough to be functionally irrelevant as a differentiator.
What was two points of comparison has now become one. I consider that to be a reduction in value to the consumer, and a loss of a useful descriptor. The more mature kids were already reading in the general fiction section of the library; this leaves those kids (and adults) who liked the clarity of that line with no replacement filter.
FWIW.