Back in August 2012, Publishers Weekly declared that Christian YA Fiction [is] Coming Into Full-Bloom.
Christian teen fiction is coming into its own these days as sales rise for both digital and traditional books, and as publishers look for the next bestselling series. While Christian publishers haven’t found juggernauts that compare to Harry Potter, the Hunger Games, the Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini, or the Twilight series, it’s not for lack of trying.
“YA fiction in general is a fast-growing genre,” says Don Pape, v-p of trade publishing for David C. Cook. “The YA reader can’t get enough story; they’re voracious readers whether in hard copy or digital download.”
The trend towards YA fiction appears to continue to grow as more Christian publishers develop YA imprints, tween mysteries, and stories aimed at Christian youth. This was obvious at last years’ Realm Makers conference. The amount of young-ish, 20-something writers I met who are crafting Christian worldview stories aimed at YA readers was significant. In fact, it’s probably accurate to estimate that half of all speculative fiction published by Christian presses (whether trad or indie) is YA. Which is why the Christian site Family Fiction lists almost 500 YA titles.
In a way, this growing trend in Christian publishing is problematic, and symptomatic of the Christian subculture in general. In two ways.
One — If indeed Christian YA has finally come “full-bloom,” it’s about a decade after the general market did. When I started pursuing a professional writing gig back in 2004-05, the Christian fiction market was aimed primarily at adults. This didn’t stop all my writer friends from talking about Harry Potter, Twilight, and the Hunger Games. And how to reach that audience. But, at the time, not only was the Christian fiction market still debating whether Christian books should contain wizards, witches, dragons, and spell-casting, there was no real vehicle to reach the Harry Potter reader. Especially if our books were mostly an attempt to provide an “alternative.” About this time, our local Barnes & Nobel rearranged their sales floor to include two entire aisles of YA science fiction and fantasy. While the YA genre was blowing up, Christian writers and readers were busy catching-up. This has left us behind the eight ball in many ways.
Which leads me to point Two — Not only is Christian YA behind the general market trend, it has failed to engage the far more energetic, worldly, broader general market YA audience. Of course, this is a topic of long-standing debate among Christian creatives — Do we write stories to engage the “secular” reader and the cultural zeitgeist, or do we provide “alternatives” for those seeking clean reads with Christian values? Wherever you land on that spectrum, the tension is still alive and well. And totally in the mix when discussing the state of Christian YA.
From the aforementioned PW article:
“Christian publishers walk a tightrope,” says Cook’s [Don] Pape. “We want to be real and deal with life issues, but also be redemptive and provide a light in the dark. We’ve had some parents return books because they’re dark, but when you look at what kids are into in the real world, you see the tension.” [Shannon] Marchese of WaterBrook Multnomah agrees: “There are [Christian market] constraints on how candid we can be with our teen readers. Parents want a good, clean read, but kids are saying that’s not what’s happening in their lives.”
“The biggest question we all face is how far we can go with YA,” says Pape. “We have to be true to our Christian values and mission, but we know what the kids are seeing in the media, in film, and in books.”
This tension between Christian parents “who want a good, clean read” for their kids and kids who are living in the 21st century, is partly what keeps Christian YA from crossing over. I recently spoke with a publishing insider who also has high-schoolers. They suggested that one of the reasons that Christian YA does not connect with today’s youth is that it is written for yesterday’s youth. Today’s young adults are not the young adults of yesteryear. They pass out dental dams in high-schools now. Today’s young adults talk openly about STD’s, sexual orientation, gender reassignments, suicide, and school shootings. The spigot of film, music, social media, and pop culture is wide open and shaping the adolescent mind like never before. One reason that Christian YA fiction has a problem engaging the general market YA reader is because Christian culture is disengaged from the broader youth culture.
This is not to suggest that Christian YA can’t address cutting edge subjects in a compelling way, but that the expectations of the average Christian YA reader prevents them from doing so. Wanting “clean reads” while growing up in an R-rated cultural can’t help but lead to some disconnects. Compounding this cultural disconnect is Christian YA’s connection with the Christian homeschooling community. Christian homeschoolers are often a target audience for many Christian YA authors. While many Christian parents do not homeschool their kids as a way to cloister them from “worldly” influences, some do. For many of these parents, Christian YA is the official alternative to secular YA. This is why you’ll find many Christian YA authors cultivating connections with Christian homeschool groups. In fact, I know of an organizer of a readers’ choice award who privately bemoaned the fact that one particular YA author has such a significant, active homeschool following that they are often able to game the system in this author’s favor.
I realize that there are some Christian YA authors who have crossed over and maintain a vibrant general market platform. (For example, I was encouraged to see Enclave Publishing recently begin distributing Canadian author R.J. Anderson’s YA fairy tale series, a series first sold in the general market.) Nevertheless, I want to suggest that there are several reasons why this is not the norm. The two reasons why Christian YA doesn’t connect with general market readers are 1.) The cultural lag between general market trends and Christian market trends, and 2.) The disconnect between youth culture as it is and how Christians wish it would be.
I think Christian authors (in general) need to do a better job of finding how to write redemption stories instead of writing tracts. The former don’t have to be nearly as safe and squeaky clean to be effective at showing the wreckage of sin and the need for life-change and the latter are just thinly disguised sermons. I keep pointing to PULP FICTION as one of my favorite redemption stories. I don’t personally need swearing in my fiction but the stories do need to be honest, showing real people dealing with real challenges.
What does this have to do with YA? That’s a field that’s just begging for really smart, really dedicated authors who aren’t afraid to go after those not already inside the walls of Christendom. The fields are white OUT THERE. We need to leave the safety of the city walls in order to pull in the harvest and that means writing differently.
(That doesn’t mean we don’t need writers who safer fiction, but that’s not where my heart is. My heart is for the readers who ate up Harry Potter. Give us the Joy, give us the sehnsuct, and keep the preaching. Let the redemption elements of the stories speak for themselves.)
New and original stories are scary and confusing, and we all know Satan is behind those sort of things. Christians need to wait for non-believers to tell them what art to produce, much after the fact, as Mike said. Whose marching orders are we really following?
Exactly! Hey, I hear that superheroes are due to get hot. Also, isn’t it interesting that the only real publishing trend that can be claimed by Christians is the Amish one. Now THAT has definitely had some cultural import.
When I went to my first Christian writers conference in 2008 (2009?), I thought it was going to be awesome. YA was super hot already in the secular market. Harry Potter had stormed the nation. The conference offered a teen track, taught by a Christian YA fantasy writer. Woohoo!!!!
NOT A SINGLE AGENT OR PUBLISHER THERE WANTED YA OF ANY KIND. (Nor the year after. I quit going after that.)
It seems to be slowly getting better, but the CBA is definitely behind. The secular YA market is leaving the dystopian rage and the CBA is just now getting started in it. Fantasy in the CBA seems to only be in the hands of a few select writers. So, yes, I agree completely with your point #1.
As for point #2…speaking as someone who has judged the YA category for the Genesis Contest several time: Yes, yes, yes. Oy, some of the entries I’ve read. So unrealistic and out of touch. Childish writing voices, concepts that were obviously meant to become lessons for teens. Clean alternatives are fine, imho, but you have to realize that for the most part those books are only being marketed to specific Christian readers. Most of the teens I know *even in the Christian homeschooling world* read mainly secular YA fiction. (I will say, though, the quality of YA entered in the Genesis is getting better. There were a couple of pretty impressive entries this year.)
Thanks for the hat-tip to KNIFE and REBEL, Mike!
I do think it’s possible, albeit tricky, for Christian authors to deal with “heavy” topics in a way that can satisfy young readers looking for realistic content and also not freak out the average Christian parent. For instance, my YA novel ULTRAVIOLET deals with mental illness, the effects of trauma and abuse, and a pretty intense relationship between a teenaged girl and a college-aged young man, among other controversial topics — but it’s been certified as a “Clean Read” by several Christian sites because of the way all these topics are dealt with — touched upon or mentioned enough that we know what’s going on, but not dwelt upon in an exploitative or explicit fashion. Yet it was published by Carolrhoda Lab, which has made a name for itself by publishing “edgy” teen fiction, usually with a lot stronger language and content than any of mine. And a lot of non-Christian teens loved it (including posting quotes from the book all over Tumblr), while a number of Christian teens have also written to tell me that they noticed and appreciated the spiritual aspect of the book.
The thing is, though, I wasn’t writing that book for a Christian audience. I assumed the vast majority of my readers would be non-Christians, and none of the characters in the book are Christian in any more than the vaguest nominal sense (if that). There’s no conversion scene, only a kind of spiritual epiphany that comes to the MC when she thinks all hope is lost, and it’s left up to the reader to decide what she did or didn’t do about that realization afterward. As such it would never fly in the Christian market, but I’m happy to find that Christian readers are still finding it and being pleasantly surprised.
From what I can see, the Christian market lost teens a long time ago. They couldn’t find what they were looking for in Christian bookstores (or if they did, there wasn’t nearly enough of it), so they went to the general market, where there is a practically infinite number of choices for them. Any time someone writes an article about YA they either seem to be complaining that it’s too sanitized and facile for adults, or that it’s far too gritty and prurient for teens, but the truth is that YA encompasses a huge spectrum of possibilities, just like adult fiction does — literary, commercial, sexy, sweet, edgy, traditional, dark and light — the only difference is that in YA they’re all mingled together in one section of the bookstore instead of separated into neat little genre sections like adult books.
Anyway, I don’t think it’s possible for Christian fiction to catch up to the general market at this point. They lost all those teen readers (except for the most aggressively sheltered homeschoolers, and they’re probably not reading modern fiction anyway) long ago, and I can’t imagine how they’re going to get them back. But there is definitely still room for Christian authors in YA, if they’re prepared to do a lot of research and reading to see what’s going on in the category before they start writing it — and that, I fear, is where a lot of aspiring Christian authors fall down. They’re still so focused on writing the next Narnia or LotR, or even the next HP or Hunger Games, that they don’t realize the genre has moved on and nobody is looking for books like that anymore. Far better to do something completely new and unexpected than try to emulate the successes of the past, but first you’ve got to know what’s already been done so you don’t end up inadvertently replicating it.
No one is looking for books like Narnia or LotR anymore? Fantasy appears to be one of the strongest genres in existence. More importantly, Lewis and Tolkien showed how Christian writers can write something influenced by their Christianity rather than fitting some particular model. There wasn’t “Christian fiction” in their day and their model, whether or not one writes fantasy, is a good one to follow. Not because it will guarantee success for Christian writers, but it is a model that states: Write your story, not what other people want you to write.
There’s a growing number of Christian writers who get this, but many are publishing outside the CBA world. Maybe someone in the mainstream Christian publishers will someday take more chances – they certainly have the success and money to do so. Until then, the best way for writers to encourage that is by writing and promoting their works.
No one is looking for books derivative of Narnia and LotR, is my point. I happen to love portal-from-earth-to-magical-world fantasies myself, but they’re a notoriously tough sell with publishers, as are epic secondary world fantasies that revolve around a company of men, dwarves, elves and/or other creatures going on a quest together to defeat an Ancient Evil.
I would love to see fantasy as fresh and groundbreaking, yet with the same classic and indeed mythological feel to them, as Narnia and LotR were in their day. But what I often see is aspiring authors trying to write their own variations of Narnia and LotR, sometimes with a side-helping of Eddings or Donaldson or other epic fantasy fiction that was popular twenty or thirty years ago, which makes me wonder if they have ever read any SFF written since.
I intend to write YA novels about young Christians who are Homsoexual, and to incorporate the augments I make I m blog that Homsoexuality is not a Sin.
I also have a Secular story published in Tales of The Shadowmen 12 starting young adults Eugenie Danglars and Louise d’Armilly.
That sounds awesome, Jared. I see many Christians avoiding LGBT issues. Too much of a hot potato I guess. So you’re pretty brave to tackle that 😉
Thank You
I don’t know if you’ve read Mary Weber’s Storm Siren trilogy, RJ, but it’s not like the books you describe.
Mike, I don’t think the problem of Christian fiction being a day late (or five years behind) is the fault of the writers or the readers. It’s the publishers who aren’t sure if “that kind of book” will sell.
Becky
Becky, I do agree on that! The CBA publishers don’t know what to do with YA and have essentially ignored it.
That said, a lot of what they’ve been willing to publish is what I’m guessing they considered “safe” fiction, which encourages authors to pump out junk. Like I said, I’ve seen it on the back-end through the Genesis. Some of the submissions have been really, really good. Some is cheesy, sanitized, contrived, preachy, and completely unrealistic.
Becky, since posting this I’ve had some exchanges with Mary Weber. (She left a long comment on my FB post if you’re interested). Her story is aimed at the general market and has captured some Christian audiences. Which seems the smarter way to build a platform if you’re a Christian YA writer — aim 1st and GM and then build into the Christian market. Moving FROM the Christian market and trying to capture a GM market just seems so much harder, mainly because of the expectations CF readers bring with them. I’m just not sure I’d put the blame on Christian publishers for playing catch-up. This is symptomatic of how much Christian culture is — music, film, and literature. Not to mention, the more conservative wing of the Christian market are very vocal about maintaining standards. The same standards that I think keep Christian YA from engaging secular readers.
Oh, I know there are exceptions to the derivative trends I was lamenting in my comment — indeed, those are generally the books that stand out enough to get published these days. I have the Storm Siren books on my TBR list and look forward to checking them out.
That’s just the way Christians are, Mike. It’s not just YA. Christians completely ignored the rise of nerd/geek culture and still do, unless its popular. When they do bother to engage it, it’s never like they actually care about it, as opposed to a tool to be used. It’s almost always from the outside, trying to criticize it and draw lessons from it.
Not much can be done. There’s plenty of money made in writing for homeschoolers I guess.
I’m a Christian who’s a Huge Nerd.
General trend of all Christians /= specific, small examples of Christians. General trend has gotten even worse, without Harry Potter or LOTR. We don’t even get the hamfisted “Theology of Hogwarts/Middle Earth” books now.
Christian Nerds are becoming more and more common actually. Rob Skiba is probably more conservative then I am.
Rob Skiba isn’t a nerd, he’s a nut. Reading about him makes him look like a Christian copy of David Ickes. Just replace reptillians with nephilim. The dude believes in a flat earth! Please don’t lump him in with nerds.
I didn’t even know you have to separate this. I’m A Christian and a big nerd. Proud of being both 😉
Interesting to note (and when I say interesting, I mean depressing) that Rowling’s own Christianity doesn’t get a mention. Also, Veronica Roth (Divergent/Insurgent/Allegiant). Perhaps they’re just the wrong sort of Christians writing the wrong sort of story?
Rowling isn’t Christian. She said she was, but so does Barack Obama and most famous figures when asked. Realistically, she isn’t, and you don’t see it in her books at all. You see a lot of Christians tripping over themselves to interpret her books in the most favorable Christ-honoring light though.
Veronica Roth is, but I don’t know if she really is Christian YA in terms of writing. Divergent really wasn’t, although I hear in later books she tried to add some themes. It was good timing where the YA boom relaxed the gatekeepers where a book could come through with mild Christian imagery.
Rowling goes to church (Scottish Episcopal). Granted that doesn’t mean she’s definitely a Christian, but it’s a fair indicator.
The gatekeepers have never cared for or against Christian imagery, just whether the book’s good or not, and whether it’s going to sell or not. Roth and Rowling write good books that sell well.