(Part 3) Best products from r/YAwriters

Adult Dystopian Recommendations:

• Oryx and Crake – Jimmy/Snowman coasts through life fueled mainly by ennui. His only rebellion is to be mediocre when his advantages in society (white, upper (maybe middle) class, Western male) have him poised for success. Glenn/Crake deliberately turns himself into the Big Bad in order to correct the wrongs he sees in society. Whether his main issue is with human nature, sucking the planet dry, socially stratified capitalist society, willful ignorance, or insatiety and curiosity is unclear. Oryx sees it all and accepts them all, knowing that she’s too unimportant to do anything except pick up the pieces and provide comfort in the meantime.
  
  
• The Year of the Flood – The world and especially capitalist society is stacked against you, but resourcefulness and an open mind will serve you well.
  
  
• The Handmaid’s Tale – Quiet rebellions like memory and record-keeping can be subversive also. But it’s only actions that set the stage for change. And the people you (maybe?) save will interpret everything differently from your intentions anyways.
  
  
• Never Let Me Go – Is it truly a dystopia when only a small group is affected? If you’re thinking of reading this, do not under any circumstances watch the movie trailer. The slow build to “something is not quite right” is part of the charm.
  
  
• Into the Forest – Literary fiction. More about acceptance and regression to a [“natural”](#s "and feminist, which apparently means incestuous but Deep! and Thematically! incestuous") state.
  
  
• Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress – Historical fiction about Chinese reeducation camps, but still pretty dystopian. Bourgeois teenage boy questions his educated, upper-class roots and teaches peasant love interest about Western literature. [She](#s "abandons him for a capitalist dream because the lesson she took from it was that love was worthless. Basically, they both take away the worst parts of each other’s starting philosophies and smash them together.")
  
  
• Wild Ginger – If historical fiction is happening, why not another Cultural Revolution one? If you keep your head down, you might just survive long enough to grow up and really see the hypocrisy – stuff even greater than what you saw as a kid.
  
  
• 1984 – Isn’t this more about how the system will break you and leave you a husk of your former self if you trust anyone completely? So you should be smart and skeptical and never assume things are in your best interest just because someone’s telling you so.
  
  
• Brave New World – Have to admit, at 12 this had me thinking that maybe fascism wasn’t such a bad idea after all. The despair and existential crisis aspects weren’t hitting me then: I just noticed how happy almost everyone else was.
  
  
• The Road – All about bleakness and futility and carrying on because the hope of family’s the only good thing left?
  
  
• Fahrenheit 451, where the people in charge are corrupt specifically concerning that thing you're fighting against.
  
  
• World War Z – I’m almost hesitant to call this dystopian, because even though it’s about a freaking zombie apocalypse, it’s uplifting to hear all the stories of human resourcefulness and ingenuity and the mental strength you didn’t think was there. Of course, some of the stories covered are “logical responses” gone bad.
  
  YA-ish Dystopian Recommendations:
  
  
• Feed – It doesn’t work out for the only [person](#s "(Violet)") who truly fought the system (she’s beaten down so horribly that it’s heartbreaking that even the reader wants to look away), but she does technically inspire one other person to at least notice what’s going on in the world, even if it’s probably too late.
  
  
• Hunger Games – Katniss is really only involved because she has nowhere else to go. Side characters have real motivations for being involved, but she really is a figurehead along for the ride and that’s OK. The story is about that and how she copes.
  
  
• The Selection – cough Popcorn cough. America is highly motivated by money (For her struggling family, of course). Ignoring the love triangle stuff, her ideal is to move from serfdom to literally any other [political system.](#s "And this never happens. The political buildup you see in The Selection and The Elite is stomped all over in the vapid cheesecake of the love hexagon finale.")
  
  
• Incarceron & Sapphique – Finn’s rebellion is that he just wants out to someplace that must be better. Claudia lives in artificial luxury and rebels mostly just for personal rebellion, not anyone else’s sake.
  
  
• The Giver – Probably more MG, but how did running away from one collective society automatically become “capitalism is best?” Jonah runs away because he’s learned enough to make his own moral decisions about one of the helpless members of his society (and artificial protection sounds socialist to me). I can’t remember reading the sequels.
  
  
• The Book Thief – Again, MG and historical fiction about a bombed out German town in WWII, but I think a setting like that qualifies it as dystopian. Technically, Liesl fights the system by stealing (possibly forbidden) books from the wealthy and by not reporting the Jew in the basement, but that last one is just showing loyalty to her new family. Her entire upbringing predisposed her to not trust the System, especially a War System, anyways.
  
  Other Dystopias:
  
  
• Matched and Delirium will be considered together because they are the same damn book, right down to the Boy-Who-Could-Have-Been-Chosen-If-Not-For-Rebellion! and the protagonist’s government-approved hobby. Delirium has better writing. Matched is easier to read and has more likable characters. We get it, teenagers should be allowed to date who they like and mommy and daddy non-biological guardians shouldn’t say no. Also, it sucks to have a guidance counselor Make A Schedule for you in order to prepare you for an office job equivalent that’s full of busywork but one of the few respectable positions left. The horror! Seriously, in what world is that rebelling against socialism? You know, that thing that promotes trade schools and equal rights for everyone, even the people you don’t personally like?
  
  
• Divergent – I’m going to let someone else handle that one because urgh. I know a lot of people like it, and it’s YA, so someone else, please support, qualify, or refute.
  
  I’d also be curious to hear what /u/bethrevis has to say about the societies on Godspeed and elsewhere and where they fit into this opinion piece.
  
  Guys, I think I just wrote an English essay. And probably put more work into it than I did in high school. And I won’t even get an A because it’s the internet and we deal solely in lolcats.
  
  But tl;dr: Adult dystopias (that I’ve read) tend to be about the futility of existence or the necessity of self-sacrifice to get a result. The YA dystopias I liked were a little more hopeful (usually) and didn’t support this opinion piece’s thesis. The ones I didn’t like made me understand the hate for dystopias.

Wow! Four eighth grade girls crowding around a single chair to read “Salt to the Sea?” You’ve made my day. And thank you for your questions! Answers:

• I think fiction as a medium for learning about history can be extremely helpful but it’s essential that source material and the real stories be studied as well. After all, historical fiction sits on the shoulders of nonfiction, academic writing, history books, journals, memoir, etc. I love when students become historical investigators and set out to dig up the truth.

• Other WWII historical fiction novels I would recommend are “All the Light We Cannot See,” by Anthony Doerr, “Skeletons at the Feast,” by Chris Bohjalian, and Elizabeth Wein’s novels. An older book, “The Endless Steppe: Growing Up in Siberia” by Esther Hautzig is wonderful too:
https://www.amazon.com/Endless-Steppe-Growing-Up-Siberia/dp/006440577X/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1466460906&sr=1-1

• In terms of grants or fellowships, National Endowment for the Arts has some large grants available https://www.arts.gov/grants-individuals/creative-writing-fellowships
On a state level, I’ve known of historical authors who have received state grants through the Arts Commission or Humanities office.

Hope this is helpful and thanks for your questions!

I am an artist, primarily for landscapes. I painted my own map for my book, but for the cover I hired an artist who I really admired. I think that hiring artists, and particularly choosing a good artist, is key to getting the best cover possible.

There are ranges of artists, from terrible to master. Pricing also goes from underpaid to overpaid. I would break the price ranges for good quality artwork in the following categories it the prices written:

• Stock-images: $20 - $50
  
  
• Sketchy painting: $50 - $150
  
  
• Clean painting: $150 - $400
  
  
• Full cover: $200 - $500+
  
  
  Stock-images are cheap to make, use photos, and are very common in YA covers. Paintings are less common, but in my opinion are far more appealing.
  
  Consider how much you expect to make in the first year. Now halve that, since we often overestimate our sales by at least half, from my research and experience. Do not spend more for your cover than you will make in first-year profits, in my opinion, unless you have the money.
  
  Next, do not just slap the title on there. I did my own graphic design since I have a bachelor's in that. The text was carefully placed, sized, and formatted. I also paid for the typeface (font), since that is legally required for commercial enterprises. Cost me $50 from memory, and I can use it for everything now.
  
  Don't insult artists by asking them to work for free/very little. Offer them a decent price for decent work. The prices above are quite decent, some artists will ask more or less, depending on their skill level.
  
  Lastly, if you need recommendations for artists, or want my feedback on an artist's portfolio, reply to this comment and I'll get back to you asap. Hope this helps!

Happy weekend!!!

I'm finally over the jetlag from NY and the UK, but no rest for the wicked because my current WIP is sitting at 70,000 words and I promised my agent I would get it to her by Xmas!

In other news, my daughter has graduated year 12 and has accepted a University place to study for a degree in stage and film acting. We're so proud of her because she auditioned for six theatre degrees and received offers from five!

And in other other news, my publisher is being mega generous to celebrate the Kirkus Best Book news and is giving away the ebook of THE DEVIL'S INTERN for free for the next few days. I don't have the Nook link, but the Kindle link is here:

http://www.amazon.com/Devils-Intern-Donna-Hosie-ebook/dp/B00MQ7LIJM/ref=la_B00A49AN7M_1_1_title_1_kin?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1418384661&sr=1-1

Go bag yourselves a freebie. The ironic thing is it's only for the U.S., which means I can't download my own book!!!

Now back to watching my Harry Potter movies marathon and eating Ferrero Rochers - hey, it is Xmas.