Are You Really Writing YA, or Is It Actually MG?

Brenda Drake's annual Pitch Madness contest is going on right now (you can check out the details here, but be aware that the submission window has closed!). The readers going through the entries and deciding what entries will move on to the agent round have been tweeting general tips on the hashtag #PitchMadness based on what they're seeing. There are some really good tips on query pitfalls to avoid, so it's worth taking a look.

I noticed that one in particular keeps coming up: people calling their manuscript young adult when they're really writing material that's more suited for a middle grade novel. It's more common than you might think. So what makes a YA novel YA and not MG?

1. Targeted Age of Reader
This one's a bit obvious, but let's start here. A middle grade novel is intended to be read by kids who are roughly ages 8-12. Young adult novels are targeted toward 12-18 year olds (although, as we all know, they are often read by people much older than that!).

2. Age of Main Character(s)
As a general rule, middle grade main characters tend to be preteen or below, and young adult characters tend to be fourteen or above. (There's an odd gray area with thirteen-year-old characters that sometimes makes them a hard sell.)

That said, there are a few exceptions to this rule. For example, Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson books are all considered middle grade because the main character started out as twelve years old, even though he's sixteen when the series ends.

3. Word Count
You'll find many different opinions about what constitutes proper word count for each age range, but the general consensus seems to be about 30,000-60,000 words for MG and 50,000-80,000 for YA. Sci-fi and fantasy books in either can have a high range that's ten or fifteen thousand words above this.

4. Primary Focus
Readers of middle grade fiction are focused on their immediate environment--friends, school, family--and the books targeted to this age range tend to reflect this. A MG protagonist often discovers something about themselves by the end of the book.

In contrast, YA protagonists are figuring out things about the outside world and how they fit into it. They're influenced by the world outside their small sphere and often have to deal with adult problems.

5. Content
Elements like swearing, drug use, graphic violence, and sex tend to be very light or nonexistent in middle grade novels, but they're all fair game in YA. This doesn't mean MG novels can't be dark or scary, but writers will do well to consider that most of the books for this age group are purchased by parents or teachers and they will often take exception to edgier content.

Knowing the correct age category for your manuscript will make it easier to target the right agents and editors, and it will also help you market your book correctly. For further reading on this subject, check out this post on the YA Highway blog or this one from Writer's Digest.

Lessons From the Pitch Madness Slush

Last week, I had the privilege of assisting two hosts of Pitch Madness with their slush reading. (If you're not familiar with Pitch Madness, it's a blog-hosted contest where writers compete to get requests from agents to read their material. Find more information about this year's contest here.)

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you probably know I'm a big fan of online writing contests. In fact, that's how I got my agent! I've entered quite a few of them over the past few years, but this was the first time I got to see the process from the other side.

Holy crap is it different.

First, let me say that the writers who run these writing contests are saints. I had no idea how much time and energy went into making sure people followed the submission guidelines, following up on missing information, poring over agent wishlists, and reading hundreds of pitches. I was honestly shocked at how much work these hosts are doing, just out of the goodness of their hearts and desire to see other writers succeed.

Without further ado, here are the two main things I learned from reading through hundreds of entries.

1. Short pitches are really, really difficult.
The pitch required for this contest could only be 35 words, maximum. I saw so many entries that tried to cram too much information into this short format, only to end up with a confusing, convoluted pitch. There were more than a few entries that honestly made no sense at all.

Lesson to be learned here: if you're writing a short pitch, keep it as simple as possible. Don't try to mention subplots, minor characters, or overall themes. A tried-and-true approach is this general format: When INCITING INCIDENT happens to MAIN CHARACTER, he/she must OVERCOME CONFLICT by COMPLETING QUEST. (Paraphrased from former literary agent Nathan Bransford--check out his blog for tons of other great query/writing tips.)

2. The first line of your manuscript should be great. It should also set the tone for the rest of the book.
There were lots of pitches that sounded like one type of book (serious high fantasy, for example), but the first line would be something flippant that sounded like it belonged in a women's fiction book.

The first line of your manuscript should be worked over until it's perfect. I had heard that some agents quit reading if they didn't like the first sentence, and I found myself doing the same thing a few times. If that sentence has clunky writing, mechanics errors, or is confusing, you're running the risk that your reader will stop right there.

Conversely, there were some stellar first sentences that made me take a second look at entries where the pitch wasn't as good. My favorites were witty, or infused so much of the main character's voice into just one sentence that I was compelled to keep reading.


For a far more comprehensive wrap-up from another Pitch Madness slush reader, check out LL McKinney's post on the Cue My Muse blog. She delves into the most common errors she saw in both the pitches and the first 250 words and includes some excellent tips.

Writer's Resource: Twitter Pitch Contests

You probably know that Twitter can be an excellent resource for writers (if not, this earlier post might change your mind).

But did you know that you can regularly find pitch contests on Twitter, where agents and/or editors peruse a certain hashtag at a certain time to find material they'd like to request?

One of the big Twitter pitch contests, the one affiliated with the blog contest Pitch Madness, is coming up next week on March 25th. If you're interested in participating, the details are on the contest organizer Brenda Drake's blog here (scroll down to find the section about the Twitter contest).

I've personally participated in three Twitter pitch contests, and I received several agent and editor requests to see my partial or full manuscript. Even better, I connected with like-minded writers when they complimented my pitch, or when I saw one that looked similar to mine and complimented theirs. I got a great critique partner that way!

Of course, a Twitter contest means that the entries have to be formatted so they're under the 140-character limit for a tweet. If the very idea has you screaming in terror, this post might be helpful: Writing a Short Pitch.

Twitter contests are often associated with blog contests like Pitch Madness. Follow writers like Brenda Drake (@brendadrake) or read threads like this one on the Absolute Write forums to find more!