Arriving home from the library, I came to this realization: of the twelve books I’d picked out, ten of them were written around themes of Otherness. Not surprisingly, nine of those ten were young adult books. I don’t typically read that much YA, but I’ve come to the conclusion that my new writing project is likely to develop into a YA story. To prevent its being written in a vacuum of glorious ignorance, I went browsing for some recent YA books.
The heros and heroines…they’re all Outsiders. Either they’re losers, or oddballs, or they’re aliens, or supernatural creatures. However they’ve arrived there, all these YA protagonists are standing on the outside looking in.
The question that has been nagging me since I made that realization is: who writes for the Insiders? You know, the normal kids, the regular kids, the popular kids. The kids who don’t sit alone at lunch. The kids who always have a date to homecoming. The kids who do well at sports and listen to Top 40 music. Who writes books for them? And what are those books? Seriously, I want suggestions. I have a burning curiosity to read these books and learn something about their authors.
I don’t want to make sweeping generalities about writers, but I have to admit that almost every writer I know is…a little odd. Or off. Or downright strange. Many of us are introverts, which has turned us into observers. Others of us see the world from such a skewed angle that we’re always writing in an attempt to document the discrepancies between our world and the world.
The problem is that because I was always an Outsider, perhaps I simply never noticed the books on the library shelves that were intended for the Insiders. They were invisible to me.
Trying to think of possible examples of Insider novels, all I can think of is television. Star Trek in particular, which despite its massive geek following is all about Insidership. Think of it–the Federation is this massive, wonderful, just, lawful, all-inclusive entity. The pinnacle of happiness on The Enterprise is to belong. So many story lines are devoted to that idea that I can’t cite them all. Consider that in the original series, most of the episodes were about triumphing over some evil alien, or triumphing over a crew member who had “gone wrong,” and at the heart of the episodes was this familial bond that everyone had to embrace. Or look at The Next Generation: Data trying to become human to belong. Repeated on Voyager, with Seven of Nine. The goal of the stories always seems to be to bring everyone together, to make everyone part of this big, inclusive club. Yet they hated the Borg…
So tell me, in the YA field, who writes for the Insiders?
PS: And I have to add…what the hell gives with the Holodeck? If my microwave malfunctioned, took over my house, and endangered my life, I would unplug it an throw it away. And I was never as big a fan of Star Trek as I was of the brief-lived Firefly, something of a mirror image of Star Trek, where the Federation is an evil fascist entity and the scrappy but criminal crew of Serenity are the heroes. An Outsider tale at its finest.
Good questions. Are the “normal” kids interesting enough to most people, I wonder?
Seems like bad events happening to normal kids would still be interesting…
I’ll have to give this a think and see if there are any books that fit your description.
Oh, now that’s a theme I hadn’t thought of, but I’m sure it’s got to be represented in the market: “bad events happening to normal kids.”
I do not find books about normal people interesting. Although I did read a good one last month about some rich kids with problems and boy was it good!! Your question does make sense and maybe you are just the one to write it!!!
Hmm. Gossip Girl?
I doubt I’m the one to write it, since I was a complete weirdo as a teenager, but I am curious…What was the book about the rich kids?
I always wondered that, too. Everyone seems to be writing about outcasts. My book is about a normal girl who’s moderately popular, upper middle class, who finds herself hurled into a supernatural world. People seem to think that if a heroine is normal, she’s uninteresting or not unrelatable. I don’t know about anyone else, but it’s the normal kids I relate to, not the severely damaged, angst-ridden ones.
I also think Maureen Johnson’s MC’s might be “normal” but you’d have to double check that as I’ve only read a bit.
I’ll check out M Johnson and Gossip Girl for sure, now that I’ve got my curiosity piqued.
Courtney: Interesting and it makes me wonder…does she feel like an Outsider once she gets to the supernatural world? And how does she feel about going from Insider to Outsider, if she does?
I think the era of normal kids has past. The them of normal kids being thrown into extreme circumstances was big in the eighties. The Face on the Milk Carton, The Grounding of Group Six, these featured normal kids thrown into extraordinary circumstances.
Nowadays, society values individuality (or at least the perception thereof) more than conformity. Schools tell children that they are each a bright individual snowflake, and then companies market to them based on the idea that wearing their product makes them different.
When every teenager I see looks exactly the same.
No one wants to believe that they aren’t special, so why would you want to read about someone who isn’t special in some way? Which is why TV shows like Heroes is blisteringly popular and sitcoms are not.
Ah yes…the “snowflake” theory. I suspect you’re right on about the Heroes phenomena–entertainment that pretends to be about Otherness, but that still fits characters into a socially homogeneous group. Like the popularity of the X-Men series, which I suppose reveal their basic Insiderness through the fact that the really odd-men-out are “evil.”
Interesting questions. (And I *love* your analysis of TOS. I actually wrote a paper about it in an anthro class – fairly similar theme, too. 🙂
Would the Sweet Valley High books (I know, pretty old school) count as YA about Normal Kids? I’m not a YA writer, and not as up to date on current YA as I probably should be, but those, if I recall, were about fairly normal, popular teens – right?
(somebody correct me if I missed tentacles, superpowers or devil worship in there – been a few decades since I read those.) 🙂
I think when it comes to kids, they’re all outsiders, even the insiders. The truly well-adjusted teenager is rare, especially since every decision they make is driven by their emotions. Sure, you have your honor roll students, and your jocks, but every one of those high achievers suffers from some kind of self-esteem issue, which automatically puts them on the outside. For a perfect example of all types of kids with problems, just watch The Breakfast Club. It’s a classic, the brat pack in true form. It’s proof of how insiders can be outsiders, and outsiders can be insiders. Each comes with its own set of problems.
Hmmm…Sweet Valley High may actually be after my time. Yikes! I’ll check it out.
Karen: I agree that all teenagers think of themselves as outsiders, but there’s no denying that there really is a divide between the Inside group and the Outside. The Breakfast Club shows that all kids have problems, but it doesn’t have a wide enough focus to show us the dividing lines. In fact its goal is to try to erase the lines for those kids, which is a fairly common trope in teen stories–Insiders and Outsiders finding out they’re the same. So perhaps my question is: what kinds of books exist for the Insiders that have MC’s they can sympathize with, where the Outsider trope is adjusted to account for the levels of Insiderness in the Inside group. Like, the cheerleader who’s popular but doesn’t feel as included as some other cheerleaders. I want to see this fiction.
As soon as I read this post I immediately thought of Sweet Valley High too. Oh, those normal twins with their long blond hair and identical blue eyes! As an outsider myself (eating alone at lunch or hiding in the bathroom to avoid the ‘mean girls’) I loved to escape to the relative calm, normal lives of those girls. For the younger audience, the Babysitter’s Club books also featured a relatively normal cast of characters. I will say that these books all appealed to me while I was very young. In the true YA age range I found myself wanting to read Christopher Pike and coming of age stories, a la Catcher in the Rye.
because even the insiders, at times, feel like outsiders.
it’s just a side, and each side is a reflection of another side.
Loved Christopher Pike when I read YA. He is what I would consider the Stephen King of YA: He specialized in throwing average, well adjusted kids into fantastic situations, sometimes with disastrous results. Pike was never afraid to kill off an MC.
Sure, even insiders feel like outsiders, but let’s not deny the reality that some kids are social outcasts from the larger group. (That’s like claiming the world is color-blind.) My question is…do popular cheerleaders* read Outsider books in which the popular cheerleaders are the enemies, and do they effectively identify with the Outsiders? Or do they read a different type of book?
*popular cheerleaders here to stand in for the more amorphous notion of “in” groups, not necessarily to be taken literally as popular cheerleaders.
Jen brought it up elsewhere and it’s so obvious I’m shocked it was overlooked: Harry Potter. It’s a classic Insider story, because Harry isn’t an outcast. He has a circle of friends who are simply pitted against a selection of enemies.
Interesting question! How about the books about The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares? Haven’t read them myself, but from what I’ve gathered those girls are quite normal.
Or the Babysitter club ones, I can’t remember the authour (but they are old, and maybe aimed at a younger audience).
And the Saddle Club books (Bonnie Bryant), as well as a lot of other books in the OMG PONIES!!!1 category
And the books by Enid Blyton, tough old.
Hmm, I can think of a lot of other titles, but the authors are Scandinavian, so I doubt that that would help you much-will continue pondering and return if I remember any others.
I was gonna say Harry Potter.
I think these days there are none. There used to be – I loved Enid Blyton (The Famous Five and The Secret Seven) when I was young, but they were written in the thirties!
I cannot think of one single book where normality is revered, neither for YA or Adult. I suspect, if I found a book like that, I might get bored!
Okay, since we’re doing insider instead of normal, here’s my list! 🙂
– Harry Potter: great group of friends, popular
– Gemma Doyle Trilogy by Libba Bray: Her MC is part of the popular crowd, and the book is pretty much about her group (even though she isn’t normal and this is historical fiction)
– Twilight: When Bella moves to Forks, she’s popular and part of the popular group, popular and cute boys like her, etc
– Gossip Girl, The Clique: popular insiders
– House of Night: The MC starts out kinda on the inside, but does the Harry Potter thing when she gets popular and has a tight support group of cool friends
And then if we go old school:
– Sweet Valley High
This is a good list to start with, so back to the library for me.
Started as a movie and then a TV show (but I’m sure they made books, too), but… Buffy the Vampire Slayer? She’s popular, pretty, and wants to keep her nice shallow life. She also has powers that make her an Outsider, but still…
Not YA, but the CS Monitor just reviewed a kid’s book that fits the bill: The Little Bit Scary People (http://features.csmonitor.com/books/2009/01/28/the-little-bit-scary-people/). The protagonist is normal and meets up with several people who are just a little bit scary (they are the outsiders), until you get to know them better.
I keep meaning to check out Buffy, but my meh feeling about vampires has always kept me from it. I’ll try harder. ;o) I’ll check the other one, too.
Oh, you gotta watch BUFFY. It’s hilarious. And Buffy might start as an insider (or aspire to be one) but she really isn’t – her extraordinary abilities set her apart.
Star Trek…well, TOS only, for one thing. I think it’s more of a mixed message – as a kid, my impression of the show was that, man, grown-ups are always going bat-shit CRAZY! I mean, how many times did one of the main characters get driven out of his mind by 1. Aliens 2. Drugs 3. Pink space? This was a constant theme and reinforced my already-held impression that the adult world was essentially insane.
I also think Shatner’s performance constantly undermined the “heroic” nature of Captain Kirk’s character (as a little kid, I thought he was the craziest of the bunch, and kind a scary authoritarian). He’s almost a parody of a hero, you know, John F. Kennedy Liberalism n Outer Space. And yeah, how about that Federation? They violate the Non-Interference Directive in practically every episode!
Ooops, slighty OT. I have no idea what books for insiders are.
Wow…I came here wicked late, so a lot of what I thought while reading this has been hit on already.
Here’s what I can add: regarding Harry Potter. He may have been popular, at least in name, but his friends were the outcasts. Ron was poor. Hermione was Muggle-born. Harry’s friendship with them (and others like Neville and Luna) make him an outsider.
This is the same thing that happens to Buffy. Aside from being special, she befriends the outcasts, becoming an outcast herself. (Speaking of Buffy, don’t let the vampires throw you. I hate most modern depictions of vamps as pasty, emo fops…but the vamps in Buffy are delightful vermin.)
First off, for YA, the theme of the Outsider being the hero is extremely appealing. I think most teenagers, regardless of their perceived social stature, would tell you that they view themselves as outsiders, or at the very least as a unique oddity withint their social sphere, and gravitate towards those books.
As for “normal” people, I think there’s actually an abundance of “normal” people, both in written fiction and TV/film. The everyday guy stuck in an extraordinary situation is universally appealing, and everything from Mr. Smith Goes to Washington to “Heroes” and “Chuck” bear witness.
This brings to mind the ramblings of Christopher Titus, who discusses the fact that people who live dark, troubled lives know how to deal with crap and duck when it hits the fan. People who live normal, happy lives on the other hand, are always left standing right in the way when the crap hits the fan. So, using this example, normal people are only good reading if they are in a very nasty or abnormal situation, otherwise, boring.
I’m arriving late to the party too…most of the books I can think of that fit the Insider criteria are old. Like Maud Hart Lovelace’s Betsy and Tacy series. The popular kids are the heroes.
The holodeck is just another drug…