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.

Age Categories and Word Count Guidelines for Fiction

Whether you're working on your first novel or have written many, you probably have some idea of the age group you're targeting: adults, babies, or any age in between. But writers are often confused about where precisely their work falls in these categories. They also wonder what length is appropriate for that age range.

Here's a handy cheat sheet of common fiction categories (word count information comes mostly from this helpful Literary Rambles blog post):

Note: In the publishing world, length is determined by word count rather than pages, since the page count will change depending on how your manuscript is formatted.

• Board Books: Books with thick cardboard pages, intended for babies and young toddlers. Generally under 100 words.
  

• Picture Books: Books written for children from ages 3-8. Illustrations are very important to the story (and are often on every page). Generally 400-900 words in length.
  

• Early Readers: Books designed for children who are beginning to read on their own, or from about ages 6-8. There are only a few sentences on each page, and they usually feature color illustrations. Generally 200 to 3,500 words in length.
  

• Chapter Books: Books for independent readers who are a little older, about 7-10. Sentences are a little more complex in these books, and they may have no illustrations at all. Generally 4,000-10,000 words in length.
  

• Middle Grade: Books for readers from ages 8-12. The word count starts to vary a little more widely here. Generally 25,000-45,000 words in length, but sci-fi or fantasy books that might require more world building might go up to 70,000 words or even higher.
  

• Young Adult: Books written to appeal to readers over age 12. (Notice there's no upper age given for YA--that's because this genre appeals to a lot of adults, too!) The word count for YA books is generally in the 45,000-70,000 word range, but speculative fiction books may go as high as 100,000 words.
  

• Adult: Books written for the adult market can be all over the map. This Writer's Digest blog post suggests that 80,000-90,000 words is a safe range, but also mentions that books as low as 70,000 or as high as 110,000 will probably be all right. As with Middle Grade and Young Adult books, sci-fi and fantasy novels tend to run a little longer, so acceptable word count for these genres is probably more in the 90,000-125,000 range.
  

There are a few categories I didn't touch on above (for example, Hi-Lo books, which are designed to be high interest books for older readers with a lower reading level), but this list covers the age categories you'll probably hear most often.

Check out the linked blog posts above for more information!