Writing without compromise

[selah_1977]

Original Yahoo! HPFG Header:
No: HPFGUIDX C6660
From: selah_1977
Subject: Writing without compromise
Reply To: [Yahoo! #6625] Re: The darker side of HP
Date: 8/11/00 9:49 pm  (ET)

Penny wrote:

"Maybe Ebony can weigh in on this some more -- but *are* there very many
bildungsroman or "coming of age" series where the earliest books in the
series are appropriate for younger readers but the later ones are not?"

Good question. So good, in fact, that I'll bring it up to the roomful
of master middle school English teachers I'm spending the last 2 weeks
of summer vacation with. <g>

The "coming of age" series, as a genre, is kind of outdated. What I've
been told as an apprentice writer is that in today's modern publishing
world, it's very difficult to cross the Age Line. JKR has crossed it
without trying to. So has Judy Blume. Most other so-called children's
writers fail in the adult market. Cross-age interest fiction is seen as
a risk to publishers.

Most of the series that I'm familiar with were published prior to
c. 1960. So JKR has the advantage of innovation due to her talent and
popularity.

Related historical example: My personal favorite children's series author
is Lucy Maud Montgomery. She follows three of her heroines (Anne Shirley,
Emily Byrd Starr, and Patricia Gardner) for a combined 13 books and 15+
years of each woman's life. Anne's entire life is chronicled from age
11 to age 53.

LMM expresses her frustration at having to write "girl's series" in her
Journals, which have in recent years been made public. She wished to make
her later Anne novels more realistic, but her publishers wanted more
juvenile themes--and were convinced her readership did too. Her desire
to write truly adult fiction was never fulfilled b/c she was stuck with
the AoGG label.

My hope is that JKR stands firm and writes the story that is inside
her. I hope she doesn't compromise anything just b/c some feel that a
nine year old should read Book 7.

My two thousand Galleons--

Ebony AKA AngieJ (who always tells her students that their opinions are
much more valuable that two cents)