History

Young Adult Paranormal Fiction

Definition: 

Young Adult books set in the current, real world, but with the added element of the paranormal like vampires, werewolves, ghosts, mediums, etc... It sometimes overlaps with Urban Fantasy, which is distinguished by the added element of magic.

While not required, YA Paranormal Fiction often is published in series format usually starting with trilogies and going from there.

"Young adult paranormal romances depict an adolescent’s everyday life, usually a teenage girl’s, when it becomes entangled with the supernatural. The supernatural can be anything from ghosts, telepathy, genii, mermaids, psychics, fairies, and vampires to witchcraft, immortality, werewolves, and angels. The books feature a romance, often between oppositely sexed beings, a human and supernatural being who looks human. The story is usually told from a first-person perspective, usually a high-school-age heroine, though sometimes the narrator alternates between the heroine and the hero or, less often, among a few characters. Rarely, as in Beautiful Creatures, the story is told solely from the hero’s perspective." (Young, 2013)



Pre-2006

Young Adult (YA) Paranormal books, also known as YA Paranormal Romance books, existed before 2006, but were not really as popular as they become when the Twilight phenomenon started. One of the major titles before this time was The Silver Kiss, by Annette Curtis Klause, which was released in 1990 and labeled as horror and romance instead of paranormal. Klause's book included a young adult falling in love with a vampire. Meg Cabot began her Mediator series in 2000, which stars a high school girl who can see ghosts and ends up falling in love with the one who is haunting her new home. There are many other titles pre-Twilight, but it was 2006 that began the "craze".



2006 - Twilight

In September 2006, Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer, was released and the YA Paranormal genre got its big boost. Meyer was a normal, Mormon housewife who claimed to have had an extremely vivid dream that she simply had to immediately write down when she woke the next morning. That ended up being a middle chapter of Twilight. She wrote to  the end of the book and then went back to write the beginning up to where she started. Her book and her story about writing the book became fodder for fans who fawned over every word of each book, as well as her website and tours.

A movie deal was quickly reached and fans became feverish to know not only the plots of the books, but the lives of the actors who were to portray them on screen. When Robert Pattinson (who had already gained fame from the Harry Potter franchise) and Kristin Stewart were announced to be dating in real life, fans went a little crazy.

Publishers saw this book, its sequels, and the movie deals gain huge followings among girls, women, teens, and middle-aged moms. Suddenly there was a surge of all things vampire, werewolf, ghost, and more. Many were knock-offs and fan fiction of Twilight, but other authors were able to create new and amazing paranormal stories. YA Paranormal stories became guaranteed money-makers both at the bookstore and at the box office. Television networks became flooded with paranormal stories from CW's Vampire Diaries to HBO's True Blood (sometimes also labeled as Urban Fantasy due to the added elements of magic). The idea of romance with supernatural creatures overwhelmed the airwaves and took hold of the Internet, become a phenomenon that would last for a few years.

Young, W. (2013). Retrieved from https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/wsi_theses/32