Real College vs. College in a New Adult Novel

I'll just be honest--I probably shouldn't call myself a "new" adult anymore.

I've been an adult for a while now, not that I always act like it. (I frequently do not.)

But though it's been a few years since I left college, I have a pretty good memory. So when I began reading all the fantastic New Adult novels coming out that are set on college campuses, I felt a little like this...

Because I just don't recall anything like what I was read about.

For example. Say you're the mc in a New Adult novel. This is good, because you're smart, ambitious, and gorgeous (even though you don't know it and insist you're not). You have amazing friends and even if you have a troubled past, you know what you want to do in life.

1) In NA college, the mc is often assigned a partner for a class project. His name will be Liam or Ashton or Hawk or Braden or Quinn, and he will look like this:

He will smell terrific, have bad grades but amazing test scores, and pay attention to what you like at Starbucks so he can bring it for you one day.

In real college, I had partners like Rog, who clearly chose his shirts from his hamper (do boys have hampers?) once October hit, might have had nice eyes except I never saw them since he slept all through class, and never remembered the due dates of any assignments, let alone how I liked my coffee.

 2) You may also have a professor in NA college who looks like this.

He wears bow ties and tweed jackets with elbow patches and has longish, slightly messy hair, as if he was too busy contemplating the brilliance of your last essay on transcendentalism in American Lit to remember to comb it. But it's totally clean and smells amazing--not that you've ever been close enough to sniff it!

And if you were, it's OK because you didn't know he was going to be your teacher at the time, and you guys can work it off work that out later.

In four years of undergrad and three years of grad school, I had ONE attractive young professor. And all he did was complain about how much grad school costs versus how much it pays and how few jobs actually exist out there for history PhD's so we might want to think about doing something else.

I did. I thought about doing something else all the time... ;)

3) Finally, if you're at college within a NA novel, you have a great social life. You go to cool parties and dances and bars and restaurants, and you probably eat really well. Someday a tattooed bad boy with eyes like the sea might even cook for you, and it will be something like this pasta with lemon and arugula:

He'll serve it with a caesar salad (prepared tableside) and pour you a nice chilled glass of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc.

When I lived in the dorms, on the other hand, I ate a lot of meals that looked like this:

But I suppose that's why I had romance novels...to escape the realities of every day life and live out the college fantasy of my dreams. Although back then, we didn't have NA novels like now--you pretty much went from Sweet Valley High to Danielle Steel.

Maybe I should be glad about that. I probably would have asked for a transfer!

Cheers!
Melanie

Another Blog Post Defining New Adult Plus a Giveaway

As the title of this post implies, there have been quite a few bloggers who have discussed and defined the New Adult category in recent months. Even our own Tamara Mataya spoke briefly about it in this blog's introductory post.

But it hasn't been talked about by me yet, and certainly not in reference to my book, Fixed on You (out June 24th, shameless plug), so now you get another epistle.

Let me begin by posting a few definitions from some well-known sources.

“The Transition from child to adult doesn’t happen overnight--just ask as anyone who is or has been (or is a parent to) a teenager. But the transition from teen to adult doesn’t happen overnight either. There’s a period of time where adulthood feels like a new pair of shoes. The expectations of independence and self-sufficiency are still new, still being broken in. New Adults are the people who have just begun to walk in those shoes; New Adult fiction is about their blisters and aches.” -from Kristan Hoffman, winner of St. Martin's Press New Adult Contest

 "Protagonists generally fall between the ages of eighteen and twenty-six, though exceptions may apply. NA characters are often portrayed experiencing: college, living away from home for the first time, military deployment, apprenticeships, a first steady job, a first serious relationship, etc." -NA Alley: What is New Adult

"New Adult (NA) fiction is a developing genre of fiction with protagonists in the 18-25 age bracket. The term was first coined by St. Martin's Press in 2009 when they held a special call for “…fiction similar to YA that can be published and marketed as adult—a sort of an ‘older YA’ or ‘new adult’.” New Adult fiction tends to focus on issues such as leaving home, developing sexuality, and negotiating education and career choices." -Wikipedia

Here's the thing. I started writing Fixed on You last fall with no thought to New Adult or regular Adult or any of that. I simply had these characters that were floating around in my head and I wanted to put them down on paper. When I was finished, one of my critique partners said, "Oh, you wrote a New Adult book!" And another of my critique partners said, "This is not New Adult. No way."

Let's take a look and see what the difference in opinion may be. My main character, Alayna Withers begins the book on the eve of her MBA graduation. She's twenty-six years old. She's swamped with student loans. She's beginning her career. She has never had a successful relationship with a man. She's cut off from her family and hence alone for the first time.

So far, we have a New Adult book, right? Fresh out of school, dealing with new adult issues. Alayna's possibly a little two old for the age range, but total new adult.

Except the main man in the book is not a new adult at all. He's Hudson Pierce, a twenty-nine year old business genius in the likes of Christian Gray, Gideon Cross, and Ethan Blackstone. And the issues that Alayna and Hudson deal with are not related to any of the new adult elements in Alayna's life.

Where does that leave me classifying this book? New Adult or Adult? I've seen Naked by Raine Miller and Fifty Shades of Gray by E.L. James and Bared to You by Sylvia Day all classified as New Adult in one place or another. Take a look at the greatest New Adult Books lists on Goodreads and you'll find them all there.If you are one of those people who considers these books New Adult, then I think you'll put Fixed on You there too.

Truthfully, I wouldn't care about this except that so many things you have to fill out as an author require you to label your book. You have to put keywords in Amazon, you have to describe your book on Goodreads and to your blog tour host. So I have to call my book something!

Therefore I'm calling it New Adult Crossover/Adult Romance. Because that's as good as I can get. It has elements of New Adult, but it has an Adult theme. How's that for compromise?

And since you sat through all that which was basically me rationalizing anything I ever say about what category Fixed on You fits in, here's a giveaway! It's actually a 2 weeks until release giveaway, but right now I'm so excited about the impending birth of my book that I'll celebrate anything. Enter and pass it on!


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