Monday 15 October 2012

New in YA: Mashups?

I recently read this great article  in Publishers Weekly, on Mashups being new in YA. It says that having something that sells on multiple angles works very well. They give the example of Sci Fi with romantic tension, and historical meets paranormal.

Are you writing something with multiple angles?

What genres would you love to mashup? Or what elements? (Cyborgs meet Zombies? Time Travel meets Aliens?) 

I am also aware that the new TV show 'Wizards vs. Aliens' by Russell T. Davies is out too, which is a great mashup.

Personally I love superheroes or time travel with anything. Dystopian would work well mixed with historical, or time travel or something different. Steampunk meets romance?

Any suggestions?

9 comments:

  1. Dystopian meets straight-up fantasy. Man, can you imagine how hard it would be to create a post-apocalyptic world when there's no established baseline of how the world originally was?

    ReplyDelete
  2. love mashups! keeps ideas new & fresh!

    my current wip is dystopian fantasy...ha!

    ReplyDelete
  3. My current WiP is science fiction/romance, so I guess that works. I wanted to write sci-fi for people who might not really be into sci-fi because they think it's too science-y or tech-y. This is something that I think we're seeing more and more of. If "everything's been done before", why not turn those things on their head by doing mashups! :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. It's always challenging to come up with something new so maybe this is the answer. I guess historical/dystopian wouldn't work though! lol

    ReplyDelete
  5. I guess I haven't been mashing much lately.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Tobi - gosh crikey yes. Nothing to riff off. Sounds very interesting tho!

    Tara - sounds great!! ;)

    Jaime - definitely fits into the sci fi /romance mash up they mention. I agree, it it's 'been done' why not combine elements. As you say a romance element definitely helps people who wouldn't normally be into it.

    Suzanne - historical/dystopian, I guess one could do a 'dystopian' world based on a historic event turning out differently - like Fatherland by Robert Harris being if Hitler had won WW2...??? Just thinking out loud. Interesting point!

    Alex - ha ha. Only potatoes?!

    Thanks all for commenting!

    ReplyDelete
  7. I love romance in anything and everything, so to me romance is always mashed up with whatever else I'm writing. But I guess I could do a triple Mash up, like the aliens and wizards thing... with romance. lol. Great ideas here :)

    ReplyDelete
  8. J.A. - aliens, wizards and romance ? I'm sold!

    ReplyDelete
  9. I agree with JA - I'm such a sucker for YA romance. Mash that up with anything and I'm hooked!

    ReplyDelete

Please comment, I'd love to know what you think! :)