According to Sturgeon's law, 90% of things are rubbish. This law was spoken by Theodoro Sturgeon when he defended science fiction in the XNUMXs.
This law was cited in the middle of a debate at the Edinburgh International Book Fair on a question that has been dominating the discussion for 10 days and that is the following: how fiction is defined Young adult or YA. Despite the insistence and frequency of this conversation, which featured Frances Hardinge, Marcus Sedgwick and Simon Mayo, no one feels sure how to define it, not even the authors who write these kinds of books.
The great debate of YA literature on Monday at this festival marked a wrong approach to any debate on how to define YA literature, a topic that is always tends to be diverted every time it appears. Is Young Adult Literature a Genre or a Category? Who consumes this type of literature? You grow a lot? Is it misspelled?
Young Adult author Anthony McGowan cited the previously described Sturgeon's Law: "90% of Young Adut literature is bad." The author commented that he regretted speaking to a monoculture audience of white women at YA conferences. As an effect, some commented that the majority of Young Adult literature bloggers are women and that all publishers of these books are women.
"There is an enormous amount of energy going into these kinds of stories., stories that may appeal to women in their 20s and 30s rather than teenagers. We have this world dominated by women who write these stories for other young women to read and reflect on themselves. "
Young Adult may not be a genre, in fact I would not consider it as such because it is part of a category where it helps you know what type of audience it is aimed at. However, the debate, following this line, it degenerated into other debates that usually take place around this genre.
McGowan was commenting on something that Elizabeth Wein and Philip Womack did not agree with, and that is that, as he mentions, he does not believe that adults should read Young Adult literature.
“I think you should go ahead and read Tolstoy and Dostoevsky or Dickens and stop reading Crespúscuo and The Hunger Games. It's part of being an adult to leave these things behind. "
Several of those present complained about this rejection of Young Adult literature in an adult audience. Author Patrice Lawrence, 49, announced to applause that he will not waste time reading Dostoevsky and Tolstoy simply because he does not want to read them. Others commented that the debate had been completely redirected forgetting to define what Young Adult literature was.
Many authors of this literature praised the greatness of their adolescent pubic in other debates, adding that they did not write these stories specifically for this audience. Author Jenny Downham commented in the discussion that hI had seen his book, Before I Die, in both the Young Adult and adult fiction sectionsYeah, which seemed pretty stupid to him, but as a marketing idea it wasn't bad.
As a Young Adult reader I wonder why you always have to categorize and think that each person should read depending on their age. Books are for entertainment and if you are entertained by books that are not "your age", I do not see any harm. On the other hand Can't read all kinds of books? In addition to reading Young Adult I like to read other types of adult category books and I believe that both categories can contribute a lot to all types of readers, it all depends on knowing how to choose the right book.