What is YA?

I think the panel on what is and isn't allowed on YA ended up being more about what makes a YA novel YA. Some thoughts:

YA usually has a YA protagonist (13-19), but not always.

YA is usually shorter than adult fiction (60-80k, though fantasy can run longer).

YA is usually more quickly paced, with more dialog, less exposition, and fewer subplots.

YA tends to be in first person, or very close third, and it tends to have a single viewpoint character, sometimes two. But not the sprawling cast of thousands that adult fantasy has moved to.

YA has plot. Adult fiction can sometimes get away without plot. I don't think YA can.

YA tends to have a more hopeful outlook on life. It may seem dark in comparison to MG, and it is. But it is still not as dark as adult in the same genre. (This may lead to more happy endings. This may also be the reason that adults are moving to YA, though the above are also factors.)

YA has VOICE. This may be the single most important feature that you need to have as a writer of YA. It also may be the most impossible thing to learn. I'm not convinced of that, since I tend to believe a lot of what we call talent is actually hard work in disguise. But there is something to it. You can have a sassy, snarky voice, a sarcastic or lushly descriptive voice. Your voice can be uncertain or angry. But you need to establish a voice in sentence one and you need to keep it going.

YA has a community. I didn't talk about this at the panel, but I think it's true. YA writers, like sff writers, have tightly knit communities. They are often speaking in conversation with each other. Even if they don't know each other personally, they have read each other's work. I am not sure that this happens in other writing communities.

YA is about becoming. There is no ennui. I think this is an adult sensibility sometimes applied to YA, but I don't think it works. There is a newness and a kind of discovery along the way. Everything is happening for the first time. Blase doesn't work here.