Does anyone know what the acceptable level of violence for YA is? I know violence plays a key part in a lot of YA fiction anyway, but is there a limit to how far I can go? I want to rewrite my book for YA and need guidance.

????

How exactly do you measure the violence in a novel?

"Two points for a punch on the nose, twelve points for a stab wound, sixteen for a rape no more than seventy two for the book or sixteen in any given chapter."

A bully in a playground who smacks your MC in the face in the middle of a playground could easily be written to be more upsetting and / or disturbing than a news story about a civil-war skirmish in which several people are horribly mutilated with a machete.

There used to be rules for film such as the "ILOOLI law" (inner labia out, outer labia in), but even that could surely only have been used as a guideline... not least because it outlaws almost every single sex-education video about child birth and fails to exclude some genuinely disturbing scenes of sexual violence.

Use your judgement.

I don't think there's any easy answer to this. Depending on how it's written, a slap can be as bad as a punch.
The only thing you can do is trawl though recently published YA novels on the Waterstones bookshelves and see what the other writers have got away with.


- NaomiM

Wow. Forgot about this forum post.

To be fair, I think any ya, or even children's novels, have a pretty intense amount of violence. And not just in novels, but most TV shows as well. Heck, people considered the Power Rangers violent for a kids show (although to me, that was as violent as a pantomime). So I guess it doesn't really matter. I mean, even Harry Potter has it's dark moments, right?

I actually don't know if the Harry Potter novels do, because I've never read them (Except for maybe three chapters of the first one) but I've heard they can be pretty dark.

And even though its none of my business, as I don't read or write YA - surely nothing is as nasty and violent as the set of fairy tales we've been left with?

J

surely nothing is as nasty and violent as the set of fairy tales we've been left with?

That's actually true. Fairy tales by their nature are cruel and wicked. That's why I loved reading the roahl Dahl revoting rhymnes tales as they went back to the darkness of the original fairy tales--but spiced it up with a lot of humour.

I remember years ago as a child going to a ballet of Cinerella (my mum used to be a dance teacher and I was dragged along to a lot of shows). In this ballet, the ugly sisters cut off their toes to fit in the shoes and then get their eyes picked out by crows. It freaked me out, but then mum explained that's how the ORIGINAL story went.

So I guess it doesn't really matter how much violence I put in. It can't compare to Red Riding Hood or Snow White.

Two different aspects to violence, it seems to me: what happens, and how you show it. One reason Dahl is so nasty is because he so relishes the horribleness

The original fairy tales weren't told for children at all. It's very noticeable that as the Grimm's editions progressed the versions get steadily less gruesome, and more sentimental and 'Victorian' in their gender politics, as much as anything else. (See Marina Warner From the Beast to the Blonde)

Emma

That is true, Emma. The old folk and fairytakes became sanitised for children. The old parental warnings that appeared in Struwwelpeter where children who play with matches go up in flames, or ones who suck their thumb have the chopped off by the scissorman, have leargely disappeared from the nursery booshelves. It was not until Dahl added a large dose of humour to them, that they returned in some form.


- NaomiM

<Added>

Today, the violence in childrens films is termed 'cartoon violence' rather than the old fashioned gothic-style horror.

Funnily enough I was just thinking about this topic today as I finished reading "The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins. This is a book that has got the violence just right. Teenagaers are dying all around, but the protagonist only kills by accident or in trying to save another's life. Also the scenes don't turn me off with their gore. Unpleasant things are described, but not dwelt on and it works. I haven't quite put my finger on why it isn't too horrific. I would be interested in hearing what anyone else thinks of this book. I loved it. The best new YA novel I've read since the Reaver's Ransom came out in the autumn, also essential reading. That one comes over as a bit more horrifying in some parts, but again it all works brilliantly well.

Good luck. I'm wrestling with this dilemma myself for my WIP.

Cathy