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Q&A How explicit can violence and sex be in a YA novel?

My sense (as a reader, not someone who's published a YA novel) is that you kind of want to liken it to a PG-13 movie. If it's too graphic for a 13-year-old to be watching in a movie theatre, it's p...

posted 10y ago by Lauren Ipsum‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

Answer
#4: Attribution notice removed by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-13T12:00:20Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/9597
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T03:13:54Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/9597
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by (deleted user) · 2019-12-08T03:13:54Z (over 4 years ago)
My sense (as a reader, not someone who's published a YA novel) is that you kind of want to liken it to a PG-13 movie. If it's too graphic for a 13-year-old to be watching in a movie theatre, it's probably too graphic to be published in the YA category.

However:

1) as John Smithers points out, that doesn't mean your protagonist can't still be a teenager. It just means you may have to change the marketing or publishing niche.

2) you can go into great detail about her _emotions_ and _thoughts_ without going into great deal about the _acts_. The atrocities can happen off-camera, as it were, and that would make the text still suitable for the YA market.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2013-12-01T23:04:56Z (over 10 years ago)
Original score: 12