Why don't YA characters ever go to class?
You know how you read those 'pet peeve' lists? The ones that list all the typical tropes of YA that readers hate and yet never stop reading? I'm super guilty of this myself with all genres - "Why does x happen all the time in these books? It's so unrealistic and done to death." Then it doesn't happen and I'm annoyed and disappointed...
Anyway, one of those things is usually the fact that YA characters never seem to go to class and no one seems to know why or be concerned by that fact. Well, I think I've just cracked it! As @broodingYAhero points out (and if you don't follow him on Twitter, you really should because he's hilarious) in his marvellously funny book, YA authors totally aren't around their thirties and therefore (my supposition) have complete knowledge about the current school system and subjects. And, who am I trying to convince? :D
Now, Keeping Up Appearances has a lot of school scenes - I realised I'd used too many 'they live next door' tropes recently (total accident it happened so many times, actually, and I'm a little embarrassed) so Xander and Holly need to do most of their interacting at school. And, I'm trying not to do the 'and that was History' in the exposition too often. But, what do I know about 2018 Year 12 History? I can try to hope that some made-up school in my brain can be studying the same things I did something like 10 years ago, but overall it's just easier to skip the teaching in class scenes and hope no one minds.
Or, I could totally find a 2018 Year 12 History syllabus and drone on for pages? Quite frankly, I could do with the word count booster :P although, that would just add more words that I need to write to get it finished.
So, my explanation based on me is thus: YA characters don't go to class because the authors don't want to prove just how little they know about school these days and don't want to seem outdated (more outdate?). Also, with so many other things to write about, school seems an unnecessarily boring addition to the story.
Anyway, that was today's eureka moment while I was trying to work out why Xander and Holly aren't working as well as they ought to be at the moment. And, I just thought you might all like to know.
Read, write, and live well,
x iz
