So Close but so Far: Switching Between Middle-Grade and Young Adult Fiction

When anyone asks me about how I move back and forth between writing middle-grade and young adult fiction—I’ve published nine MG and three YA novels so far, plus a bunch of short stories in each category—I tend to hide behind my hair and mumble something sheepish about having no idea.

(Middle-Grade Villains Are the Best Villains.)

Full disclosure: This isn’t entirely true. What’s true is that the shift in my writing is predominantly unconscious, a little like a musician playing by ear. (When I make myself stop and look at the sheet music, I can say, Oh yeah—THAT’S what I’m doing.) If you write for young readers, you might unconsciously do these things too, having absorbed the techniques from a lifetime of reading, hearing, and telling stories that are tailored to an audience.

So what’s the difference between MG and YA? And how do you switch from one to the other? Well…there’s a whole beautiful, blurry spectrum of novels being written and published for young readers right now. There are debates about content and categories, arguments about what’s “appropriate” for MG or YA readers—and of course there are no clear answers, because no two readers (or writers) are the same. But in my own work, there are three major differentiating elements—and nope, content isn’t one of them. They are main character, voice, and point of view.

In each of my middle-grade books, my main character is a 10- to 12-year-old child—the age and identity of an average MG reader. It’s rare to find a middle-grade book where the protagonist is younger than nine or older than 14. Of course, there are MG novels with protagonists who are mice, or robots, or magical trees, and those get to exist outside the human life cycle. But the mental and emotional age of the main character—who or whatever they are—is the lens through which they see the world. It becomes the frame for the whole story.

The same goes for YA. In my young adult novels, my protagonists are 16 to 18 years old, and so far, they’ve all been juniors or seniors in high school. They’re on the cusp of adulthood, taking form as human beings, but with so much possibility and uncertainty still surrounding them. For me, that’s the core of YA.

Here’s the trick: As you get to know your protagonists, through daydreaming or drafting or 5,000 revisions, they’ll start to take on a life of their own. Once they’ve become real inside your mind, of course they’ll act like a 10-year-old, or like a 17-year-old, or like a sentient typewriter. Because that’s who they are. And once your main character is there, fully formed and semi-autonomous and seeing the world through their own distinct lens, they will lead the way.

Voice tends to grow out of the identity of your protagonist. Even if the voice belongs to a narrator—some version of the author (you!) instead of a character—your protagonist’s life and world will provide the components of that voice.

If your characters live in the modern world, then today’s pace and vocabulary and cultural references should be woven into the story. If your characters live in a historical period, or in a fantasy realm with rules and references all its own, that context should be consistent and clear. Pull your main character’s age into the mix. Ask yourself if they have a vocabulary and syntax that suits their identity, whatever that happens to be: a medieval child prodigy, a modern-day high schooler, a murderous Victorian doll.

And then there’s tone. Personally, I tilt toward the dark. But in my MG work, I use a lot more quirky humor, mixing the shadows with bits of light. With my YA novels, I feel the freedom to go deeper and scarier.

In both MG and YA, I’m always thinking less about content than about my protagonist’s reaction to it or observation of it. The protagonist is my lens, and it’s their voice—innocent or bitter or dreamy or snarky—that needs to capture what they feel, think, and see.

Voice goes hand-in-hand with point of view. It’s not a coincidence that the majority of current MG uses the third-person point of view and the majority of current YA uses first-person. This is not a rule, of course. A writer should use whichever POV suits the story. And sometimes you have to go back and forth, playing with perspectives, until you find the one that’s just right.

In my case, third person (limited omniscient) has felt very comfortable for MG. In part this is because it lets me use a more detached, less childlike voice for the narration, and in part it’s because most of my MG books involve a mystery. Using third person lets me drop hints for the reader, or describe things that my younger protagonist might not notice or know. It lets me construct a puzzle that my main characters aren’t finished solving for themselves.

Most MG books, whether they’re mysteries or not, tend to emphasize external conflict. There’s a dangerous new world for the protagonist to explore, or a daunting challenge to win, or an evil power to escape. YA novels tend to emphasize internal conflict. The most important struggles involve the protagonist’s identity, their feelings about themselves or others, their place in the world. First-person point of view is the perfect tool for that. Plus, it lets you take on a completely new, distinctive voice as you step inside of your protagonist, which is one of the most magical and fun bits of all.

Trying to write for a general audience—in my own experience, anyway—is a mistake.

Picture a sea of sixth-graders. Or a taller and slightly surlier sea of high school juniors. Writing for those groups is impossible. Because they’re not seas, they’re a bunch of individuals with all different tastes and needs.

If I ask myself, Is this what 11-year-olds like? Or Do 16-year-olds know this word?, I’ll be stuck. Because it’s always both yes and no. It’s better to focus on a specific reader: your own siblings, maybe, or your own children, or the versions of yourself at every age that still live inside you, tucked into your heart like the bodies of a nesting doll. Sometimes it turns out that you’re actually writing for your main character; you are telling their story, and the finished book is a gift that you give back to them. Funnily, the more specific you are, the more there ends up being for strangers to relate to.

In each case, ask yourself, what does the particular person who I’m writing for want and need and fear and love? And then do your best to answer.  

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