Addicted adolescents and covert code: a multilinear approach to writing about drug use in the novel starting lineup

<p dir="ltr">The creative component to this thesis consists of a Young Adult fiction novel, Starting Lineup, which centres around the life of a sixteen-year-old prodigy soccer player, Blake, and his cocaine use. The key themes of agency, accountability and causality are explored in both the story itself and its telling, as addiction becomes a vehicle to reflect on the character’s free will and the other aspects of his life that are implied to influence his decisions to, at times, reject drugs, and at other times, seek out more. There is an experimental aspect to the structure of this novel, only revealed to the reader in its final pages. This experimental structure allows me to subvert some of the typical features of a YA drug abuse story and emphasise the nature of addiction and recovery as repetitive processes.</p><p dir="ltr">The accompanying critical exegesis explores two distinct fields of research, drawn together by the creative work. First, I examine representations of addiction and drug use in books written for young people. Reflecting on four exemplary YA novels, I consider the underlying cultural ideas about addiction that are demonstrated in these texts as well as common trends in their structural and literary choices. I then turn to other novels whose subject matter is different, but whose structural approach is similar to my own. Here, I explore how multilinear frameworks impact the narratology, cohesion, and impressions of time in three exemplar works. Reflecting on my own choices as well as early reader feedback on Starting Lineup, the exegesis explores the interplay between form and content in this work, and what it may reveal about the roles of author and reader in generating meaning.</p>