Nobody gets to go back to when they were 17 and do over their life, but being a young adult writer is the closest I can get to that, without time travel, writes ANDAlEEB WAJID
Sometimes I forget how old I am. As someone who writes young adult fiction, I think that’s a good thing actually. It helps me get into the heads of my protagonists more easily and things move forward from there smoothly. Well, most of the times at least.
Since I’ve been asked how I manage to write about young adults with a certain level of authenticity, let me clarify at the outset that having a 17-year-old son has been no help at all. Instead, I like to put my 17-year-old self into various situations and come up with what things could have been like if my life was different.
I like writing young adult fiction because it feels freeing in a way for me. Coming from an orthodox family set up where I was expected to conform to the roles assigned to me by society, I’ve managed to find my own footing in the world and I wish I could tell my 17-year-old self not to worry so much, that things will be good one day. It will take time, say at least two decades, but it will be all right.
But who are the people who read young adult fictionIJ Are they all teenagersIJ Do they have to beIJ I hate how genres define reading patterns but my readership base tells me that people of all ages enjoy reading YA. You don’t have to be a young adult to enjoy young adult fiction. You don’t even have to be young at heart, although it certainly helps you empathise with the characters. But I think one of the reasons YA is so popular with an older audience too is because everyone has been through some of the situations at some point or the other in their lives.
Crush on a boy/girl in class who doesn’t know you existIJ Check.
Can’t get along with mom or siblings but have at least one good friend who knows everything about youIJ Check.
Constantly hungry, love food and don’t care if you can’t fit into your jeansIJ (For the moment at least) Check.
Being young is a universal experience and although we’re eager to move on to adulthood (how little we knew), no one forgets what it was like being a teen and not in control of your life, most of the time. For the actual young adult audience, there’s a sense of understanding that others too have gone through this and they’ve emerged stronger, so why not meIJ Beyond that, I’m not really sure because as a writer, my intention is to tell a good story.
Personally, I find the genre appealing and although I haven’t read as many as I’d like to, or as I should have, I do remember Ann Brashare’s The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants as an eyeopener for me, both as a reader and as a writer. (Side note: I made my son read it when he was 14 and he was disgusted that the girls were taking turns to wear the same pants. That was his sole takeaway from the book.)
For me, writing YA fiction is fun and I look forward to the actual writing with a great deal of anticipation. My Brother’s Wedding (Rupa, 2013) was all about capturing the chaos during a family wedding with a side dose of drama and romance, The Tamanna Trilogy (Bloomsbury, 2014) was a time traveling romance+fantasy (notice me trying to tick as many genres as possible) but there are also books where the themes are not light and frothy as the case was in When She Went Away (Duckbill, 2015). This was an interesting book to write, from the point of view of a young girl who’s mother abandoned her and her family and disappeared without any reason. But writing Asmara’s Summer (Penguin, 2016) was probably the most fun experience of all.
Asmara is nothing like me and that made getting into her head all the more challenging. We’re in fact polar opposites but the truth is that she’s everything I’d have love to have been at that age. An interesting observation that I’ve made is that readers who know me personally tend to see me as the main protagonist of any book I write and I find that supremely funny. I wish I were half as cool as some of them. Also, I’ve been asked numerous times if any of these stories were based on my life and I think err...no, especially when someone asked me on Twitter if The Tamanna Trilogy (which is time travel with a capital T) was based on my own life. I didn’t know what to say.
Anyway, being 17 was intense and all consuming, tough, and confusing but I remember it like it was yesterday. Science or artsIJ Why on earth would you choose artsIJ Because you like literatureIJ Anyway, what does it matter what you studyIJ You’re going to be taking care of a house and kids anyway.
Some of the things I heard back then from ‘well-meaning people’ were so imprinted in my mind that without having any real ambition in life, all I wanted was to prove them wrong.
Asmara is spunky, confident, self-assured and is just so sorted about her life, although she’s far from being perfect, thankfully. But writing about her, her life, her choices helped me understand so much more about myself. Nobody gets to go back to when they were 17 and do over their life, but being a young adult writer is the closest I can get to that, without having to time travel.
Asmara’s Summer by Andaleeb Wajid published by Penguin, Rs199