Hello and welcome to the blog. Today we
have a guest post by the talented Shawna Romkey as she stops by to promote her
release, Speak of the Devil!
Alright, Shawna, I’ll let you take it from
here!
Some want to make it edgy or daring. And to
be honest in my first draft of Speak of the Devil, I had swear words that
started with every letter of the alphabet. I wanted to write Twilight with some
sizzle, but the more I thought about it, the more I edited out my profanities.
Why? Young adult is for young adults. It’s not as though they can’t go into any
store that sells books and pick up Fifty Shades of Gray, uncensored, no
identification required and read graphic sex if they wanted to. They can. If
that’s what they want, they can get it without their parents’ permission and
without question. Or they can go onto the Internet and find all the sex images,
words and videos they want.
I keep it out because I think young adult
girls are already bombarded with sex as it is. Music videos, magazine ads, TV
shows… it’s difficult to watch a situation comedy that isn’t talking about sex
repeatedly. I love the Big Bang Theory, but at its premise it is a story about
whether geeks can get laid. Love is only sometimes part of that equation. Is
sex really the end-all be-all of life? I don’t think so, but I think our young
adults get the message that it is.
Maybe I’m a prude, but when I watch The
Vampire Diaries, I’m thinking, these girls are iN high school and they’re
drinking wine right out of the bottle at their slumber party? They’ve had sex
repeatedly with multiple partners. They’ve grown up too fast, and some of them
have had to after their parents have died, but is it a situation to be
glorified? Shouldn’t it be one to be mourned?
Sure, I swore in high school. I had sex in
high school. I drank in high school, but not on a constant, regular basis. Did
I want to do all of those things if it got right down to it? Not really. Did I
feel like I had to because that’s all anyone talked about? Pretty much. And
back in the 80’s when I was in high school, the sexual pollution was
significantly lower than it is today. That was before the Interwebs. That was
before media regulation was thrown out.
So I think maybe, just maybe, teens need a
break from all of the bumping and grinding and drinking and drugging. Maybe
they need a safe place where they don’t have to worry about sexual
relationships and growing up too fast. Maybe, just maybe, they need a place to
escape where they can just be who they want to be and not who everyone tells
them they should be. They need a Hogwarts. They need a Forks. Adding in sex and swearing to be edgy and
bold, isn’t edgy and bold at all. Everyone is doing it now. Just turn on the TV
and watch a YA show. Save the edgy and daring for the NA genre and for the
adult genre.
Give the YA a place to be YA.
Wow, thanks for the post, Shawna. I must say that I
think I agree. I love a good romance, but I don’t think you need sex, drugs and
alcohol to write a good YA novel. I think there is a time and place, some plots
need these, but throwing it in for the sake of throwing it in doesn’t work for
me. Then again, that’s just my opinion J
Now, here’s a little bit more info on Speak
of the Devil.
What happens when falling in love and
falling from grace collide?
25 March 2013 at 07:14
Great post, Shawna, thank you for that.
One thing I will add is we talk a lot about the influence of media on girls, but we should also be thinking about the messages we're sending to boys as well. Because it's not much better.
25 March 2013 at 16:13
True, Jeff.
Thanks for having me today Avery. Did you hide your Easter egg?