YA Romance Guidelines (coming in October, along with a complete site redesign and appropriate new sub-domains and marketing for all lines):
1. YA Romance stories all involve primary characters between the ages of 16-21.
2. YA Romance stories explore all facets of a young adult's life -- including those some adults/parents might find a bit uncomfortable to examine. KEEP IT REAL.
3. YA Romance stories must address the consequences -- or potential consequences -- of behavior and choices in a realistic manner. DON'T SUGAR-COAT THE TRUTH, BUT DON'T PREACH, EITHER.
4. YA Romance stories can address any topic (sub-plot to the romance or as part of the romantic thread) a young adult might encounter in their life, including but not limited to, sexual orientation, sexual experimentation, sexually transmitted diseases, pregnancy, drugs, drinking, peer pressure, school, gangs, etc. If you touch on any of these subjects, do not glamorize the consequences or the reality. Alternatively, again, do not "preach."
5. YA Romance stories . . . let's talk sex. The question is not how much sex/level of explicitness is appropriate for a YA novel, but rather, how much sex is appropriate for your story and your characters. Our instructions for this are the same as they are for every NRP story: Be true to yourself. Be true to your characters. These stories aren't about you (necessarily), or what you would want your son/daughter to do. They are about your characters -- their choices, their thoughts, their desires, their actions. The sexual content - the action, the language, the reactions - should all accurately and adequately and believably reflect your fully fleshed out characters. *The only caveat to this is no sexual relations between adults and minors.
6. YA Romance authors know their audience. They don't use language young adults wouldn't use, they don't "talk down" to their young adult readers, and they have an intimate knowledge of what it's like to be a young adult in today's world.
7. All sub-genres and genre mixes.
8. All story lengths - shorts, novellas, novels.
Standard submission guidelines (below) still apply.
More information here.
This blog is no longer updated. Please instead visit Writers For Diversity for new opportunities for women/ LGBT writers and writers of color. Thank you.
