Writing YA or New Adult? Who Really Is Your Audience?

I am always amused at some of the YA's and New Adult novels that come out. While the "characters" and the "plots" are supposed to be for a specific audience, the reality is that many authors are seriously missing the mark. These are not stories for a YA or New Adult audience, but adults who claim they like reading these genres. 

I got thinking about this yesterday while my wife was on a Zoom meeting with other faculty at her campus. They have a group of people who are "writers" and they were sharing their stories. One of the instructors was writing a children's picture book. Their conversations and their critique, however, focused more on making the story for the adult readers. She still maintained that the book was for kids, but the language and approach she took would never sell with those kids.

If you are writing YA nor NA you need to know that audience. You need to truly know and understand what they value, how they think, how they talk, how they act and so forth. What you would put in an adult novel simply would not happen in these books designed for a younger audience. 

Let me try it this way. I hear a lot of people argue that New Adult is really YA with sex. No, this is an issue of adults just not understanding the genre. Adults might like stories similar to this. Adults might see these themes in their stories, but this DOES NOT mean it is a theme for this age group.

The simple recommendation is that authors need to take the time to truly know this population. Unless you are living with this age group or work with this age group, the odds are you are writing material that you might not fully understand. It does not mean you can't write it. It does mean you have to learn it.