A fine line....

I have spent today having an interesting email conversation with Nicky Schmidt. We have both reached certain points in our novels which have caused us both to think. We discussing the fine line between grit and reality. Where do you draw the line when writing for teenagers? We know that they have a huge amount of access whether via the Internet or enumerable media outlets. Having access to this stuff does not mean that they understand it. Nicky signposted me to Bill Nicholson's blog who recently wrote Rich and Mad. It partly answers our questions.
Somebody has to write about these things, but should it be us, is this what we really want to do, to tread that fine line? It seems to be that we have both found ourselves there without thinking too much about it. Actually that is not strictly true of me....as you know my PhD is couched in all these sensitive subjects. However, I have had to sit and think about how I am going to deal with it. Is it going to be pure grit...a bit of teenage porn...or more realistic and showing the foibles of first sex and love aka Rich and Mad. I think you can guess where I wanted to go. We both decided that we wanted to write books that teenagers might want to go to if they had questions.
With the research I have done over the past couple of days I became very aware of how easy it is to get onto porn sites.Obviously some have restricted access but others you just get straight into this world of fake sex. This is what our teenagers are going to in order to find out about sex. I have concerns about this so have used my book to highlight it and address it. Whether it works remains to be seen but at least I know I have tried.
Thank you Nicky for such a brilliant and inspiring conversation today. You gave me a lot to think about.