WRITING TEEN VOICE - CARRIE HARRIS

Michigan-based YA author Carrie Harris will see the release of her first novel, NO PAIN, NO BRAIN, by Delacorte Press, Summer 2011.

In Carrie’s exciting and charming hand, the Undead have never been so alive.

I know something about Carrie that I bet you don’t:    She fell off a cliff.

Carrie managed this spectacular feat while taking a Wilderness Rescue Course… learning how to save people who fall off cliffs.

Then she got her book published. In that order. Cause and effect? I’m not saying.

You can visit Carrie’s delightful writerly blog HERE. Drop by. Uh, but not from a cliff’s edge.

                Writing Teen Voice
                        By Carrie Harris

My best advice for someone who's trying to write teen voice is pretty simple: Stop trying so hard!

Teen voice isn't about the latest gadgets or the most up-to-date slang, and honestly? By the time your book is on the shelf, your cutting edge gadgets will be obsolete and the slang will be sooo yesterday.

It's not about run on sentences, or, like, a healthy sprinkling of, like, the word "like." A good teen voice can integrate any or all of these elements, but if you take them away, it'll still be good. Like, really.

So how do you write good teen voice?

Unfortunately, I don't think it can be reduced to a series of tips or list of check boxes. It can't be taught. There's a simple reason for this: All teens are not the same.

There's the good girl, the band geek, the quarterback and prom queen. There are chess nerds and drama nerds and computer nerds, and even within these groups there's a huge amount of variance.

I've met teens who are more mature than most 30-year-olds I know, and some that seem to be permanently stuck at age seven.

What it comes down to for me is less finding a teen voice and more finding my character's voice. That voice is certainly informed by the environment, the character's experiences, and so on, and these things are strongly influenced by age. I think that as long as your voice is consistent with the character's background, it will ring true regardless of age.

Wow. Don't I sound like I know what I'm talking about? I feel all kewl now.

WRITING TEEN - TRACY WALSHAW

Tracy Walshaw recently entered her first Young Adult novel, PAPER TIGERS, in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest.

In PAPER TIGERS, Tracy’s young protagonist discovers a secret portal into a world of adventures.

        Writing Teen
            By Tracy Walshaw

PAPER TIGERS is the story of Rigby Johnson, a nearly fourteen-year-old whose father, Ben, passed away just days before Rigby sees her mother climbing out from the cabinet under the kitchen sink. Worried the only responsible adult in the house has lost her mind, Rigby confronts her mom.

What her mother tells Rigby defies logic, which takes the storyline from tragedy to adventure, appealing to a tween and teen base alike.

Teens have things to do. A book goes beneath piles of Aeropostale hoodies if we don’t keep their attention. I decided I needed two things to keep teens reading: lots of action and a strong lead voice.

Most of PAPER TIGERS is told in first-person by Rigby, who knows nothing of the secrets in her father’s past. [ Excerpt: ]

I was still on my knees and Jude was on his bottom, and we looked at each other. I’ve never wished a dog could talk before, but at that moment I think I would have sold blood to have it be so.

With her father actions as a teenager being key to the story, I switched to third-person for these critical back-story scenes. [ Excerpt: ]

Ben took each step down the stairs slowly. Reverently, even. This was the biggest of birthdays. Never had he felt the electricity in the house more than on this night. This was the birthday to end all birthdays. Okay, not end. Ben hoped it would only surpass the others. And that he’d live through it with minimal discomfort and embarrassment.

My writing seems geared towards tragedy that makes the main character find hope. I have a very strong faith in God which has been a thread running through each novel I’ve written. It’s also strengthened me during my own recent tragedy, the death of my husband. We’d been together since high school and have four children. Three boys, ages 11, 17 and 20 and a girl, 7.

I’m lucky enough to have my children love my company for the most part and want me to be in the middle of their conversations, to watch while they play their X-Box, and look at their text messages from friends. Because of this, I have a front row seat to the authentic young reader, and to ’tween and teen voice.

The love of reading among teens isn’t limited to games and phone texting altogether. Just last night, I told my 17 year old that I’d ordered some old paperbacks on-line. I mentioned that one was S.E. Hinton’s THE OUTSIDERS. My son smiled big and said, “Mom, that is my absolute favorite book ever.”

This is why I write.

WRITING TEEN VOICE - STEPH BOWE

The incredible Steph Bowe is a 16-year-old Australian YA author.

Her as yet untitled debut novel – a story about love, loss and garden gnomes – is being published in America by Egmont USA in Summer 2011, and in Australia by Text Publishing in September 2010.

You're invited to visit her blog:
Hey! Teenager of the Year. (Click on it.)

    Writing Teen Voice
            By Steph Bowe

Writing an authentic teen voice comes naturally to me. I am, after all, a teenager. I have teenage friends. I watch movies and TV, read books and magazines, and visit websites all geared towards teenagers. I write in the same way I think. Realistic dialogue is easy, since I hear so many teenagers having conversations on a regular basis.

But what if you’re an adult? What if your dialogue or the thoughts of your main character are too ‘old’?

Do you just insert a bunch of ‘whatever’s and ‘like’s into your novel, and SHAZAM we have realistic teenage characters?

Well, yes and no. Here are some tips.

Do’s:

• Listen to teenagers speak. You should already be good at eavesdropping, if you’re a good writer. Listen to your children, nieces or nephews, friends’ kids, relatives, neighbours, people sitting in a restaurant. Write down teenage conversation. Notice words they use, where conversation pauses, the dynamics among a group of friends. You’ll gradually develop an idea of the way teenagers speak.

• Read and watch things meant for teenagers. Read great YA novels, and think about what makes the teenagers in it authentic. Watch movies and TV shows geared towards teenagers (try Gossip Girl and Vampire Diaries on TV, watch movies like Mean Girls, etc. Of course it will vary based on genre, but look for things that are popular among teenagers). Read teen girl magazines, as they are an invaluable resource when it comes to what’s popular (but adding references to popular singers, movies, etc. will probably date your novel. So just look at these things for research purposes).

• Read it out loud. Ask yourself, would this be a realistic way for these characters to speak? Would they use these words? Consider reading dialogues aloud with someone else, like practicing lines for a play. Ask another person – a reader, a writer, a teenager – whether they think the dialogue lacks believability.

Don’ts:

• Don't make your dialogue too realistic. While we want the dialogues our characters to be realistic enough that they could occur in real life, we need to get to the point. Teenagers swear a lot more than is necessary in a novel, and there are a lot more ums and ahs than would make satisfying fictitious dialogue. Find that point between realism and a satisfying book.

• Don’t use slang, unless relevant. Using slang usually comes across as false and forced.

• Don’t try to get it perfect on the first try. Writing is rewriting, dialogue and voice included.

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.”

TEX-MEX TEEN VOICE - Bettina Restrepo

Fourteen-year-old Nora, an illegal Mexican immigrant searches for her missing father, while living under the radar, in Bettina Restrepo’s debut YA novel, ILLEGAL (Harper Collins, 2011). Bettina is also the author of the picture book, Moose and Magpie (Sylvan Dell Publishing, 2009).

You can visit Bettina at her website by clicking HERE ,and see what she’s working on now.

Writing for Teens.
      By Bettina Restrepo.

Writing for teens is where I am as a writer, not something I aspire to be. Characters drive the stories I write, so I listen to their voice. The voice tells me what they are doing, how they will dress, and what they see in the world.

I write about things that are still on my mind from over twenty years ago. But, when I address the issue – the character gets to relive it in all their glory. They get to right the wrong. They get to go down in flames from turning the wrong corner. They get to fall in love and then decide when it’s over. I love that my characters hold the power, even though they don’t know it.

I have been criticized for lack of physical character description in my writing. It’s one of the last things I put into my book. I believe the teen reader is incredibly smart, and still holds onto the spark of imagination that seems to vanish with adulthood. I want my reader to become the person in the book. If I bombard them with physical descriptions, it’s like I rob them of the full immersion into the story.

It’s just my little way of saying, “You can be anyone you want.”

Here are my simple writing rules:

1. It’s all about the character and their growth.

2. The character must solve their own problem in their own way. They can seek help, but the solution must be organically their own decision.

3. When in doubt, refer to rule #1.

WRITING TEEN VOICE - AMY HOLDER

Amy Holder wrote her first chapter book (62 pages) in third grade. Her debut Young Adult novel, The Lipstick Laws, will be published by Graphia (Hougton Mifflin Harcourt) in Spring 2011.

Amy was kind enough to reference my ghost lore background in her guest post. You can visit here blog HERE. And check out her website (currenly under construction) HERE.

Séance Your Inner Teen.
      By Amy Holder.

While writing THE LIPSTICK LAWS, I found it helpful to turn off the lights, light some candles, sit cross-legged, and hum methodically to summon my inner teen...

In all reality, writing an authentic teen voice can be hard... especially for adults who've gladly moved on from the dilemmas of adolescence. However, everyone can travel back to the sometimes harrowing memories of peer pressure, teen crushes, insecurities, first kisses, wanting to fit in, breakups, first jobs, jammed lockers, being asked (or not asked) to the prom, and the social hierarchies that went along with high school.

The enduring emotions connected to teenage years are oftentimes so heightened, that the teenage boy or girl wanting so desperately to find his or her place in the world is most likely still lurking somewhere inside of you.

The best advice I can give about writing a teenage voice is to find that lurking teenager and bring him or her to the surface of your current emotions.

Let your keyboard magically transform you into that band geek, prom queen, BFF, wannabe, shy wallflower, star quarterback, new kid, bully, heart-breaker, teacher's pet, or whomever your authentic teenage self was.... and let those raw emotions flow from your fingertips onto the page or computer screen in front of you.

I urge you to remember the highs and lows of that period of time in your life. And once you're writing from a place of true emotion, you'll avoid the common mistake many writers make when writing for teens - writing what they think others want to read, rather than writing authentically.

Teens are smart, and they can spot a fraud from miles away.

WRITING TEEN VOICE - KATHLEEN DUEY

Kathleen Duey is the author of more than 70 books for K-YA. Her most recent titles are in her series: American Diaries, Survival!, and Hoofbeats.

Dark, atypical fantasy is her new love. Her first YA novel, Skin Hunger, was a 2007 National Book Award finalist. Sacred Scars, the second book in the trilogy was released in August. She is currently working on the final book in the trilogy. You may visit her blog by clicking HERE.

Sometimes writing short says a lot. The incredibly awesome Kathleen Duey was kind enough to post a comment on Writing Teen Voice. Her commentary deserves front page treatment on my humble blog. So I am placing it here:

"I write for several age groups and love the internal-time-machine experience.

"Teens are loyal, certain, acutely aware of injustice. When there are revolutions, teens are generally in the front lines.

"And yes, rooms full of adults intimidate me. People with real jobs--!"

Thank you, Kathleen!