Choosing to read (and write) about things that matter

So, I had the sudden crazy thought a few weeks ago as I was contemplating my story, that it is really well-suited for the young adult reader.  That happens to be one of my favorite genres of literature.  Not because I'm too shallow for the grown-up stuff, but because I am fascinated by the process of self-discovery and life change that happens at that age. 

For some inexplicable reason, I have a heart to reach the young with the message of grace.  I find myself repeatedly telling my group of kids on Sunday mornings that we all have a choice to make.  "Oh, that you would choose life!" (Deuteronomy 30:19)  It seems simple, I tell them, when you are young, and your moms and dads bring you to church every week, and following directions is just...what you do when you're 7 or 8. 

But one day, I say, you are going to be a teenager and things are going to get really complicated.  Right and wrong will become blurred.  Your friends will go different ways and you will question the things that your parents have always taught you.  Truth will be elusive.  But, I always tell them, God will never EVER be surprised by anything you choose to do.  Even if you mess up really bad.  He'll always be waiting for you to come back to Him and that is something you can always count on.

I will never get tired of telling kids that.

So, thinking about my story, I began to wonder...what are teens reading these days?  What makes a marketable work of young adult fiction?

That's why I picked up a random book on the teen fiction counter at Barnes and Noble yesterday that had an interesting cover.  I won't give away the author because 1-I don't want to poke fun at him personally, and 2-I don't want to peak anyone's curiosity enough to actually pick it up and read it.

It's not that it wasn't good.  It was!  Well, save for the writer's voice which was clearly an adult trying to sound like a teen.  "'Hey, watch it, man,' my friend was like."  That's just a sample of the dialoge in the first couple of pages.  Yuck.  Other than that, it really was good.  Like all good writers, this one had an uncanny ability to take an ordinary experience, i.e. talking about things when you're depressed, and describing it in a way that is fresh and unusual, yet totally relatable.  "Your words come out like ice that's been ground up in the ice-crushing thing in the refrigerator."  (I'm paraphrasing here.) 

That's what writing fiction is, really, I think.  Taking a character who is extraordinary in some way: determined, brave, frightened or strengthened by what's happening around them, quirky, gifted, troubled, insane, etc. and making them seem human so that anyone can learn from their experience. 

But then I read a page further while I stood in the middle of the store and found out that this 16 year old boy is sitting in a bedroom with his friends who are passing a joint around.  Ummm....what?  This is young adult lit??  Shake it off and keep reading, Robin.  He passes the joint on without smoking.  Oh good.  Wait.  He's doing an experiment to see if his depression is brought on by the pot.  But sometimes he smokes a lot of it at once to see what happens to him then.  Great. 

What is this book about anyway?  I flip it over and read the plot summary on the back cover.  This boy eventually finds himself in the psych ward of a hospital.  This is a story of his time there and the friends he meets, inluding one transgender person who is addicted to sex.

I set the book down, thinking it was a little too adult even for me.  I'm struggling in my own story with whether or not to edit some of the kissing scenes--there are three, which are never gratuitous, by the way.  They are strategically included as tools to shape the character and reveal her motivations, her weakness, her self-doubts, her triumphs, and her joys, and to make her real, which all help to advance the story.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for truth being told in literature, movies, and other art forms.  I don't mind gritty, explicit subject matter as long as it's there to reveal a truth about something bigger.  As long as it is redeemed in the end. 

Maybe I'm just not giving this book I found at B and N enough of a chance but my instinct tells me that there will be no redemption in the end.  I think it will just be some writer, albeit a good one, telling a raunchy, sordid tale of teen angst where the "hero" (I use that term loosely) learns that life is all about him and whatever feels good in the moment.

What irritates me so much is that it really is good writing.  Which means that there is a thoughtful, intelligent, articulate, human being punching letters into a computer that tell a story in a skillful way.  I'm sure he's much more talented than I am.  But he's using his talent to perpetuate a lazy truth that popculture has already filled our minds with again and again and again.  Since the beginning time, really.

Maybe my story isn't marketable at all.  Maybe my writing isn't good enough to get within reach of a publisher.  It's alright, I'm not sitting here kidding myself.  I do think I have an appropriate amount of humility.  I mean, I'm trying, aren't I?  I just really, really wish that the more talented thinkers, creators, writers, and artists out there, whose work gets produced, published, watched, read, and beloved by audiences were telling a truth that matters.  A truth that we can always count on.

I actually pray that God would open my eyes and my mind to resources, and thoughts, and ideas that would make my writing better.  Not because I want to see my book on a B and N table (ok, that would nice, I admit).  But seriously, I'm not looking for any kind of accolades or praise, or anything like that.  Those are things people crave that don't matter in the grand scheme.  I just want my story to be heard by young girls who mistakenly think that one screw-up ruins everything.  Who mistakenly think that having comfort and security is the ultimate goal in life.  Who wonder why God made them and what they are supposed to do with their lives.  Girls who would be encouraged and uplifted by the story of a true heroine who learns these things for herself.

These are the things that matter.  Particulary to teens who are on the cusp of adulthood and figuring out life on their own terms.  Or am I just totally wrong?