A Novel Idea

My time in Santa Fe is a sweet memory and I’m in the home stretch of the revision; at least that’s what I’m telling myself.

One of these days soon I’ll embark on a word-by-word search and excavation of bon mots unlikely to pass a thirteen-year-old’s lips.  The occasional clinker materializes in even the best of tween and teen books.  Found myself circling a few when I read the Printz Award winner, Going Bovine.  (Others may disagree, but I couldn’t buy the teen narrator using a phrase like “baleful eye,” even though, like so many other teenage main characters who tell their own stories, Libby Bray’s Cameron is clearly at the high end of the IQ scale.) Similarly, I’ve already been cutting my own descriptive passages that use metaphors and similes reflecting more years of observation and experience than a tween can claim. The word “pewter,” for example, to describe a certain color and sheen on a lake had to go.  I admit to having the occasional daydream about describing to my heart’s content in the next manuscript which I’ll definitely write in third-person.

I can’t say I wasn’t warned about writing a story from a first-person perspective – in the voice of a present-day thirteen-year-old junior high school female, no less.  But it seemed that in most of the tween and teen novels I was reading (in contrast to middle grade novels), the protagonist told the tale.  Here was evidence of a current preference for more intimacy between the reader and a main character, a style more confessional in nature.  And I’d chosen to highlight a subculture about which most adults have a strong (if not always informed) opinion — that of psychic mediumship.  Let a young person, without preconceived notions, pro or con, tell of her introduction to this world, I decided.   Adding more content about underground hip hop to this revision, I’ve been glad it’s a teen, not an adult story-teller (even one simply in the wings), commenting on this subculture as well.

Turns out the most difficult task in this word search will be deciding which slang words to excise, change, or add.  “Less is more” is the usual dictum when it comes to incorporating the ever-shifting lingo of teens.  Online resources provide current slang by region — increasingly unnecessary in a world where virtually every inventive use of language anywhere receives almost instant exposure.  But the risk in using them is that they will become passé, embarrassingly outré, a second after any appear in the galleys.

I confess I love the phrase, it’s the shizzle – glad that a number of online resources certified that it’s both current and ubiquitous.  The phrase came up, however, during a discussion with a teen who had read my draft.  As diplomatically as possible, she informed me that shizzle is out, and that shiz or shizz is in.  Not long after, I came across yet another incarnation – it’s the shit – in a couple of new books.

Reading Lauren Myracle’s ttyl, a book written entirely in IM (instant messaging) or texting style, I recalled the comment that a woman in our writers group made over a year ago.  Her daughter had told her that no self-respecting teen would be caught dead using LOL (laughing-out-loud) since old codgers on Facebook had appropriated it.  Hence, I don’t use it in my manuscript.  I did use SLAP (sounds-like-a-plan) until several teens had to ask what it meant (once again firsthand knowledge trumping online guidance).

One of the agency readers questioned my use of hip hop terms like fresh and peace out, sending me on a quest for street-savvy info on this lingo.  B-girls in both Minneapolis and New York insisted that fresh is classic and never out of style.  (Dope, however, is the more popular term at the moment; in fact, a spoken word artist emailed to tell me I’m a “dope writer;” his intent not to suggest I wasn’t playing with a full deck, but to pay me the ultimate compliment.)   Now I’ve made sure characters are referencing Old School benedictions like peace and respectfully but ironically using terms like “bust a move” (also including the current preferred prop for executing great moves — killed it or kilt it).

One too many terms that no longer qualify as hip and a story’s cred can topple like a line of dominoes.  Too few and the character can seem clueless.  (A few words about curses and classics in the next post.)

This entry was posted on May 3, 2010 at 3:51 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.