I write YA, but that doesn’t mean I try to replicate how teenagers talk.
Somehow over the last twenty years or so, I have stopped being a teenager myself and become an old person. It is an eternal mystery to me.
And it is an uncomfortable thought, but not as earth-shattering as I would have thought when I was a teenager. I have kids of my own. They will be teenagers themselves in a (as far as I am concerned) very short amount of time. Being a teenager….that’s their thing now, not mine.
I have listened to kids speak. Eavesdropping in coffee houses, on the street (Not in a lurky way, you understand).
I can still understand them, so all hope is not lost, but actual teenage conversation is filled with lots of silences (expressive and not), umms, ahhs and pop culture references which are over as soon as they are uttered.
I try to avoid all that. I use a few ‘likes’ and ‘kind ofs’ but basically I steer away from documenting teen speak as it is.
Because tomorrow it will be something different.
Remember the ‘shiznit’? Thank goodness most writers managed to avoid that yawning pit of momentary hippitude.
Besides it’s pretty boring to read.
Far better to keep the dialogue real but use words that have been around for a thousand years or so and have clearly demonstrated staying power.
I think being a teenager is more about feelings and attitudes than the words and catch-phrases each generation claims as their own.
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