I'm blogging about middle schoolers, because I have two of my own and because Randy Russell's blog series about writing teen voice made me do it. (I'm the guest blogger on there right now, so you should go check it out)
My daughters are weird. No question about it. It's okay though, I like weird. I'm weird. I'm surrounded by weird. My daughters and I have a lot in common. And I'm not like that mom that says, "I'm my daughter's best friend." No. I'm not. But we like the same music, the same kind of clothes, mostly. I think I've even turned Thing Two on to knee socks.
That being said, there are things about them I won't understand. Ever. This bring me back to the original subject of the post: their language. I had Thing One and Thing Two in the back of the car with a friend the other day. I didn't understand ANYTHING they were saying. Of course, everything they did say was between a fit of breathless giggles, so that made it even more difficult.
They were throwing names out, half sentences, inside jokes, and slang. And they were talking like Pee Wee Herman. They love this, having watched Pee Wee's Big Adventure, which of course, just endears them to me more. I'd much rather them watch 80's movies I loved than the Hannah Montana Movie, Twilight, and High School Musical (although I have this thing for Zach Efron)
So, though there are definitely rules to writing in teen voice, I think they're flexible. I mean, of course you can't throw out a bunch of half sentences and inside jokes, but I think slang is flexible and so is what kids are reading, watching, and listening to, to a certain extent. Just make sure it sounds authentic.
That's it
Kisses
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Megan
Seems to me slang is also REGIONAL. And different places have different quirks (or lack thereof). One of my daughter's best friends moved to Bakersfield California and is SAD SAD SAD that it isn't 'in to be freaky' there (or that's my interpretation of what she said.) Ann Arbor is a city of academics and academics GET that weird is cool. We foster it in our kids. Apparently not so in Bakersfield.
ReplyDeleteI was sure though, you were going to talk about swearing. I feel like teens are testing language as power, and maybe it means I'm a bad mom, but I sure hear a lot of swearing. Then again I swear now and again--but all my teen characters do. I think it's unrealistic if the don't (then again I don't write YA, so I don't need to worry about editors saying I can't say that)
Yes, all my teen characters swear. I just read a teen book where there was NO swearing. It was a sweet little love story, but too vanilla for me. And I agree with slang being regional. On Randy Russell's blog, Scotti posted something about the word "awesome" and someone telling her no one says that. Well, my kids do. So you make a good point.
ReplyDeleteThanks for reading.
Awesome at my house is the master of sarcasm. My daughter uses it ALL the time to mean I am the lowest life form on earth. *snort*
ReplyDeleteI can deal with no swearing by teens in fantasy worlds or bizarro, extreme circumstances, but anything realistic... not so much...
Yeah, usually my kids use awesome as sarcastically meaning, so lame, but still they use it.
ReplyDelete