T.K. Arispe and the Overused Middle-Grade Fantasy Cliches

I’m not really sure what got me on this subject. Maybe I’ve just randomly been thinking about the middle-grade books of my youth. Maybe it’s stemmed from seeing what my niece has been reading these days.

Regardless, lately I’ve been pondering the weird world of middle-grade fantasy fiction and thinking about what ultimately turned me off the whole thing when I was a kid, and what I’ve been trying to do differently in my writing which is why publishers don’t like me (which is fine).

This essay is one part rant, one part literary analysis, one part a deep-dive retrospective on Harry Potter. I dunno. Personal blogs are for odd stuff like this.

 

First off, I want to talk about how annoyed I am that so much middle-grade fantasy is so thematically similar. Sometimes thematically almost identical. This is why I quit reading most fantasy fiction—because it was all starting to sound the same. I got really tired of going into a bookstore and seeing row after row of “disadvantaged tween protagonist, usually a white male, usually missing one or both of his parents, discovers a magical world he never knew existed, full of quirky supporting characters and threatening baddies, where he ends up cultivating special powers and playing a pivotal role in defeating an evil that threatens to destroy everything”. Even the titles tend to be painfully similar (hence the title of this blog post)

(I should mention here that I have nothing in the slightest against white males. But as a girl, and a Latina, I could never connect with any of these protagonists. It got old fast watching boys with the same ethnic background have all the fun.)

That sort of plotline was great for Harry Potter. But when everybody else started copying Harry Potter, it wasn’t as great. Ever since I was young, I’ve despised copycat creativity. I have little patience for unoriginality. And I really didn’t want to spend my free time reading what I knew would basically amount to the same story I’d heard before, just with different names for the characters. It had nothing to offer me. I knew the main character would gain a gang of oddball friends and get into crazy fantasy hijinks. I knew something heartwrenching would happen to to the likeable old mentor figure. I knew there’d be a big last battle against the bad guy. I knew there’d be a forced and unrealistic romantic subplot between the protagonist and his main girl buddy. And I knew I’d have to sit through it for at least six thick books. So I decided to save myself the trouble.

A big part of the problem, I think, is that big-name publishers are all about pushing trends and putting out more of what they know will sell. They can talk a big game all they want about bringing you the highest-quality titles, but what they’re really looking for is stuff that they know will make them money. That’s why the middle-grade fiction market exploded with fantasy after Harry Potter took off. That’s why after Hunger Games, suddenly you saw nothing but grim dystopian drama on the shelves of the YA section.

Certain books start trends that publishers are all too happy to milk for as long as they can, because the big publishers don’t actually care all that much about promoting originality and giving space to diverse voices who might have new stories to tell. They just want money, and they’ll latch on to any manuscript that comes their way that fits what’s trending and isn’t a total mess.

Yes, middle-grade publishers will occasionally put out titles that are distinctive and different. But I’ve noticed they don’t do very much to promote interest in these titles. It’s like “they’re there, BUT ACTUALLY LOOK OVER HERE AT OUR LATEST BEST-SELLING COPYCAT!” It’s really obvious that they know where the money is.

That’s why I don’t work with publishers. That’s why I self-publish. Yeah, it’s cringey and there’s a huge stigma against it and I usually can’t actually get people to read my work. But I have full creative freedom. The last thing I want to hear from a publisher is “this manuscript has potential, but we think it would sell better if the main character was a boy” or some such nonsense. I’m not pandering to them. Art is not a business. It’s a service to humanity.

I suppose one could make the argument that the reason the standard middle-grade fantasy plot has been so successful is because it resonates with some of the deepest desires of its target audience (and most of humanity, really). We all want to feel special and needed. We all want friends who love us for who we are and always have our back. We all want to feel like we have the strength to overcome our personal battles.

But really, I see this as a good bit of psychological manipulation by publishers. They know the minds of tweens. They know what will tug at the kids’ heartstrings. And they deliver that wish fulfillment in as straightforward a manner as they can manage: by churning out one knockoff after another. No need for innovation or uniqueness here—most middle-grade fantasy doesn’t really try to do much besides push all the right emotional buttons for preteens.

Special snowflake protagonist miraculously elevated from his humdrum life? Check. Fantastical adventures crammed with drama and suspense that keep the pages turning and keep you counting down the days until the next book release? Check. Totally awkward romance between characters who are way too young to have a responsible relationship? Double check. (I’m an old fuddy-duddy who honestly thinks people should not even be dating until they’re in college. Teens, you may balk at this, but you’ll thank me later.)

Because, guess what? There are so many other types of plotlines that can relay those same messages in new and interesting ways, and are therefore much more intellectually engaging. In my novel Ravenscrag (which maybe someday I’ll publish if anybody’s interested), I made a point of trying to turn every fantasy cliché ever on its head. The giant spiders and monstrous rats are super nice and friendly. The dark lord is kind and benevolent. The damsel is not in distress. The heroic quest could end up destroying the world. How fun is that?!

Despite all this subversion, the messages I’m trying to get across with Ravenscrag aren’t much different from the bestselling stuff. They’re messages about how your needs matter; about the importance of true friends who have your best interests at heart; and about how growing up means learning to take responsibility for solving your own problems. I merely dressed them up in what I feel are much more interesting trappings than usual.

The big-name publishers just aren’t trying hard enough, is the issue. They’re content to rest on the piles of money they earn from their copycats, because at the end of the day, they’re a business and their main goal is to make money. That goal leaves very little room for risk-taking, which leads to shelves full of very similar plotlines.

Another thing I wanted to complain about is unnecessary book series. I’ve read a lot of fantasy series that simply didn’t need to be as long as they were. They were full of irrelevant and unnecessary side plots, characters that added nothing to the narrative except page count, and irritating diversions from the characters’ main quest. A lot of these series just have the feel like the entire plotline could have been over and done with in two books at maximum, but the author felt the need to see how long they could drag everything out, resulting in readers having to slog through several chapters of uninteresting material before the next major plot point.

And unfortunately, the reason why this happens is because book series are The Thing to Do Nowadays, regardless of how well it works for the actual plotline. Publishers aren’t dumb—they know if there are more books in a series, they can sell more books. They take full advantage of the tactic of getting the reader emotionally invested with an attention-grabbing first book so they’ll feel obligated to purchase the rest of the series and see how the story turns out. That’s manipulation at its finest.

In fact, in reading tips for indie authors, I’ve seen advice that says you should a) write a book series and b) make the first book available for free so people are more willing to read it, then they’ll get hooked and impulse-buy the rest— Whoa, whoa, whoa. That’s super shady. I am not into trying to figure out how to trick people into giving me more of their money. I want people to buy my books because they actually enjoy my writing, not because I’m manipulating them into doing so.

Plus, writing a series just so you can say you wrote a series is a serious disservice to the creative integrity of your story. Why would you take your original creative vision and distort it into something of lesser quality to fit a trend and try to squeeze more money out of it? I would much, much rather write a single well-paced novel that’s a riveting read all the way through than a painfully protracted series that ultimately doesn’t have much to its name except an impressive book count.

Sadly, the situation is probably worse when it comes to working with publishing houses. Series sell so well that publishers basically expect authors to write series for them. They negotiate contracts with authors that they’ll publish the author’s work if the author gives them a series of a certain number of books. So authors are pressured into stretching out their stories to please the publisher, and it shows in the finished work. I feel bad for authors who do this. Writing one novel is hard enough work. It must be downright exhausting to constantly scramble for ideas to fill the pages of five or six novels in between actual plot points.

I’m definitely not saying you should never write a series, though. If you actually have enough interesting material for a series, go for it. I just can’t stand ill-advised forced series that really would have worked better as single standalone books. And I totally understand if an author creates a world and characters that they enjoy writing and readers enjoy reading, but instead of pressuring yourself to spit out one novel after another, why not write one story at a time as inspiration for new adventures in your fictional universe strikes? I always find those sorts of series much more fulfilling than when the author is obviously under pressure to turn a single plot idea into a multi-volume magnum-opus epic. (I do this with my Neopets fanfic; I never set out to write a bunch of novel-length fics about my cast, but one idea just led to another over the years and now here we are.)

Another thing that bothers me is when middle-grade authors feel the need to “age up” a series as it progresses, because the readers who started the series when they were middle-grade age inevitably grow into the young adult demographic, and/or because the author chooses to make the characters themselves age and thus their personalities, relationships, and challenges mature along with them. This was most notably done by the Harry Potter books, which started as middle-grade but then transitioned to young adult.

J.K. Rowling is a wonderful woman and a great writer, don’t get me wrong, but in my opinion I really don’t think she should have done this. On paper it seems to make sense. But the main issue is that the audience who read the first book when it first came out are not the only people who will ever read the series. And while that initial audience had a year or two to “grow into” the next book in the series while it was being written, no other generation of readers will ever experience the series like that. Any kid can pick up and read all seven books nowadays, and I guarantee you bookworm kids are not going to just read a single Harry Potter book a year.

My niece is 11, and she loves Harry Potter, and I think the first few books are fine for her, but stuff gets really dark and intense in the final books and I feel like that’s a bit much for her. There’s a huge disparity in tone between Philosopher’s Stone and Deathly Hallows, to the point where the earlier books and the later books don’t even feel like part of the same series.

Not only is this a problem for kids who start reading what they think is going to be a middle-grade series and then find it drastically shifts in tone partway through, but I feel it’s a problem for anybody of any age who wants certain things from their fantasy fiction and finds the Harry Potter series torn between being a whimsical school-days jaunt and a grim clash between good and evil.

I honestly had this issue when the books were coming out. I absolutely loved the first three books. I was a full Potter nerd. I kept waiting for my letter from Hogwarts. But then Goblet of Fire came out, and Cedric Diggory died (whoops, spoilers), and… that just ruined the whole thing for me. Goblet of Fire didn’t feel like the first three books. It was trying to be a lot heavier, more serious, and also showed that Rowling was not going to pull any punches. And I didn’t want that. I’m not a fan of fiction that adds more stress to my life. So I stepped away from the franchise, and I’m glad I did, because by the end of Deathly Hallows, like half the cast is dead, including some of my favorite characters. Boo.

(I really dislike when fantasy authors kill off a lot of characters. Sure it’s probably “realistic”, but one could argue that having beloved characters survive is part of the fantasy. I believe everybody needs books that help them feel like things are going to turn out okay, and often, when you’re going through a rough patch, you need to escape to a world where things don’t seem as bad as what you’re currently dealing with.)

So, I guess what I’m trying to say is, authors, maybe don’t do this. If you start a series as middle-grade, try to keep it middle-grade. The tweens who read the first book when it was new are still going to love the characters when they’re in high school, and you’ll also be doing a huge service to the millions of other kids moving forward who are going to read the entire series at once.

Speaking of Harry Potter, I kinda wanted to talk a little about that series in particular, because when the books were coming out, I and everybody else of my generation thought they were just like, the most amazing thing ever. And they’re not bad books. But as a grizzled old adult, now I can see some elements of the narrative that I feel could have been handled better.

My biggest overarching complaint is that Harry himself doesn’t have a lot of personality. The reader isn’t rooting for him because he has character-specific challenges to overcome or lovable quirks that make reading about him interesting just because of who he is as a person. He’s very much an “everykid” who mostly exists as the eyes through which the reader sees the Wizarding World.

Like Harry, the reader comes from a non-magical background, and Harry’s wonder and excitement at discovering and learning about the magic world he really belongs to is just an echo of the reader’s own excitement. Harry’s dislike of Snape mirrors the reader’s own inevitable dislike of Snape. His struggles with various school subjects, contrasted with his natural ability for Quidditch, and his interactions with his friends and bullies are evocative of the reader’s own school experiences.

But through all this, Harry doesn’t really change much himself. He grows more capable as a wizard, sure, but by the end of Deathly Hallows, he hasn’t achieved any personal triumphs. He hasn’t overcome any personal challenges. He’s just defeated Voldemort, which is what every sane witch and wizard also wanted.

And that lack of character development kind of bothered me about him. Harry just always felt there to be the main character and not much else. He was there to have things happen to him simply because he was the Special Snowflake Who Lived. He was the catalyst for all the action in the books, and so you’d think he’d have more of a psychologically complex reaction to everything going on—if not as a clueless 11-year-old, then at least as a 17-year-old who’s seen some things.

I think it’s also very telling that in the fan community, despite his very name being a flagship of the franchise and the book title that started it all, Harry Potter himself doesn’t really get a whole lot of fan love. There are a ton of Hermione Granger fans (well-deserved), a ton of Draco Malfoy fans (not as well-deserved), and just about everyone in the fandom loves the Wizarding World because it’s a well-developed and fascinating universe. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody gush about Harry himself (aside from girls thinking Daniel Radcliffe is cute). And to me, that’s kind of a problem for a main-est main character. I like my main characters much more interesting and dynamic than Harry turned out to be.

I think what would have really made Harry more likeable as a character was if his interpersonal challenges had been satisfactorily resolved and given some closure. Harry only realizes Snape is a good guy right before Snape dies and they never get the opportunity to properly reconcile after years of contention.

Harry’s dysfunctional relationship with the Dursleys had some really good potential to evolve as Harry grew from simply being a foster child sleeping in a closet to someone with more power than his small-minded relatives, and after everything the Dursleys put him through, I really wanted to see Harry finally assert himself with them and get them to respect him and his parents. Instead, they just sort of fade out of the narrative entirely and Harry’s dynamic with them hasn’t changed a bit.

And Harry’s rivalry with Draco had fascinating potential, but again, that fizzled when Draco just retreated from the drama. I feel like you can’t just build up all this animosity between two major characters throughout six and a half books, and then have it ultimately not amount to anything for either of them. Draco’s character is interesting—he has so much pressure put on him by his father that it affects how he views everyone else, and his petty meanness and single-minded ambition blind him to the true horror of what the Death Eaters are doing until it’s too late and he’s trapped in their campaign of destruction.

This would have been a fantastic opportunity for Harry and Draco to have a proper chat, for Draco to fully own up to the error of his ways and acknowledge the deep hurt that he was trying to fix by attempting to feel superior to everyone else. I think it would have been a great teaching moment for kids who are struggling with bullying problems in real life, to help them understand that bullies act the way they do because they’re hurting and they have issues at home, and they need help. Instead, the plot of Deathly Hallows is just too focused on “gotta find all the Horcruxes” to give characters proper closure.

That was a big problem I had with the series in general—the characters felt awfully static. Rowling is great at creating quirky, memorable characters, but over the course of seven years they don’t move an awful lot from a development standpoint. The kids get better at magic and that’s nearly about it. Instances of characters actually overcoming a personal challenge and changing are few and far between—Lupin’s self-acceptance, for example, or Dobby’s realization that house-elves are mistreated. But for the most part, the characters are just about the same at the end of Deathly Hallows as they were when they were introduced, because they never had anything fundamental to grow and learn from. They’re good at filling their roles in the narrative, but they’re so static that they often don’t feel like living people with whom one can really sympathize and empathize with.

Finally, I intensely disliked the two main romantic relationships in the plot—Harry/Ginny and Hermione/Ron. I felt like both were totally unnecessary and difficult to believe.

I find Ginny Weasley to be a frankly uninteresting character. All she really has to her personality is “feisty youngest child in a big family” and there’s never much more to her than that. I am not convinced that she and Harry make a good couple; they never really connect over anything, their personalities are never shown complementing each other well, and they don’t seem interested in going out of their way to put effort into the relationship. All it boils down to is Harry saving Ginny multiple times and Ginny aggressively calling him out on stuff. Which, contrary to what 1940’s adventure films would have you believe, is not really the best basis for a fulfilling relationship.

The entire Harry/Ginny thing feels like it exists solely so that Harry and Ron can become brothers-in-law, which is a nice sentiment, but you definitely should not marry somebody solely because her brother is your best friend. You can keep being BFFs without being related by marriage. I honestly really liked the idea of Harry with Cho Chang—I felt like her levelheaded personality complemented Harry’s insecurities much better than Ginny just yelling at him all the time. But no, of course Harry had to break up with Cho because she’s an insignificant minor character. And she isn’t even a Gryffindor (scandalous gasp).

And Hermione/Ron really bothered me. I like Hermione. She speaks to me and every other brainy girl who wants to feel like their intellect can make a difference. But I can also tell you that smart women like smart men. They crave a significant other who is on their level intellectually, with whom they can have deep conversations and whose ideal date involves learning something new together. And Ron Weasley… is not that.

Plus, their relationship seems to be based more on bickering and jealousy than actual affection and admiration for each other. It’s an extremely immature type of relationship that seems to have come about not because the two actually love each other, but because they’ve just gotten so used to being around each other that they figured they might as well make it permanent. Which, again, is not a sound basis for a marriage.

It drives me crazy when middle-age/YA fiction portrays relationships like this, because it gives kids really unrealistic expectations for when they start dating. Either write relationships right, or don’t write them at all. Your main audience is incredibly impressionable about this kind of thing and you have to be super careful with what is an extremely important and serious subject.

I honestly would have preferred Hermione and Ron stay single for the duration of the plot. Their relationship did nothing for them or for the narrative, and I really didn’t think that whole “here’s what everybody’s family looks like in the future” epilogue was necessary. It’s okay to leave characters’ futures open to reader speculation. Especially because if you do anything definitive with them, you’re bound to upset some fans even if it pleases others.

I feel like the Harry Potter books, though ostensibly about a fun magic school and a resistance against the forces of evil, actually have a more interesting subtextual commentary about ineffective and corrupt government (as embodied by the bureaucracy-entangled Ministry of Magic who utterly fail to do anything about the Death Eaters) and cultural norms promoting social hierarchy and discrimination (wizards and witches, once an ostracized group themselves, have ironically formed their own society in which many of them view themselves as superior to Muggles and non-human creatures). I kind of feel like exploring those ideas in greater depth may have been more interesting than simply watching Harry and co. run around Hogwarts getting into trouble all the time.

Again, though, like the characters themselves, these important issues are never really resolved in the narrative. Deathly Hallows basically ends with “yep, the Ministry of Magic is useless and some wizards are discriminatory, the end”. It’s as if the whole background struggle encompassing all of magical society was not brought to a close with Voldemort’s death. The Wizarding World has to face and address these fundamental societal flaws, or else people like the Death Eaters are going to keep cropping up. I would much rather the epilogue have focused on things like a total rehaul of the MoM and house-elves being granted civil rights than knowing how many kids everybody had and what their names were. This misplaced attention is something that I feel undermines the last books in the series—it’s as if Rowling knew she had to wrap things up, but decided to wrap up the things that didn’t actually matter at the cost of the things that did. It may have satisfied a certain segment of fans, but it didn’t satisfy me and I don’t think I’m alone in that.

Anyway. Just some thoughts. Some very geeky thoughts. If you actually made it to the end of this, I will bake you cookies.