Dystopia 101: How to write a book that follows the current publishing trend in YA literature

1) Begin your summary with "In the future, people are separated by [insert unfair and intriguing criteria]".

2) Create different parts in this futuristic society and give them funky names. If they don't sound quite serious enough to actually exist, don't worry. Just capitalize the first letter and everything shall be fine.

3) Try to create some kind of age-related deadline/inevitable milestone for the characters to go through. 18 is the best age, considering the target audience, but it can be anything if you can make it work. It is better if there is a fancy government-sponsored ceremony attached to the event.

4) Go on a little bit about the new big brother-like society and then insert [character 1, most likely the narrator or part-time narrator, who has been raised *this way* and who is confused/passive/naive].

5) Insert now [character 2, future love interest of character 1, who has been raised in exactly *the opposite way*].

6) Arrange for them to meet and somehow be unable to avoid each other despite a less than ideal start.

7) Skip the boring relationship building. No time for that.

8) Also skip the world building and pesky little details like consistency or "now, why would society ever do that?" explanations. No one will pay attention.

9) First option: If you want an introspective book: painfully slow but steady evolution of the plot towards a rebellion against the narrator's overbearing and totalitarian society, rebellion born from their loving relationship
    Other option: fast paced, engaging plot with twists and turns that will make the reader forget about everything that's wrong with the world building and the insta-love relationship.

Bonus: get some kind of [childhood best friend/new love interest/narrator] love triangle in there, and you're set for a trilogy.

Of course, this is an exaggeration.
Of course, not every YA dystopian novel is like this. But you have to admit, it fits for most of the popular ones, and I think this is my recurrent problem with YA distopia right now: it works, on a very shallow level. It looks intriguing, but once you start actually thinking about it? It falls apart.

Case in point with a few popular dystopian YA books: 

In Matched by Allie Condie, the pacing was the main problem for me. I know it worked for some people, but it completely fizzled out the narration and plot, and the pairing and love interest seemed to jump out of nowhere. It's not even that Cassia started having all these feelings and I was wondering where they were coming from. No. I couldn't even see the feelings in question.

In Delirium by Lauren Oliver, a novel with a fascinating premise, I would have loved to have more details and context about why people suddenly started thinking love was a bad idea. I know it's explained a little bit, but I need to be convinced. I can't just accept that something this huge could have happened and not have details. It's up to the author to figure out how to give them.

Another example: Divergent by Veronica Roth. Now, I actually liked that one. But the world building? No. Come on. People can't be rendered to being one single thing. The mere notion is preposterous. People don't have a "dominant trait" or whatever you want to call it. It's much more complex that that, and I feel like, again, we weren't really given any details about the thought process behind it.

I would be more than happy for you guys to let me know about any counter-examples you may have encountered, especially the ones for points 7 and 8. I'm begging for an in-depth dystopian YA novel, but haven't managed to find one yet.

Those pesky little things called spoilers

Okay guys. Today, I want to talk about spoilers.

Not everybody has the same definition of what a "spoiler" is, and not everyone has the same reaction to them. Sometimes it even depends on the book. So what's up with that?

To me, a spoiler is generally something that will reveal a detail about the plot that wasn't in the summary. Yes, it can be as vague as that (I'm crazy). In some books (long awaited sequels, mostly), I don't even want to read quotes. But then again, I'm quite flexible with certain books, mostly because I'm a huge wuss and like to find out if the ending of a book will reduce me to tears or not. I'm illogical like that.

I thought everybody was the same. Dreaded spoilers, covered their eyes when friends were talking about a book they hadn't read etc (metaphorically covering my eyes, of course. Erm, of course.) And then I found out it it wasn't true. Cue bewilderment.

So tell me. Do spoilers bother you? Or do you like them? Do you want to find out how a book is going to end, or do you just like knowing the outline to see if it's something you might want to read?
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Now, for my spoiler loving readers: I know you don't mind being spoiled. That's completely fine. BUT please, be careful on websites like GoodReads. You may not realize it, but when you post a spoilery comment, it shows up on all your friends' feed. And there's a really, really easy way to avoid that. Put a tiny HTML tag around your spoiler, like this:

<spoiler>I sobbed like a baby when I found out the killer was actually his baby chihuahua!!!</spoiler>

Easy as that. And you will save countless lives people from finding out the twist at the end of the book (a chihuahua! Who knew.)

OR, you can just untick the "Add to my Update Feed" box when you're commenting directly on someone's review/status



or click on "advanced" and then untick the box when you're commenting from your GoodReads homepage

Every time you untick that box after leaving a spoiler in a comment, a bunny is happy somewhere. True story.

You don't want to make bunnies unhappy, do you?

Do you?

About the definition of YA series

Today, I'd like to talk about YA series.

Sometimes highly anticipated, sometimes dreaded, the famous "Book Two" always provokes strong reactions in readers. But what is a book series, exactly? Wikipedia (aka the Holy Bible) says it's "a sequence of books having certain characteristics in common that are formally identified together as a group."

I don't agree with this.

I know it's the common definition, but I see a difference between a book with an unfinished story line that overflows on subsequent books, and several stories within the same universe. Case in point: I don't consider Graceling by Kristin Cashore to be part of a series. The sequel is in fact a prequel with completely different characters, and the final book is centered around a secondary character in Book One. I'd actually consider those companion novels, not other books in the same series.

On the other hand, I think the Wicked Lovely books are part of a series, for even though the character focus changes in Book Three and Four, the story's still coherent in itself and the plot-line keeps moving.

What do you think? What do you consider a book series?