Today Tiffany King, author of No Attachements, tells us about why she chose to write New Adult literature and why the genre is relevant. Also, check out the giveaway: a signed copy of No Attachments, a signed 16×24 foam board No Attachments poster, and a No Attachments charm necklace.
My Journey from YA to New Adult
When are you going to write something in the New Adult genre? That is a question I have been asked a least once a day for the past six months. I have to admit, I hesitated. The Young Adult genre has always been my comfort zone, not only as a writer, but also as a reader. We moved a lot when I was growing up. Books were the one constant in my life that I could count on to help ease the pain of leaving old friends behind and the awkward tension of trying to fit in at a new school. Authors like Judy Blume and Wilson Rawls expressed feelings in their writings that I could connect with and relate to, thus starting a love affair with the Young Adult genre that has carried on, even into my adult years. Naturally, when I decided to write my first book, I stayed within the familiar confines of what I had enjoyed reading for so long. Much of what I write is also drawn from my own life’s experiences, so the emotions are very important, and very real to me. The success that I have achieved in my writing career has been a dream come true and my crossover into different genres in no way means that I will abandon the Young Adult genre forever.
That being said, I can’t express how excited I am to jump into New Adult. Before I started, I felt it was important to first understand what New Adult is and what it is not. New Adult is not erotica. It is not a spin-off genre of the very popular Fifty Shades series by the talented E.L James. Do the characters in New Adult books have sex? Absolutely. Most books in the New Adult genre center on characters in their early twenties, so obviously, sex is a part of their lives, but there is more to their stories than that. For many people, the early twenties is a crossover point in your life when you are forced to deal with real life issues: Finishing College, starting a career, maybe even starting a family, basically, trying to discover your identity in an adult world.
It seems strange that while Hollywood has embraced this genre for years, the literary world has been slower to accept it. Each of the past couple of decades has its own movies and TV shows that have helped define the twenty something generation. I am risking dating myself, but think St. Elmo’s Fire from the eighties, or Reality Bites and Singles from the nineties. Even today, the HBO TV show, Girls, portrays the everyday lives of a twenty something crowd in New York. Up until recently, many authors have dealt with their share of rejection and claims from the publishing community that there was no market for what has now become the New Adult genre. The recent success of authors like Jamie McGuire, Jessica Park and Tammara Webber have shown the desire of the reading masses for more stories about characters beyond their teenage years, but still young enough to not have their lives figured out yet. It is this journey of discovery that makes the New Adult genre so intriguing.
Regardless of the reasons, New Adult is quickly becoming a very relevant genre that deals with an important period of time in a person’s life. A time that is simultaneously frightening and liberating all at once. This transitional period from naïve teenager to the world of adult responsibility offers endless possibilities for a writer. This is what makes New Adult such an exciting genre for me, and one of the deciding factors that led me to try my hand at it. So, while Young Adult will always hold a special place in my heart, my hope is that jumping into New Adult will help my continued goal of progressing as an author and becoming the best storyteller I can be.
Links:
Twitter– @AuthorTiffany
Facebook– Tiffany King
Pintrest– Tiffany King
Blog– authortiffanyjking.blogspot.
Goodreads– Tiffany King