The only girl hate in anything that I found good was mean girls because it was mostly played for laughs, but it also explored why these ladies were catty. Not just girls bitching at each other for no reason.
Benjamin THANK YOU! i remember reading a book called Evermore and the 'SPECIAL MAIN CHARACTERS' best friend was gay, and that was his only trait. literally no personality at all.
that's so bad yikes. like, gay/black/white/asian/women/men/trans/whatever all have one thing in common they're people and no one should be so bland that they're only _thing_ is what labels they have. I wish authors (not all) would write valid gay or poc instead of building them off of cliches.
It's super important to have diversity but these characters should be more than just "gay" or "black." Because...that is not really a person, it's a stereotype.
100% agree. People shouldn't be known as "the gay person" or "the black person". They are a person that just happens to be gay or black or whatever they are.
I feel like it's just a 'culture' now? instead of basing personality tropes and interests on actual people there's this weird, out of touch story book character mold to inspire every other adult author trying to figure out what's relatable to teens... and holy shit don't get me started on character interactions like h o ww owowow w
I'm a writer and I have to be honert-:I wrote only one short story of the YA genre and it's almost as much for a book but I don't know if it would be a good pitch for a publisher. The protagonist is a 14 year old girl whose gay mom has been spending time with the best friend from her childhood. They are reconnecting and the narrator loves the idea of her life with this lady in her family. But shortly after gay marriage is legal, another woman moves in on her mom and uses a lot of underhanded ways that her brothers and mom's Asperger's make them oblivious to. She has been showing the good side but my protagonist is not fooled. She rinks two can play at this and ...here's where I really appreciate your input... I realize this feeds into the female vs female trope for one thing. But the problem is not the woman thing. It's actually about her realizing that the person who is marrying her mom is doing. .shady things. I want to be permitted to have a slightly flawed main character. Not mentally ill but a girl who is a little over the top. Exaggeration. Dramatic. Only girl in 4 kids. Show how the adult is not always the wiser. The rest of the book I am not sure if I can tell but I think I totally need a little honesty from you cuz I'm not 14 today and yet remember that feeling so much. She has a youtube channel where she explains how it is to be in her family and gives advice on bullying etc. Then shortly after the wedding, she cuts off her hair and announces that she's trans. This is something that stepmother is not a supporter. And the way that they try to make sure that the other people pick sides. I think it is going to be viewed as not vanilla enough for |censors. Sigh.
I read a comment under a dialogue prompt that was like this. "You're my moon!" "Your moon? Why not your sun?" "Well the sun is strong and overwhelming. You are calm and serene. I can be with you forever and be able to savour every second"
they be giving me overdose the longer my eyes drank from their sight. next thing I knew i was dead as Harry Potters parents. ( you always gotta put in random pop culture references like Becky Albertalli loves to do )
Every ya dystopian novel: I am not like other girls1!1!1!1!!! I have powers1!1!1!1! I have to save the world!!!! Also for some reason two super bland white boys like me!!! How will I choose between them????? And save the world????
I agree with all of it :D and especially with annoying books where diversity is exotic, I love books with diverse characters but I hate when diverse characters are treated like something rare
I know right! Especially when they aren't even written well. I feel like they just put diverse 'characters' in just to please people and not even take time to write good stuff
Her lips were a pair of tomatoes stacked one on top of the other, and as I saw her eyes roll delicately from her sockets in a coagulated heap of ocular jelly, I knew she was the one. The part about YA protag descriptions inspired this. I have no idea what I even wrote. It just happened. This video is amazing, LOL! Loved it.
I really hate the female character who's only strong because she's aggressive. yes, there are some good examples (arya stark being one of them-- love her quite a bit) but... kindness and politeness is strong too! and pink is a perfectly fine color! as someone who's more feminine (baking cookies, putting on blush, preferring dresses and skirts, etc. etc. you dun need ta know) this makes me sad. :( we're usually shunned as shallow or weak in ya fiction.
Yeah, if you ask me, writing a strong female character is exactly the same as writing a strong male character - they're complex and HUMAN. They can be more feminine or more masculine, doesn't matter, and I'm not gonna like a female character just for being more masculine if that's her only character trait, because there's no depth.
Fabuleux Cooking/baking is generally seen as a feminine activity (especially when we're talking about putting sweet stuff in the oven and not a big cut of prime rib) because it invokes images of domestic household stuff, something you might see a mother or grandmother doing. Why, yes, that is outdated and ridiculous. Outdated and ridiculous viewpoints from way back then are still alive and well.
First of all, Asoiaf is so not YA. Second, Arya Stark is more than an aggressive female character. Her strength comes from a multitude of traits. She is loyal and strong-willed, both of which can also be counted as her weakness. If you'd actually read up to DoD, you'll know that that aggressiveness was actually a weakness that she will soon learn to overcome. Third, Asoiaf has strong female characters who are so feminine (except they don't bake cookies lol). Lastly , why should baking be a solely feminine thing. so much wrong with that thinking.
People underestimate just how hard it is being kind and patient. I actually admire characters more who have those attributes because they are seriously underplayed.
A good piece of advice my English teacher told me once: Lots of fancy adjectives make your story blocky and boring, but fancy verbs make your story flow and bring it to life. So be like my English teacher. Use better verbs, and lay off the adjectives, and your story will overall be more professional.
Thot Police yes! When I first started writing my current WIP, I tried to make all of my descriptions fancy or whatever but I've realized that descriptions can be simple yet still be great. Using fancy adjectives as well as a plethora of fancy words in general are definitely a sign of new writers. Professional writers write very comfortably while still making the story amazing. You don't need all of those fancy words and whatnot. It's all fluff. My current chapters are much more relaxed while my first ones seem a bit rigid and like I tried too hard.
Rachel E. I remember my English teacher always tried to drill into our hands that too much description will actually put people off; most people who just want to open a book and read comfortably don’t want to fight their way through layers upon layers of adjectives, they want to get pulled in smoothly.
My third grade English teacher made us use lots of adjectives/descriptions and it was really annoying. She wouldn’t even let us say we’re done with our story until we had “revised” it with more adjectives 700 times. All that ever did was make my stories even cringier than they already were.
"Sometimes eyes... are just eyes" 😂👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 thank you!! When I was reading The Wrath and the Dawn EVERY OTHER PAGE she was like "his tiger eyes".... tf are tiger eyes??? Can't he just have brown eyes? Who even cares about his eyes when his personality sucks anyways 🙄
It is really boring sometimes, but I think it also makes sense in a way. The more plain the main character is, the easier it is for the reader to insert themselves into their position. So for many people it makes them more relatable, I guess...
Sprinkled Pages True true! When I imagine a 'plain' character, I just imagine a face with no nose, no eyes, no mouth and just plain. I would probably read that horror book if someone makes one.
I am plain, like, if I wrote a book about myself -which i sometimes consider- I would have to change my character for the book because seriously I dont have any talents I dont have any specific interests I dont have any hobbies I hAVE LITERALLY NOTHING I'M AS INTERESTING AS A LOAF OF TOFU
If someone asks what my hair colour is I don’t tell them that it’s a fiery blood red that looks almost orange in the bright sun. Nah, my hair is red. I really do not understand why writers do that.
Y'know what I want? The mousy boring main character finds that perfect bad guy. She befriends him. He has this amazing awesome girlfriend that's equally as badass and they're both actual human beings. The main and her equally boring friend are like "you two are totally gonna end up together" and the plot sorta says it too, but at the end she goes to kiss him and he's life "what the fuck are you doing?" And she's like "I thought we had something!" "Yeah, a friendship" "I love you!" "It's been.... 3 days....." "So?!" "Girl bYE"
I would like to tell a story from the perspective of the girlfriend who has to watch her boyfriend get taken by some girl who moved there 2 days ago lol. And not depict the girlfriend as a bitch but rather as a victim.
And romantic scenes are a lot of the time described as if the person is being drowned, electrocuted, burned alive, and going through some kind of natural disaster and it needs to stop...😂😂 "I stared into his cerulean blue Gray turquoise mauve orbs the soft wind off the ocean tousled his jet black, onyx obsidian hair and I was lost...His eyes were the ocean and I was a stone, drowning in the deep dark depths of his torn soul. He kissed me, and electricity coursed through veins and flames licked my skin. There was sudden shift in the wind, the earth, the sky. I was burning. Drowning. Sinking. And there was nothing else I would rather do than be lost in the vast ocean of the sky with him." Me : *dry heaving*
bland characters make for great projection screens for young girls. if a character has no personality, someone can project their own traits onto the character and pretend their life is interesting. its actually a genius marketing strategy.
Dildo Faggins Harry was actually a pretty sassy kid at times and he was shown to have interests, desires, fears, insecurities, strength and flaws throughout the series which all sound like the qualities of a pretty solid personality to me, although it is kind of the cliche hero personality. He was definitely a lot blander in the movies, though. I think the idea that Harry has "no personality" so kids could insert themselves in his place is kind of something other people have come to conclude about Harry rather than something J.K. Rowling intentionally wrote, although I do think it's a common technique in a lot of bad YA books.
cookies77814 Because anyone with an email can start writing and fill our brains with CHEESY STORIES, REALLY BAD PUNCTUATION, AND UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS.
Diversity wise, I feel like Rick Riordan is an author who has really made an effort to diversify his charcaters. From his first Percy Jackson series to his most recent The Sword of Summer series, you can really see the way he has grown. I mean, it did seem a little forced when I read the first Sword of Summer book, but then I was like fuck it. A deaf guy, a hijabi girl, and a guy who is not hyper-masculine in one book is something I'll take any day over some unseasoned chicken
No, I've only read the first one so far. While I am a fan of his characters, I find that his style of writing gets a little bland and tiring after you've read a lot of it, so I'm pretty behind on a lot of his newer series
I think the reason he succeeds with the diversity and making it not forced is because he makes sure their differences are the fore front of the story. But his books are getting a bit childish for me, I'm 18 now not the 12 year old reading all of the Percy Jackson series
Something that kinda annoys me when reading, is when it starts going on and on about books IN THE BOOK. Like how the character "loves reading," and it doesn't just make this point, it goes on and on and on about how much she loves books. And then I'm all like I GET IT READING IS AWESOME, THAT'S WHY I'M READING, NOW PLEASE MOVE ON
I hate it when authors mention that the protagonist loves reading, but you never see them actually reading anything, and they never show how it affects their character. It feels like they only write it to make them relatable, as if I can’t relate to characters based on the way they think, their ideals, their struggles...
I am so feeling the point about the glorified abusive relationships. Many of those are written by baby boomer generation authors. Can't wait for millennial generation authors to take over and kill that thing with fire.
exactly it’s for example excessive stalking that they find cute. Or the lover being a sadist and Manipulating the love interest they confuse with keeping them safe. Or even the actually front up abuse they find he’s just stressed. He will get over it. Imagine these people in actual relationships not able to tell the difference between abuse and love. That’s how those books promote violence and bad romance in the society.
Everyone on this thread saying that gen Z books will just be a yandere yaoi trash dump well I think you're confusing books with wattpad fanfiction. The type of people that write this kind of stuff really won't be able to make it to a publishing house. Imagine talking to a literary agent about getting your book published: "So wait wait hold up,,,, so this K-pop star falls in love desperately with this biker gang leader and they have an orgy with their sisters on the top of a building only for one of them to murder the other two because they like mc????? What were you smoking when you wrote this?????? No shit I ain't helping you I have a reputation to maintain" As a gen Z myself though I can say that there are some very potentially great writers hidden amongst us. Me and a few friends were discussing writing a believable protagonist and all of a sudden the guy next to me gets in on the discussion and actually gives some extremely rational points. The good gen Z writers are actually just hidden, living ordinary lives. You won't find the next Victor Hugo on wattpad that's for sure, the same way you won't find the next Walt Disney making sans fanart. It's common sense really
I'm protesting YA by writing a YA book in which three of the main characters have brown eyes. Not chocolate-colored orbsor warm coffee-brown globular sight organs... Just brown.
Exactly. People say eyes are the most expressive, but honestly in my experience they’re really not.. so why all the flowery descriptions? “His crescent shaped eyes bowed over me like a dresser to a pile of clothes on a floor, the great blue depths of them swirling and convulsing and pulsing with blinks, making his eyelids droop and come back up again, hovering over his upper eye. Green sparks flecked his orbs, dancing around vigorously. He blinks once more, the white of his eyes disappearing for a fraction of a second as they are blanketed by soft-skinned eyelids.” (I just wrote that. I just took 2 minutes out of my day to write that. I have regrets.)
I hate dystopian books because I've read so many of them and ALL OF THEM ARE SO REPETITIVE!!!! Clueless, stupid girl 💁🏼 is interested ❤️ in her guy friend 🙇, but then meets guy #2 💃. Cue love triangle❤️🔼! Stuff happens⚡️, girl can't decide who she loves 🙍🏼, more stuff happens 🌩, finally girl 💁🏼ends up with guy #2💃. 💁🏼💘💃 Every time. Every single time. EVERY SINGLE FRICKEN TIME.
Especially since historically dystopia has been a way of talking about social issues...which is present in some modern ya dystopians but not all of them.
You are really, really helping me with writing my book. While I'm writing, I feel like i make these mistakes, unintentionally, because I'm so used to YA novels being like this. Then I remember, "You don't WANT to be just another YA author with the same damn story all over again, you want to be a J.D Salinger. When people read your book they relate to these characters, not just emotionally, but also physically. You want them to know that there are people out there who DO the stuff your characters do." So I go back and rewrite, making sure it sounds how us teenagers sound. Not sophisticated wording a la John Green, or stoic like Cassandra Clare, just how REAL people sound. Sorry for the rant, I'm just so glad I found this channel. You are a big help.
Ironically, even if young adult books are full of female characters who are "strong", "not like other girls" because they don't like dresses and makeup, books that have actual butch girls as main characters are extremely rare. As a masculine girl, I'm always looking for books with a butch girl protagonist, but all I find are super plain, super insecure special snowflakes who think they're better than other girls.
You should try «girl mans up» by M.E Girard. It's about a butch girl coming of age, and if day it has a happy ending which is a huge bonus for books with queer protagonists.
I can't get over your comparison of main characters to the physical embodiment of unseasoned chicken. I watched it like 4 times, and cracked up every time! Thank you for that laugh! I agree with everything that you mentioned. How the heck does someone's eyelashes rest on their cheeks? And I am beyond tired of hearing 'mousy brown' and 'the color of straw' to describe someone's hair. Like, all I can think of with the straw thing is them literally having a pile of dry, ashy straw on their heads... :-(
Tank in the Percy Jackson Heroes of Olympus series Nico is gay (but he first shows up in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians). And though Nico is shown in a villainous light at one point, he is a pretty complex character with motivation for the things he does and overall I love that guy.
THE DIVERSITY SITUATION YES. BLESS. PREACH. You literally dont need to point it out every chapter and shove it up our asses like please. We're just humans like any other human in the book no big deal.
The 'diversity' part made me want to subscribe to you 100 more time... I am sicken tired of people making any diverse characters a walking exotic token animal...😩😩😩 Thank you so much and continue to do what you do...😁😁😁
this is my first time watching any of your videos and as soon as the words "characters bland as unseasoned chicken" came out of your mouth i immediately knew i clicked on gold
Omfg, orbs, ORBS!!! If you describe your characters eyes as being orbs I will first piss myself laughing cause no 16 year old thinks to themself, "oh, they have such beautiful sky blue/moss green/insert other lame metaphor orbs." And then stop reading. Because, no, just, no. This isn't a English class exercise to find the weirdest stupidest sounding synonym of a perfectly good word ever so please stop
Sebastian Hammond lmao or if they’re describing gore they use blood once and try to find another synonym. You read shit like “the crimson metallic liquid filled her mouth” like just say BLOOD!
Sebastian Hammond yes, everyone does it to seem like they’re smarter/ that their stories better than they are. Like just use the simple word. The story will speak for its self if it’s good.
I love what you said about the diversity thing. So many people need to know that. I went to a writing conference where a speaker talked about including diversity in your novels, and she said the complete opposite of what you did. She said that if you wrote about someone who was black, or Asian, or hispanic, or whatever, that the book needed to be about that. You couldn't just have them in there just "to be" or that was racist or something. She was like if you're going to write about a black kid, then the story needs to include the struggles of racism and if you write a book about an Asian kid then the story has to revolve around Asian culture. What even the heck. I can understand not disregarding the realities of being not-white in like America, but if you want your main character to be Mexican, the story does not need to be A Day in the Life of a Mexican Teenager. They can be Mexican, but have super cool powers and kick butt like every other teenager in the YA genre. They're not just the "mexican character" they have a life and personality all their own, and to try to distinguish their particular ethnicity/race/gender/orientation is even more discriminating than just letting them exist on the planet like they do and everyone does!
I despise novels that are written in present tense. Even more so when it's not written from the character's perspective. Is it because the authors think their work becomes more authentic/dramatic/engaging when they use present tense? Personally, I find it awkward. Really awkward. Especially when I come across sentences like "Will digresses" or "Emma caresses his hair", because it just sounds so stilted and unnatural in my head. #pasttenseftw
i'm not sure if heroes of olympics is ya but LOL rick riordan did a really good job of switching povs. also sarah j maas is AWFUL at writing female characters honestly she tries so hard to make celaena and feyre so different... one hates dresses the other one loves them... one loves to read one is illiterate. yet both have blue eyes light hair? try harder please.
I get so pissy when I read about LGBT characters whose only character traits are stereotypes about their sexualities. Also... bisexuals? Have literally zero representation??
@@amanix10 Six of Crows only says Jesper is Bi, but he never acts it. He's gay in every single way other than random shit that was said just to make him seem bi. He literally never shows attraction to a female.
@@925263 because that isn't important to the plotline. Other books RUB IT IN OUR FACES that they are different and attracted to boys and girls, but Six of Crows subtly has diversity that doesn't seem fake. It's not like people that are bi go around being attracted to every girl and every boy + being bi means you have a preference which for Jes is probably guys.
Thank you. I want to make a book teenagers will enjoy but introduce new uncommon and radical philosophies so these tropes help me decide what is good and bad. I’ll keep watching your videos!
One YA series I actually think did well on the diversity aspect is the Legend series by Marie Lu. It has its cliches and its failings, but the way the characters are of many different races, genders, and sexual orientations, but none of that is made a big deal out of? I don't know, I loved that about the Legend universe when I read it. (Also, the politics in those books are presented in a way that was interesting and felt real to a fifteen-year-old me? Like, I guess that political science degree you earned actually is worth something, Marie Lu. Good job.)
Simon Vs The Homo Sapiens Agenda is the only YA novel I've read where ALL the characters are really great? Despite the LGBT and racially diverse cast, none of the characters as JUST gay or JUST black. I am praying the movie doesn't turn it into that
Imagine a conversation in which people talked like YA book descriptions "Ok *insert name*, Truth or dare?" "Truth" "Who do you have a crush on?" "Oh there's this boy I don't know the name of, he's so pretty 😍😍" "Ooooh spill the tea sis" "Well he's got ash brown hair like my kitchen cabinets in the moonlight, and his eyes are dark, golden ebony like my broken doorknob that I haven't replaced yet. And his smile is like that feeling when you ask alexa what the temperature is and she says "-29 degrees what the fuck put me back in the box and send me back to florida you're fucking insane". Oh and he's so kind! He once kicked a crippled child on the pavement, then gave him food and posted it on instagram!" "Girl have you been doing crack without telling me?"
The romanticism of abusive relationships and the excessive amount of twists plots👌 that's something I'm tired to read. I'm a author wannabe (lol) and I include a lot of diversity in my stories, but people keep asking why I don't mention that certain character is trans, or gay or asexual, and I give the same repose every time _because it doesn't affect the storyline_
Happens the same with nationalities. I'm Chilean, Spanish native speaker and I do write mos of my stories in that language, but I have a lot of character that are not Spanish speaker and I use their respective languages when they're talking. People need to know that not every diverse character speaks the same damn language that you, and that humans don't learn a new languaje in a few days. (I do include the correspondent translations though)
+ItsDeyajustDeya some authors are so like "LOOK! IM INCLUSIVE! THIS CHARACTER IS NON WHITE! AND GAY!ITS NOT RELEVANT TO ANY ASPECT OF THE PLOT OR EVEN THE CHARACTER ARC AT ALL BUT HE IS GAY! DID I MENTION HE IS GAY?"
itsdivya lmao "Forget the epic fantasy we where living in, let me give you a few chapters where I make my gay character have sex with another gay character just bacause I really want you to KNOW they're gay. Thanks, now let's continue with the killing dragons stuff" hehehehe
I think its still a good idea to mention that a character is LGBT since its not really representation if the reader doesn't know if theyre LGBT if they just read the book with no outside context whatsoever... But youre right with making a diverse character and having that one attribute to be mentioned so much
"Sometimes eyes are just eyes" T H A N K Y O U Every fucking book I read contains AT LEAST one paragraph describing eyes. And 90% of the time it's about blue eyes. We get it, blue eyes are pretty, can you PLEASE continue writing your damn book or at least focus on other eye colors? Has anyone heard of green eyes? Hazel? Amber? ANYTHING? I want to jump off a cliff whenever I read something like this: "Her beautiful, icy blue eyes sparkled with sparkles and glittery glitter in the shiny sunlight that shone shinily and made her beautiful, icy blue eyes shine like the shiniest blue sapphire to ever shine on this planet" And then when it comes to brown eyes it's just: "She had chocolate brown eyes" or green: "EMERALD GREEN THAT LOOKED LIKE EMERALDS" *also, can people please stop comparing eye colors to fucking gemstones, this ain't Steven Universe*
If you’re looking for YA books that avoid these tropes tho, Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo. It does have one (1) bad boy character but trust me, he’s got some serious depth by the end. And there’s POC and gay characters that aren’t just that. And there’s magic.
Thank you SO much for including the "diversity" point. I wrote a book a while back without being concious of the character's races/sexualities; I just wrote them how I felt they should be. I've got diverse characters, sure, but they're only the way they are because I imagined them that way. Now of course, all the agents are asking for a LGBT+ "woman of colour" with like eighteen different nationalities, and it's hard for me to find someone interested in my work when my main character just so happens to be a guy, who just so happens to be white, who just so happens to not have a love interest at all. I'm not a minority (if you don't count being female) so I can't relate in the same way you can, but I feel like the way these agents are begging for diversity is quite degrading to the very groups they're asking for in stories. They see diversity as a way to make money and appeal to readers, which I feel exploits minority groups. If diverse characters are only there to appeal to agents and readers, rather than just being there because that's the way the author felt they needed to be, that's even worse than unintentionally not having any diversity at all.
I feel like these are just Western YA novels. Years ago, when I was I read this one book in Lebanon about a girl and her 12 family (well 8 now) members trying to escape genocide around the Arabian gulf area (book didn't specify) and after this one really bad massacre in her village it becomes about the girl trying to deal with very serious trauma while also trying to keep her family together until they reach a safe haven in Levant. It really explores the dark edges of the world and how that one night made her scared of everything and one this one scene in the book she spilled pomegranate juice on the sand and she thought it was blood. There was this other scene where she got her period for the first time and she had a flashback from when she was raped by soldiers during the massacre. There are also side plots of her trying to play with her younger siblings but a lot of them start to imitate people killing each other by using dolls, its a really sad story. Its a genius story tho and really goes deep into the world around them and how these types of things put a very bleak view in our world. I'm so sad I forgot about it and I don't think it was ever translated but it was the very few YA novels I enjoyed
I agree with you on so much; it makes finding a great character cast SO SATISFYING. They just feel so ALIVE. I’m (legally at least) an adult now, and I’m still fangirling over Thirrin from the Icemark Chronicles, she’s so human, bright and young while still being strong! Haha, tfw when you use fictional charas as role models (also! TEMERAIRE AND 1Q84 ARE AMAZING
Am I the only one who HATES YA novels? I feel like 90% of them are a copy-of-a-copy. I just really don't like them. Historical ficiton/literature it is for me.
I do like specific YAs not for being YA but cause their plots are good for me or the author's style is nice to read when I just want to chill, but damn is awful seing all those trashy novels being idolized.
You should check out The Purification Era by Angie Grigaliunas. (First two books are out, with more to come.) It's about two sisters on opposite sides of a brewing rebellion. While it's dystopian in theme/world, it's also a slow-burn spy thriller in a medieval setting with touches of fantasy. I've had the hardest time figuring out how to market it because it doesn't really fit into any one genre. It's not a copy of anything. Complex, gray characters, sisters who deeply love each other, grittiness without gratuity, and no triangles or insta-love. =)
I feel like The Winner's Trilogy kind of breaks out of the mold. The main character's 'weapon' is her cleverness, she's not good at fighting and, if I remember correctly, she does consider herself pretty (though she's not "like other girls" ...you can't escape tropes in YA). Still recommend it.
My question is : How did these types of novels get published? I get what you mean, especially with the diversity. Come on YA writers, ( not all but some ) just because a character's sexuality is different, it doesn't mean they should be bland! Without any personality, and just their sexuality being a trait.
I completely agree with this. Novels can have such a huge influence on so many people, so shouldn't our characters and stories teach us how to be strong and self-loving. A lot of novels today seem to argue that having a mental illness or not fitting into society is the only way for us to have value as individuals. I do love novels though.
I agree so much on the diversity part. It's like- the authors don't really care when they include these 'diverse' characters. It's only to earn them the new woke patch on their vest and special approval and points from the great rating site of Tumblr. It's almost offensive in a way because they don't really see them or at least portray them as regular people leading regular lives? Kinda like they're these otherworldly species who's entire life revolves around being this other species. That's a bit of a stretch but it's what it's on the way to. At least give them the same depth of character as the others do, jeez.
I love how middle grade tropes are opposite of young adult: -We get stuck in just one POV when others would be nice -Replace all the bad boys and clutzy girls with dorks and smart alecs -Diversity = everybody is a different species
"Women can be strong!" (The only strong female character is the different, special snowflake) "Women don't need men! Merida or whatever gurl is the best because she didn't had a love interest!" (There is nothing wrong with falling in love.) "But he is a misunderstood poor unfortunate soul, he is not a generic badboy!!1!" (That's why it's okay to being a verbally and phisically abusive, rude, violent jerk.) "The world is cruel!! There is nothing to love or worth protecting in this world!!" (But it's also beautiful if you try to be a little bir optimistic. Trust me, it makes life easier and your book more interesting.) "I write a cyberpunk story and it's about how technology sucks!" (Do you know everything you have in your hands is a product of technology? Do you know as humanity we can't do a thing without technology? This is a cyberpunk story, you can write about what makes us human, are robots human, how technology effects us but you choose this tired and stupid theme? Congratulations! You didn't even tried to think or research, didn't you? You didn't even looked at the other cyberpunk stuff, right? Good idea. Keep on!)
"I don't understand why these authors write these characters that want to be the physical embodiment of unseasoned chicken" Ahem Alina Starkov in Shadow and Bone Ahem MARE BARROWS DIE MARE BARROWS
ok but I once read this young adult book and literally the amount of times that the fact that one of the main characters were asian was brought up made me literally throw it across the room
Oooh the rich ripped bad guy falling in love with the mousy gray main character! That trope doesn't stop at YA books. It's like EVERY SECOND ROMANCE ever, even in novels aimed at adults. Just look at 50 shades of grey, that's EXACTLY that! It's so annoying!
So to summarize the first part, don't forcefully create a relationship for the main char or it will end up being bland or cliche, unless that was what the author was going for.
I'm months late for this but I just found your channel. I agree on everything but specially on the diverse part (it reminds me of something Cosima of Orphan Black said: My sexuality is not the most interesting thing about me)/it's like diverse characters can't be real people and have hobbies and dreams or just want to do nothing and be real, no they are all just black, just Asian, just gay like there's nothing else on their life and their personality apart of that, that's not real. It's important yes, but we're *not* just one thing, even if that one thing is a huge part of our lives and affects us, we still have more things going on. So that. I loved your channel, so happy RUclips recommend one of your videos to me. Bye!
I feel this on a spiritual level... But that will never stop me from loving (almost) everything Throne of Glass series from its messages about faith/hope in times of depression and to its flaws 😊💕I really enjoy these videos. It’s nice to know that I’m not alone when it comes to YA novels. If you have any book recommendations I’d greatly appreciate it. It’s hard to find a book that doesn’t follow the same pattern
I feel offended. I'm nerdy. I like it. Don't judge me. On another note, this is inspiring me to write something in an attempt to kill these tropes so thanks.
Omg totally agree with everything you said. One of my favorite games is to predict the plots of ya novels after reading the description. The only thing is that I love Sarah j mass books and honestly think even though they have a lot of the tropes she does a much better job of giving her characters personality and actually trying make something different. Also if you keep reading past heir of fire you might end up really liking manon’s story.
The main character of my book is biracial, and a lesbian. Is my book about these things? No. It's about her trying to stop her best friend from going insane.
Read "The Rest Of Us just Live Here" "Release" and "More Than This" by Patrick Ness if you want gay characters that actually have personalities and are well written.
I agree with all of these! Whilst being a marginalized person does have effects on the way people interact with the world i find it so frustrating when it's their only trait in media. I'm tired of seeing people like me treated as if we're exotic. Great video (unlike these tropes) Divya!
I hate the romanticization of mental illnesses and girl-hate. The whole quirky aspect in general.
preach it
In the words of Hamilton's My Shot:
"I SAID SHOUT IT TO THE ROOFTOPS!"
LIKE HONEY PREACH👏THAT👏SHIT👏HA👏LE👏LU👏JAH
oh you're not like the other girls i see
I agree!
The only girl hate in anything that I found good was mean girls because it was mostly played for laughs, but it also explored why these ladies were catty.
Not just girls bitching at each other for no reason.
characters personality should never ever be there sexuality, race, gender whatever
Benjamin THANK YOU! i remember reading a book called Evermore and the 'SPECIAL MAIN CHARACTERS' best friend was gay, and that was his only trait. literally no personality at all.
that's so bad yikes. like, gay/black/white/asian/women/men/trans/whatever all have one thing in common they're people and no one should be so bland that they're only _thing_ is what labels they have. I wish authors (not all) would write valid gay or poc instead of building them off of cliches.
It's super important to have diversity but these characters should be more than just "gay" or "black." Because...that is not really a person, it's a stereotype.
100% agree. People shouldn't be known as "the gay person" or "the black person". They are a person that just happens to be gay or black or whatever they are.
I read that wrong and I thought u meant they should never have a personality
"The physical embodiment of unseasoned chicken"
gOODByE IM DEADDDD💀💀💀💀
😂😂💀💀
@@itsdivyag wouldn't the physical embodiment of an unseasoned chicken be...an actual unseasoned chicken?
"Bruised her and now he's saying sorry."
Sign of an abusive relationship.
*Emotions?* What in the heck are those ? I am different and I am in NO way like everybody else. - Sincerely Almost Every YA Character Ever.
in a story i'm coming up with, i'm actually trying to make my characters you know HAVE EMOTIONS AND FEEL THINGS LIKE NORMAL PEOPLE WOULD
I feel like it's just a 'culture' now? instead of basing personality tropes and interests on actual people there's this weird, out of touch story book character mold to inspire every other adult author trying to figure out what's relatable to teens... and holy shit don't get me started on character interactions like h o ww owowow w
I'm a writer and I have to be honert-:I wrote only one short story of the YA genre and it's almost as much for a book but I don't know if it would be a good pitch for a publisher. The protagonist is a 14 year old girl whose gay mom has been spending time with the best friend from her childhood. They are reconnecting and the narrator loves the idea of her life with this lady in her family. But shortly after gay marriage is legal, another woman moves in on her mom and uses a lot of underhanded ways that her brothers and mom's Asperger's make them oblivious to. She has been showing the good side but my protagonist is not fooled. She rinks two can play at this and ...here's where I really appreciate your input... I realize this feeds into the female vs female trope for one thing. But the problem is not the woman thing. It's actually about her realizing that the person who is marrying her mom is doing. .shady things. I want to be permitted to have a slightly flawed main character. Not mentally ill but a girl who is a little over the top. Exaggeration. Dramatic. Only girl in 4 kids. Show how the adult is not always the wiser. The rest of the book I am not sure if I can tell but I think I totally need a little honesty from you cuz I'm not 14 today and yet remember that feeling so much. She has a youtube channel where she explains how it is to be in her family and gives advice on bullying etc. Then shortly after the wedding, she cuts off her hair and announces that she's trans. This is something that stepmother is not a supporter. And the way that they try to make sure that the other people pick sides. I think it is going to be viewed as not vanilla enough for |censors. Sigh.
"He looked at her like she was the sun" so like squinting? Tearing up? Angerly??
Scared Antelope Or going blind?
His skin and retinas burning as he cowered away to the safety of the indoors, air conditioning and aloe for that sunburn?
yes, because we're all so mad at the sun
I read a comment under a dialogue prompt that was like this.
"You're my moon!"
"Your moon? Why not your sun?"
"Well the sun is strong and overwhelming. You are calm and serene. I can be with you forever and be able to savour every second"
damn sis make him blind
"printed version of a Wattpad story" that's happened to me on several occasions 😂
Ramgababe lets be honest that’s all YA is and I would say Wattpad made YA😂😂
Go and watch the „after“ trailer now 😉
İn my country there are printed wattpad stories indeed
I write on wattpad and I agree with you the only popular stories are these stupid YA books. Especially stuff like After.
"paracetamol coloured eyes" i am cRYING
I FUCKIN KNOW RIGHT
divya is a diva /lame jk is lame
they be giving me overdose the longer my eyes drank from their sight. next thing I knew i was dead as Harry Potters parents. ( you always gotta put in random pop culture references like Becky Albertalli loves to do )
so he/she have early onset of cataract because of diabetes?
Every ya dystopian novel:
I am not like other girls1!1!1!1!!!
I have powers1!1!1!1!
I have to save the world!!!!
Also for some reason two super bland white boys like me!!!
How will I choose between them?????
And save the world????
Not mine! =)
Mortal fucking instruments
Omg Witch and Wizard
Red Queen literally
A Court of Thrones and Roses is that you??
I agree with all of it :D and especially with annoying books where diversity is exotic, I love books with diverse characters but I hate when diverse characters are treated like something rare
literally like nah pretty sure there's more chinese people in the world by numbers but anyway
P.S. I love that book! Or when they idealize them
I think it's ok when the author does it on purpose to make a social commentary on how wrong it is to sexualise people of colour like six of crows does
Just came from a Charisk video❤
I know right! Especially when they aren't even written well. I feel like they just put diverse 'characters' in just to please people and not even take time to write good stuff
Her lips were a pair of tomatoes stacked one on top of the other, and as I saw her eyes roll delicately from her sockets in a coagulated heap of ocular jelly, I knew she was the one.
The part about YA protag descriptions inspired this. I have no idea what I even wrote. It just happened. This video is amazing, LOL! Loved it.
HER LIPS WERE A PAIR OF TOMATOES
All I can imagine is like just two tomatoes and huge, bulging probably blue eyes
IM FUXKING WHEEZING TOMATOES
Write a book
I laughed so hard as this
I really hate the female character who's only strong because she's aggressive. yes, there are some good examples (arya stark being one of them-- love her quite a bit) but... kindness and politeness is strong too! and pink is a perfectly fine color! as someone who's more feminine (baking cookies, putting on blush, preferring dresses and skirts, etc. etc. you dun need ta know) this makes me sad. :( we're usually shunned as shallow or weak in ya fiction.
αɴɢelιɴe ok but what does baking cookies have to with femininity
Yeah, if you ask me, writing a strong female character is exactly the same as writing a strong male character - they're complex and HUMAN. They can be more feminine or more masculine, doesn't matter, and I'm not gonna like a female character just for being more masculine if that's her only character trait, because there's no depth.
Fabuleux Cooking/baking is generally seen as a feminine activity (especially when we're talking about putting sweet stuff in the oven and not a big cut of prime rib) because it invokes images of domestic household stuff, something you might see a mother or grandmother doing. Why, yes, that is outdated and ridiculous. Outdated and ridiculous viewpoints from way back then are still alive and well.
First of all, Asoiaf is so not YA. Second, Arya Stark is more than an aggressive female character. Her strength comes from a multitude of traits. She is loyal and strong-willed, both of which can also be counted as her weakness. If you'd actually read up to DoD, you'll know that that aggressiveness was actually a weakness that she will soon learn to overcome.
Third, Asoiaf has strong female characters who are so feminine (except they don't bake cookies lol). Lastly , why should baking be a solely feminine thing. so much wrong with that thinking.
People underestimate just how hard it is being kind and patient. I actually admire characters more who have those attributes because they are seriously underplayed.
A good piece of advice my English teacher told me once: Lots of fancy adjectives make your story blocky and boring, but fancy verbs make your story flow and bring it to life. So be like my English teacher. Use better verbs, and lay off the adjectives, and your story will overall be more professional.
Thot Police yes! When I first started writing my current WIP, I tried to make all of my descriptions fancy or whatever but I've realized that descriptions can be simple yet still be great. Using fancy adjectives as well as a plethora of fancy words in general are definitely a sign of new writers. Professional writers write very comfortably while still making the story amazing. You don't need all of those fancy words and whatnot. It's all fluff. My current chapters are much more relaxed while my first ones seem a bit rigid and like I tried too hard.
Rachel E. I remember my English teacher always tried to drill into our hands that too much description will actually put people off; most people who just want to open a book and read comfortably don’t want to fight their way through layers upon layers of adjectives, they want to get pulled in smoothly.
Exactly! Fancy verbs help so much with the flow of writing. I finished writing an essay of 300 words in 15 minutes because of that
My third grade English teacher made us use lots of adjectives/descriptions and it was really annoying. She wouldn’t even let us say we’re done with our story until we had “revised” it with more adjectives 700 times. All that ever did was make my stories even cringier than they already were.
"Sometimes eyes... are just eyes" 😂👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 thank you!! When I was reading The Wrath and the Dawn EVERY OTHER PAGE she was like "his tiger eyes".... tf are tiger eyes??? Can't he just have brown eyes? Who even cares about his eyes when his personality sucks anyways 🙄
SHADE THEM
im choking at 10 am omg
Ugh. So many problems with that book just so many.
OMG THIS IS SO RANDOM BUT SHAKESPEARE AND SUCH YOU LEGIT LOOK LIKE MY MOM IN THIS PICTURE. sorry for that random comment. but omg same.
ahahahaha thank you? I have no idea how to respond to that lmao but that's hilarious
My sister was reading a book and it actually said “Let’s begin at the beginning”. Book writing 101.
I love it
start of Do Re Me
YES I HATE THE PLAIN MAIN CHARACTER TROPE LIKE GOSH NO ONE IS PLAIN! lovely video and this totally made me laugh! xx
ty
They’re too lazy to give them a personality 🤷🏼♀️
It is really boring sometimes, but I think it also makes sense in a way. The more plain the main character is, the easier it is for the reader to insert themselves into their position. So for many people it makes them more relatable, I guess...
Sprinkled Pages True true! When I imagine a 'plain' character, I just imagine a face with no nose, no eyes, no mouth and just plain. I would probably read that horror book if someone makes one.
I am plain, like, if I wrote a book about myself -which i sometimes consider- I would have to change my character for the book because seriously
I dont have any talents
I dont have any specific interests
I dont have any hobbies
I hAVE LITERALLY NOTHING I'M AS INTERESTING AS A LOAF OF TOFU
If someone asks what my hair colour is I don’t tell them that it’s a fiery blood red that looks almost orange in the bright sun. Nah, my hair is red. I really do not understand why writers do that.
I get that they are trying to describe the character but they really over it and most of the time it is not even needed
If that's you in the pfp, your hair color is really lovely.
Y'know what I want? The mousy boring main character finds that perfect bad guy. She befriends him. He has this amazing awesome girlfriend that's equally as badass and they're both actual human beings. The main and her equally boring friend are like "you two are totally gonna end up together" and the plot sorta says it too, but at the end she goes to kiss him and he's life "what the fuck are you doing?" And she's like "I thought we had something!"
"Yeah, a friendship"
"I love you!"
"It's been.... 3 days....."
"So?!"
"Girl bYE"
I would like to tell a story from the perspective of the girlfriend who has to watch her boyfriend get taken by some girl who moved there 2 days ago lol. And not depict the girlfriend as a bitch but rather as a victim.
The bad boy of YA stereotypes.... The Rational Boy. *DUN DUN DUN*
*_S O WH Y DO GO OOD GIR LS LIK E BAA AAD GUYYYS SSSSSS_*
Someone needs to make this happen!!!
So true, one person makes a semi original story then every single writer and their mother copies it so much
it's hard to be original tbh but still some authors could at least try
Can relate
And romantic scenes are a lot of the time described as if the person is being drowned, electrocuted, burned alive, and going through some kind of natural disaster and it needs to stop...😂😂
"I stared into his cerulean blue Gray turquoise mauve orbs the soft wind off the ocean tousled his jet black, onyx obsidian hair and I was lost...His eyes were the ocean and I was a stone, drowning in the deep dark depths of his torn soul. He kissed me, and electricity coursed through veins and flames licked my skin. There was sudden shift in the wind, the earth, the sky. I was burning. Drowning. Sinking. And there was nothing else I would rather do than be lost in the vast ocean of the sky with him."
Me : *dry heaving*
😂😂😂😂 If that ain’t true 😂
This is perfect!😂
this was ripped straight from that harry styles fanfic that’s getting made into a movie, wasn’t it
@@megankarow2328 after right? I hate that book
"The psychical embodiment of unseasoned chicken"
WHEEZE
gotta spice it up
+itsdivya spicing here means emotions. #saynotoemotions
Gordon Ramsey disapproves
bland characters make for great projection screens for young girls. if a character has no personality, someone can project their own traits onto the character and pretend their life is interesting. its actually a genius marketing strategy.
interesting concept
Anusha Tandon apparently that's why Harry from Harry Potter is so bland.
Alex andreil is my lifeblood
Dildo Faggins Harry was actually a pretty sassy kid at times and he was shown to have interests, desires, fears, insecurities, strength and flaws throughout the series which all sound like the qualities of a pretty solid personality to me, although it is kind of the cliche hero personality. He was definitely a lot blander in the movies, though.
I think the idea that Harry has "no personality" so kids could insert themselves in his place is kind of something other people have come to conclude about Harry rather than something J.K. Rowling intentionally wrote, although I do think it's a common technique in a lot of bad YA books.
great marketing awful writing
And yeah most of these can apply to YA, BUT WHY DO ALL OF THEM LIKE 100% APPLY TO WATTPAD BOOKS
cookies77814 IM JUST A BORING UGLY USELESS SECRETARY BUT IM GETTING MARRIED TO A SUPER HOT BAD BOY QUADRILLONAIRE?????????
cookies77814 Because anyone with an email can start writing and fill our brains with CHEESY STORIES, REALLY BAD PUNCTUATION, AND UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS.
cookies77814 cause they're not books lmao that's why they're on wattpad
bc wattpad is diet ya
My friend is watching all these YA trope videos to know what NOT to include in her YA novel 😂😂😂
lmaooo aww tell her all the best!
itsdivya I try to do the same lol
cookies77814 same here I always look at these and see what the problems are haha with just story writing and what seems to turn off the readers
Me too haha
I AM TOO! lol
Diversity wise, I feel like Rick Riordan is an author who has really made an effort to diversify his charcaters. From his first Percy Jackson series to his most recent The Sword of Summer series, you can really see the way he has grown. I mean, it did seem a little forced when I read the first Sword of Summer book, but then I was like fuck it. A deaf guy, a hijabi girl, and a guy who is not hyper-masculine in one book is something I'll take any day over some unseasoned chicken
+N M I've heard a lot about his inclusivity :)
Have you read book three yet? It's the first YA book, or maybe even _any_ book, I've ever read with a genderfluid love interest.
No, I've only read the first one so far. While I am a fan of his characters, I find that his style of writing gets a little bland and tiring after you've read a lot of it, so I'm pretty behind on a lot of his newer series
@@nm541 yeah I feel that too sometimes. I just kinda console myself by saying, it's supposed to be for kids so ......
I think the reason he succeeds with the diversity and making it not forced is because he makes sure their differences are the fore front of the story. But his books are getting a bit childish for me, I'm 18 now not the 12 year old reading all of the Percy Jackson series
Something that kinda annoys me when reading, is when it starts going on and on about books IN THE BOOK. Like how the character "loves reading," and it doesn't just make this point, it goes on and on and on about how much she loves books. And then I'm all like I GET IT READING IS AWESOME, THAT'S WHY I'M READING, NOW PLEASE MOVE ON
And anyone who the main character doesn't like will avoid books like the plague. YA authors do know that not all bookworms are friends right..?
I hate it when authors mention that the protagonist loves reading, but you never see them actually reading anything, and they never show how it affects their character. It feels like they only write it to make them relatable, as if I can’t relate to characters based on the way they think, their ideals, their struggles...
I am so feeling the point about the glorified abusive relationships. Many of those are written by baby boomer generation authors. Can't wait for millennial generation authors to take over and kill that thing with fire.
+0noregrets0 here for the woke books
👍
idek what Gen Z are going to come up with but I'm here for it
exactly it’s for example excessive stalking that they find cute. Or the lover being a sadist and Manipulating the love interest they confuse with keeping them safe. Or even the actually front up abuse they find he’s just stressed. He will get over it. Imagine these people in actual relationships not able to tell the difference between abuse and love. That’s how those books promote violence and bad romance in the society.
Everyone on this thread saying that gen Z books will just be a yandere yaoi trash dump well I think you're confusing books with wattpad fanfiction. The type of people that write this kind of stuff really won't be able to make it to a publishing house. Imagine talking to a literary agent about getting your book published:
"So wait wait hold up,,,, so this K-pop star falls in love desperately with this biker gang leader and they have an orgy with their sisters on the top of a building only for one of them to murder the other two because they like mc????? What were you smoking when you wrote this?????? No shit I ain't helping you I have a reputation to maintain"
As a gen Z myself though I can say that there are some very potentially great writers hidden amongst us. Me and a few friends were discussing writing a believable protagonist and all of a sudden the guy next to me gets in on the discussion and actually gives some extremely rational points. The good gen Z writers are actually just hidden, living ordinary lives. You won't find the next Victor Hugo on wattpad that's for sure, the same way you won't find the next Walt Disney making sans fanart. It's common sense really
The eye part is so true haha. So many authors unnecessarily go into such great detail about the color of a character's eyes.
like why will their eye colour make any difference to my life or the story smh
I'm protesting YA by writing a YA book in which three of the main characters have brown eyes. Not chocolate-colored orbsor warm coffee-brown globular sight organs...
Just brown.
I'd upvote this but... 69 likes not ruining it
Exactly. People say eyes are the most expressive, but honestly in my experience they’re really not.. so why all the flowery descriptions? “His crescent shaped eyes bowed over me like a dresser to a pile of clothes on a floor, the great blue depths of them swirling and convulsing and pulsing with blinks, making his eyelids droop and come back up again, hovering over his upper eye. Green sparks flecked his orbs, dancing around vigorously. He blinks once more, the white of his eyes disappearing for a fraction of a second as they are blanketed by soft-skinned eyelids.” (I just wrote that. I just took 2 minutes out of my day to write that. I have regrets.)
I hate dystopian books because I've read so many of them and ALL OF THEM ARE SO REPETITIVE!!!! Clueless, stupid girl 💁🏼 is interested ❤️ in her guy friend 🙇, but then meets guy #2 💃. Cue love triangle❤️🔼! Stuff happens⚡️, girl can't decide who she loves 🙍🏼, more stuff happens 🌩, finally girl 💁🏼ends up with guy #2💃. 💁🏼💘💃
Every time. Every single time. EVERY SINGLE FRICKEN TIME.
Especially since historically dystopia has been a way of talking about social issues...which is present in some modern ya dystopians but not all of them.
yep!
Let me guess... She's a vampire too...
The Selection
The Hunger Games
Whenever I see Young Adult written as "ya," a small part of my brain quietly says "yyaaaaa"
Me too
Punishing someone doesn’t mean you’re a strong female character, it just means that you’re violent..this is indeed a quote I will use
You are really, really helping me with writing my book. While I'm writing, I feel like i make these mistakes, unintentionally, because I'm so used to YA novels being like this. Then I remember, "You don't WANT to be just another YA author with the same damn story all over again, you want to be a J.D Salinger. When people read your book they relate to these characters, not just emotionally, but also physically. You want them to know that there are people out there who DO the stuff your characters do." So I go back and rewrite, making sure it sounds how us teenagers sound. Not sophisticated wording a la John Green, or stoic like Cassandra Clare, just how REAL people sound. Sorry for the rant, I'm just so glad I found this channel. You are a big help.
You're so bitter and sarcastic. I love you! ❤
Ironically, even if young adult books are full of female characters who are "strong", "not like other girls" because they don't like dresses and makeup, books that have actual butch girls as main characters are extremely rare. As a masculine girl, I'm always looking for books with a butch girl protagonist, but all I find are super plain, super insecure special snowflakes who think they're better than other girls.
You should try «girl mans up» by M.E Girard. It's about a butch girl coming of age, and if day it has a happy ending which is a huge bonus for books with queer protagonists.
I know this is hella late but maybe read The Hunger Games?
YES! Me too. Liking "manly" things doesn't mean I hate all women in the universe and it would be cool to see tomboy girl who is actually nice
I can't get over your comparison of main characters to the physical embodiment of unseasoned chicken. I watched it like 4 times, and cracked up every time! Thank you for that laugh!
I agree with everything that you mentioned. How the heck does someone's eyelashes rest on their cheeks? And I am beyond tired of hearing 'mousy brown' and 'the color of straw' to describe someone's hair. Like, all I can think of with the straw thing is them literally having a pile of dry, ashy straw on their heads... :-(
lool thank you so true
itsdivya p
I've actually read like 2 YA novels that accurately portray LGBT characters *without killing them or making them a villain*
which ones hmu
I'd rather a gay villain than these minor stereotypes that are forgettable
itsdivya Not Your Sidekick is great!!
itsdivya one with a bi character and a gay character is the Raven Cycle
Tank in the Percy Jackson Heroes of Olympus series Nico is gay (but he first shows up in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians). And though Nico is shown in a villainous light at one point, he is a pretty complex character with motivation for the things he does and overall I love that guy.
subbed within the first minute. i love everything about this already. oh my god.
haha thank you
SAME!
my skin is C L E A R
when bae comments on ur videos
THE DIVERSITY SITUATION YES. BLESS. PREACH. You literally dont need to point it out every chapter and shove it up our asses like please. We're just humans like any other human in the book no big deal.
exactly
agreeee
The worst was Twilight where she described how great his fucking breath was, multiple times. Like no
she's a bit of a weirdo that one
The 'diversity' part made me want to subscribe to you 100 more time... I am sicken tired of people making any diverse characters a walking exotic token animal...😩😩😩
Thank you so much and continue to do what you do...😁😁😁
thank you!
I could *never* write those "artistic" descriptive passages, like, ever
It's cause I have a very small vocabulary
this is my first time watching any of your videos and as soon as the words "characters bland as unseasoned chicken" came out of your mouth i immediately knew i clicked on gold
bless you
I love ur pfp omg, moonrise kingdom?
Omfg, orbs, ORBS!!! If you describe your characters eyes as being orbs I will first piss myself laughing cause no 16 year old thinks to themself, "oh, they have such beautiful sky blue/moss green/insert other lame metaphor orbs." And then stop reading. Because, no, just, no. This isn't a English class exercise to find the weirdest stupidest sounding synonym of a perfectly good word ever so please stop
Sebastian Hammond lmao or if they’re describing gore they use blood once and try to find another synonym. You read shit like “the crimson metallic liquid filled her mouth” like just say BLOOD!
Sebastian Hammond yes, everyone does it to seem like they’re smarter/ that their stories better than they are. Like just use the simple word. The story will speak for its self if it’s good.
I love what you said about the diversity thing. So many people need to know that. I went to a writing conference where a speaker talked about including diversity in your novels, and she said the complete opposite of what you did. She said that if you wrote about someone who was black, or Asian, or hispanic, or whatever, that the book needed to be about that. You couldn't just have them in there just "to be" or that was racist or something. She was like if you're going to write about a black kid, then the story needs to include the struggles of racism and if you write a book about an Asian kid then the story has to revolve around Asian culture. What even the heck. I can understand not disregarding the realities of being not-white in like America, but if you want your main character to be Mexican, the story does not need to be A Day in the Life of a Mexican Teenager. They can be Mexican, but have super cool powers and kick butt like every other teenager in the YA genre. They're not just the "mexican character" they have a life and personality all their own, and to try to distinguish their particular ethnicity/race/gender/orientation is even more discriminating than just letting them exist on the planet like they do and everyone does!
I despise novels that are written in present tense. Even more so when it's not written from the character's perspective. Is it because the authors think their work becomes more authentic/dramatic/engaging when they use present tense? Personally, I find it awkward. Really awkward. Especially when I come across sentences like "Will digresses" or "Emma caresses his hair", because it just sounds so stilted and unnatural in my head.
#pasttenseftw
HONESTLY SAME I FEEL U
Only like two of the present tense books I've read have worked for me, usually I hate it
“She’s not like other girls” Omg so true,so tired of this.
"I don't even get flies to land on me" an autobiography.
tragedy
i'm not sure if heroes of olympics is ya but LOL rick riordan did a really good job of switching povs.
also sarah j maas is AWFUL at writing female characters honestly she tries so hard to make celaena and feyre so different... one hates dresses the other one loves them... one loves to read one is illiterate. yet both have blue eyes light hair? try harder please.
I'm crhhfnfnd
THIS WAS SO RELATABLE LMAOO
I get so pissy when I read about LGBT characters whose only character traits are stereotypes about their sexualities.
Also... bisexuals? Have literally zero representation??
L I T E R A L L Y
Watch DC's legends of tomorrow for three canon bi main characters, or read Trials of Apollo for a bi main character and other LGBT characters
Trials of Apollo. Six of Crows.
@@amanix10 Six of Crows only says Jesper is Bi, but he never acts it. He's gay in every single way other than random shit that was said just to make him seem bi. He literally never shows attraction to a female.
@@925263 because that isn't important to the plotline. Other books RUB IT IN OUR FACES that they are different and attracted to boys and girls, but Six of Crows subtly has diversity that doesn't seem fake. It's not like people that are bi go around being attracted to every girl and every boy + being bi means you have a preference which for Jes is probably guys.
Thank you. I want to make a book teenagers will enjoy but introduce new uncommon and radical philosophies so these tropes help me decide what is good and bad. I’ll keep watching your videos!
All the Daddy issues. I'm looking at you Shatter me
sdfsfdkfhdshkfdf
One YA series I actually think did well on the diversity aspect is the Legend series by Marie Lu. It has its cliches and its failings, but the way the characters are of many different races, genders, and sexual orientations, but none of that is made a big deal out of? I don't know, I loved that about the Legend universe when I read it.
(Also, the politics in those books are presented in a way that was interesting and felt real to a fifteen-year-old me? Like, I guess that political science degree you earned actually is worth something, Marie Lu. Good job.)
I really love your videos, and your roasting, it's too beautiful and too accurate
thank youuu
Simon Vs The Homo Sapiens Agenda is the only YA novel I've read where ALL the characters are really great? Despite the LGBT and racially diverse cast, none of the characters as JUST gay or JUST black. I am praying the movie doesn't turn it into that
Sorry that this is so irrelevant but your collarbones are so aesthetically pleasing.
girl I just have hella bad posture
I relate to every single freaking thing in this video and laughed out loud so hard at the eyelashes part, like for real, its so annoying.
not as annoying as when ur eyelashes rest against ur cheeks tho
Imagine a conversation in which people talked like YA book descriptions
"Ok *insert name*, Truth or dare?"
"Truth"
"Who do you have a crush on?"
"Oh there's this boy I don't know the name of, he's so pretty 😍😍"
"Ooooh spill the tea sis"
"Well he's got ash brown hair like my kitchen cabinets in the moonlight, and his eyes are dark, golden ebony like my broken doorknob that I haven't replaced yet. And his smile is like that feeling when you ask alexa what the temperature is and she says "-29 degrees what the fuck put me back in the box and send me back to florida you're fucking insane". Oh and he's so kind! He once kicked a crippled child on the pavement, then gave him food and posted it on instagram!"
"Girl have you been doing crack without telling me?"
I'm crying all the tears for how long it's taken me to discover you. OMG LOL binging NOW
lool have fun
The romanticism of abusive relationships and the excessive amount of twists plots👌 that's something I'm tired to read.
I'm a author wannabe (lol) and I include a lot of diversity in my stories, but people keep asking why I don't mention that certain character is trans, or gay or asexual, and I give the same repose every time _because it doesn't affect the storyline_
Happens the same with nationalities. I'm Chilean, Spanish native speaker and I do write mos of my stories in that language, but I have a lot of character that are not Spanish speaker and I use their respective languages when they're talking. People need to know that not every diverse character speaks the same damn language that you, and that humans don't learn a new languaje in a few days.
(I do include the correspondent translations though)
+ItsDeyajustDeya some authors are so like "LOOK! IM INCLUSIVE! THIS CHARACTER IS NON WHITE! AND GAY!ITS NOT RELEVANT TO ANY ASPECT OF THE PLOT OR EVEN THE CHARACTER ARC AT ALL BUT HE IS GAY! DID I MENTION HE IS GAY?"
itsdivya lmao "Forget the epic fantasy we where living in, let me give you a few chapters where I make my gay character have sex with another gay character just bacause I really want you to KNOW they're gay. Thanks, now let's continue with the killing dragons stuff" hehehehe
I think its still a good idea to mention that a character is LGBT since its not really representation if the reader doesn't know if theyre LGBT if they just read the book with no outside context whatsoever... But youre right with making a diverse character and having that one attribute to be mentioned so much
"Sometimes eyes are just eyes"
T H A N K Y O U
Every fucking book I read contains AT LEAST one paragraph describing eyes. And 90% of the time it's about blue eyes.
We get it, blue eyes are pretty, can you PLEASE continue writing your damn book or at least focus on other eye colors? Has anyone heard of green eyes? Hazel? Amber? ANYTHING?
I want to jump off a cliff whenever I read something like this: "Her beautiful, icy blue eyes sparkled with sparkles and glittery glitter in the shiny sunlight that shone shinily and made her beautiful, icy blue eyes shine like the shiniest blue sapphire to ever shine on this planet"
And then when it comes to brown eyes it's just: "She had chocolate brown eyes" or green: "EMERALD GREEN THAT LOOKED LIKE EMERALDS"
*also, can people please stop comparing eye colors to fucking gemstones, this ain't Steven Universe*
+dammit petunia glittery glitter in the shiny sunlight that shone shinily
These characters that want to be the physical embodiment of unseasoned chicken... yesss
"The physical embodiment of unseasoned chicken"
Beautiful
+Akidachi beautiful just like the protagonists and the brooding boy's back
bless you
If you’re looking for YA books that avoid these tropes tho, Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo. It does have one (1) bad boy character but trust me, he’s got some serious depth by the end. And there’s POC and gay characters that aren’t just that. And there’s magic.
PARACETAMOL COLOURED EYES
Thank you SO much for including the "diversity" point. I wrote a book a while back without being concious of the character's races/sexualities; I just wrote them how I felt they should be. I've got diverse characters, sure, but they're only the way they are because I imagined them that way. Now of course, all the agents are asking for a LGBT+ "woman of colour" with like eighteen different nationalities, and it's hard for me to find someone interested in my work when my main character just so happens to be a guy, who just so happens to be white, who just so happens to not have a love interest at all.
I'm not a minority (if you don't count being female) so I can't relate in the same way you can, but I feel like the way these agents are begging for diversity is quite degrading to the very groups they're asking for in stories. They see diversity as a way to make money and appeal to readers, which I feel exploits minority groups. If diverse characters are only there to appeal to agents and readers, rather than just being there because that's the way the author felt they needed to be, that's even worse than unintentionally not having any diversity at all.
I have literally lost so much hope as a young adult, that I made a blog dedicated to finding a young adult that changes my mind.
I feel like these are just Western YA novels. Years ago, when I was I read this one book in Lebanon about a girl and her 12 family (well 8 now) members trying to escape genocide around the Arabian gulf area (book didn't specify) and after this one really bad massacre in her village it becomes about the girl trying to deal with very serious trauma while also trying to keep her family together until they reach a safe haven in Levant. It really explores the dark edges of the world and how that one night made her scared of everything and one this one scene in the book she spilled pomegranate juice on the sand and she thought it was blood. There was this other scene where she got her period for the first time and she had a flashback from when she was raped by soldiers during the massacre. There are also side plots of her trying to play with her younger siblings but a lot of them start to imitate people killing each other by using dolls, its a really sad story. Its a genius story tho and really goes deep into the world around them and how these types of things put a very bleak view in our world. I'm so sad I forgot about it and I don't think it was ever translated but it was the very few YA novels I enjoyed
Omygod. I just discovered your channel and immediately fell inlove with your accent😍
bless your soul
Every wattpad story ever
Oh my god the watt pad thing killed me... me too girl... ME TOOOOO
I agree with you on so much; it makes finding a great character cast SO SATISFYING. They just feel so ALIVE. I’m (legally at least) an adult now, and I’m still fangirling over Thirrin from the Icemark Chronicles, she’s so human, bright and young while still being strong! Haha, tfw when you use fictional charas as role models (also! TEMERAIRE AND 1Q84 ARE AMAZING
Am I the only one who HATES YA novels? I feel like 90% of them are a copy-of-a-copy. I just really don't like them. Historical ficiton/literature it is for me.
a lot of them are regurgitated ngl
Marieta Ivanova same!
I usually read more fantasy/action books like Warriors
I do like specific YAs not for being YA but cause their plots are good for me or the author's style is nice to read when I just want to chill, but damn is awful seing all those trashy novels being idolized.
You should check out The Purification Era by Angie Grigaliunas. (First two books are out, with more to come.) It's about two sisters on opposite sides of a brewing rebellion. While it's dystopian in theme/world, it's also a slow-burn spy thriller in a medieval setting with touches of fantasy. I've had the hardest time figuring out how to market it because it doesn't really fit into any one genre. It's not a copy of anything. Complex, gray characters, sisters who deeply love each other, grittiness without gratuity, and no triangles or insta-love. =)
I feel like The Winner's Trilogy kind of breaks out of the mold. The main character's 'weapon' is her cleverness, she's not good at fighting and, if I remember correctly, she does consider herself pretty (though she's not "like other girls" ...you can't escape tropes in YA). Still recommend it.
I needed to hear this for research purposes for writing!!
I recommend the YA book Shadow Weaver. The story itself is a bit hard to follow, but it is really interesting and entertaining.
My question is :
How did these types of novels get published?
I get what you mean, especially with the diversity. Come on YA writers, ( not all but some ) just because a character's sexuality is different, it doesn't mean they should be bland! Without any personality, and just their sexuality being a trait.
$
I completely agree with this. Novels can have such a huge influence on so many people, so shouldn't our characters and stories teach us how to be strong and self-loving. A lot of novels today seem to argue that having a mental illness or not fitting into society is the only way for us to have value as individuals.
I do love novels though.
I agree so much on the diversity part. It's like- the authors don't really care when they include these 'diverse' characters. It's only to earn them the new woke patch on their vest and special approval and points from the great rating site of Tumblr. It's almost offensive in a way because they don't really see them or at least portray them as regular people leading regular lives? Kinda like they're these otherworldly species who's entire life revolves around being this other species. That's a bit of a stretch but it's what it's on the way to. At least give them the same depth of character as the others do, jeez.
I love how middle grade tropes are opposite of young adult:
-We get stuck in just one POV when others would be nice
-Replace all the bad boys and clutzy girls with dorks and smart alecs
-Diversity = everybody is a different species
"Women can be strong!"
(The only strong female character is the different, special snowflake)
"Women don't need men! Merida or whatever gurl is the best because she didn't had a love interest!"
(There is nothing wrong with falling in love.)
"But he is a misunderstood poor unfortunate soul, he is not a generic badboy!!1!"
(That's why it's okay to being a verbally and phisically abusive, rude, violent jerk.)
"The world is cruel!! There is nothing to love or worth protecting in this world!!"
(But it's also beautiful if you try to be a little bir optimistic. Trust me, it makes life easier and your book more interesting.)
"I write a cyberpunk story and it's about how technology sucks!"
(Do you know everything you have in your hands is a product of technology? Do you know as humanity we can't do a thing without technology? This is a cyberpunk story, you can write about what makes us human, are robots human, how technology effects us but you choose this tired and stupid theme? Congratulations! You didn't even tried to think or research, didn't you? You didn't even looked at the other cyberpunk stuff, right? Good idea. Keep on!)
"I don't understand why these authors write these characters that want to be the physical embodiment of unseasoned chicken"
Ahem Alina Starkov in Shadow and Bone
Ahem MARE BARROWS DIE MARE BARROWS
The lashes bit made me crack up 😂
I wish I had lashes that long
I'd say "take a shot every time a YA author uses the word 'orbs'" but I don't want to be the cause of liver failure
Glad you're back, love the videos!!
ok but I once read this young adult book and literally the amount of times that the fact that one of the main characters were asian was brought up made me literally throw it across the room
Oooh the rich ripped bad guy falling in love with the mousy gray main character! That trope doesn't stop at YA books. It's like EVERY SECOND ROMANCE ever, even in novels aimed at adults.
Just look at 50 shades of grey, that's EXACTLY that! It's so annoying!
So to summarize the first part, don't forcefully create a relationship for the main char or it will end up being bland or cliche, unless that was what the author was going for.
I'm months late for this but I just found your channel.
I agree on everything but specially on the diverse part (it reminds me of something Cosima of Orphan Black said: My sexuality is not the most interesting thing about me)/it's like diverse characters can't be real people and have hobbies and dreams or just want to do nothing and be real, no they are all just black, just Asian, just gay like there's nothing else on their life and their personality apart of that, that's not real. It's important yes, but we're *not* just one thing, even if that one thing is a huge part of our lives and affects us, we still have more things going on. So that.
I loved your channel, so happy RUclips recommend one of your videos to me. Bye!
thank you! totally agree
I miss Orphan Black
I feel this on a spiritual level... But that will never stop me from loving (almost) everything Throne of Glass series from its messages about faith/hope in times of depression and to its flaws 😊💕I really enjoy these videos. It’s nice to know that I’m not alone when it comes to YA novels. If you have any book recommendations I’d greatly appreciate it. It’s hard to find a book that doesn’t follow the same pattern
Deffo! The books deffo serve a purpose and have their own pros!
I feel offended. I'm nerdy. I like it. Don't judge me.
On another note, this is inspiring me to write something in an attempt to kill these tropes so thanks.
+AIRbooks do it make it a bestseller
Omg totally agree with everything you said. One of my favorite games is to predict the plots of ya novels after reading the description. The only thing is that I love Sarah j mass books and honestly think even though they have a lot of the tropes she does a much better job of giving her characters personality and actually trying make something different. Also if you keep reading past heir of fire you might end up really liking manon’s story.
The main character of my book is biracial, and a lesbian.
Is my book about these things? No.
It's about her trying to stop her best friend from going insane.
I would like to give it a try =)
Omg I love your sense of humour!! The points you made were spot on! Can't wait for more!!
Read "The Rest Of Us just Live Here" "Release" and "More Than This" by Patrick Ness if you want gay characters that actually have personalities and are well written.
This is gold. THANK YOU for taking the time to do this. YA is the most annoying genre now.
Drag 'em, Divya, drag 'em!
yeeeee
I agree with all of these! Whilst being a marginalized person does have effects on the way people interact with the world i find it so frustrating when it's their only trait in media. I'm tired of seeing people like me treated as if we're exotic. Great video (unlike these tropes) Divya!