WRITING BOYS' TEEN VOICE - Gae Polisner

Gae Polisner is the exciting new author of THE PULL OF GRAVITY (Farrar Straus and Giroux), a Frances Foster Book for Young Readers, Spring 2011.

Gae noted that “I have written since I was little. Then I went to law school and thought I wanted to be a hotshot lawyer, until the writing pulled me back again.”

   Writing Teen Voice     by Gae Polisner

When writing teen voice, I have first learned to listen to how teens talk. I constantly check in with my sons and their friends regarding ‘teen speak.’

In a draft of my manuscript of THE PULL OF GRAVITY, I had the kids referring to their friend’s deadbeat dad as a dirtbag. Who doesn’t know the term dirtbag? Suddenly, in a fit of self doubt, I asked my son what he would call a guy who ditches his family, pays no child support, etc. A dirtbag, right? I asked.

He stared blankly at me. Never heard of it, he answered. I had to try ten words before settling on lowlife, a term he had apparently heard.

The other thing I keep in mind is that when kids think and speak, they have a no-holds-barred honesty. Teen boys, especially, rarely mince words. Even when they should. I have 11- and 14-year-old sons. Trust me, I know this first hand.

Brutal honesty is a hallmark in writing authentic young adult voices.

And then there is the endless editing and restraint that must be exercised. Again, especially when writing boys. Boys may have a long, detailed exposition in their heads, but when it comes out in words (or on paper) it’s usually little more than a grunt.

I recently edited a friend’s manuscript for her, the main character being a 17-year old boy. As he watched a girl he liked sleep, the thoughts in his head were along the lines of, “I watched her sleep, her long, blonde hair splayed across her pillow, her soft lips red and heart-shaped. She was beautiful…”

In providing feedback, I wrote, “Take everything out except, ‘I watched her sleep. She was beautiful,’ and even the ‘she was beautiful,’ can probably come out.”

The point is, teen boys are especially limited with both their descriptive thoughts in their own head, and their expressed emotions. Even if they feel it – or, god forbid, think it – they don’t readily communicate it.

[ Please see Part II of Gae’s guest post for additional examples of Writing Teen Voice. ]

WRITING TEEN VOICE II- GAE POLISNER

In Gae Polisner’s 2011 debut YA novel, THE PULL OF GRAVITY, main character Nick Gardner and Jaycee Amato, a girl who has newly befriended him, engage in a bit of Teen Voice dialogue below. Jaycee has invited Nick to her stepdad’s gaudy mansion where they now play shuffleboard in the backyard.

Notice that the narrator is Nick himself.

This first-person approach requires a highly skilled writer and places the entire book in Teen Voice. Gae also uses present-tense. A further challenge for the adept writer, present-tense infuses both action and voice with a strong sense of immediacy.

    Excerpt, PULL OF GRAVITY
         by Gae Polisner.

We walk to the courts, and I sit on a bench on the sidelines. “Okay, Gardner, blue or red?” She clangs the disk carrier down next to me.

“Blue.” I gather my four and head to the far side of the court.

I beat her two games to one without a single word about The Scoot being mentioned, before I demand we stop and sit again, so she can fill me in. Besides, it’s starting to get dark. As if on cue, the lights surrounding the court switch on.

“Did you do that?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “Sensors. Timers. Thousands of dollars of essential, recreational electricity.”

“Right,” I laugh.

“So, you didn’t tell me you were a ringer.” She sits next to me, so close that her knee touches mine. I can’t stop looking at it there. I shove my hands in my pockets, and she pulls her hood up and her sleeves down over her fingers and shivers. It’s officially fall. You can feel the sudden chill in the air.

Up close like this in the bright, artificial lights, I can see Jaycee’s eyes and something I hadn’t noticed before. Her right eye has a pale gold ring around it, between the pupil and the ice blue iris, so that her eyes appear two different colors.

“Weird, I know,” she says, winking the left eye shut, and then the right one. “They’re totally different depending on the light.” I turn bright red. I didn’t know she’d feel me staring.

“They’re cool.” I pick at a spot on my jeans. “I just never saw ones like that before.”