Slow Sunday and Talking Teen Slang

Today is Sunday and I'm not at church because both my little Beasties are sick. Cough, cough, sniffle, sniffle, snort, snort. Yep, that's been my life for the past three days. Neither of them is feeling bad, just snotty, so lots of movie-watching and video games.

Oh, wait. That's how it's been all summer, since it's either pouring rain or dastardly hot outside all the time :P.

Anyway, I've taken a blogging break because I just needed some time to veg. My manuscript was sent out to about a half-dozen beta-readers, and I've been kinda too nervous to concentrate on anything anyway.

So far, I've gotten two replies from betas. One included a "Wooooooow!" And the other included a "What a ride!" That has helped to calm my nerves a bit!

Slang from my era :P.
No, I did not talk  like that!

One comment made by a beta-reader really made me feel awesome, too. She said I did a great job with the teen slang in Seeking Unseen. I have, in so many reviews, slammed YA writers for their awful use of teen slang, so it's nice to know I didn't do so in vain ;). Anyway, since I got the official thumbs-up, I figured I'd share some of my views on the topic of slang use in fiction.

I have found that there are certain things that make slang not work: 

Overuse. If, like, every other freaking word is, like, slang, it freaking starts to, like, get on your freaking nerves.

Misplaced slang. There is a pattern to slang and placement to words. You can't just stick them in any-ole-where. Honestly, I don't have an example of this. I just know it when I see it. I'm reading along and, wham, I'm shoved out of the story because the slang word feels crammed in where it doesn't belong.

Trendiness. Slang words come and go. To me, adding trendy slang dates the story, so kids in, say, ten years are going to roll their eyes at half the slang. You also have to be careful about certain words and phrases, as they change meaning over time. When I was a teen, "hooking up" just meant meeting someone someplace. "We hooked up at the mall." But today, "hooking up" has a whole different meaning. Urbandictionary.com, folks. Use it.

The other thing trendiness can do is make the author look foolish. Even if you spend a lot of time with teens, even have them in your own home, you, as an author, are not likely a teen yourself. And if you are, well, let's face it, you've got to have a certain level of nerdiness to be a writer in the first place. My point is, if they're words you don't feel comfortable using because they're not really part of your vocabulary, then it will likely come across that way on the page.

That said, if you do have a character that would use a lot of contemporary slang, make sure you find someone like that character to look at your writing.

I know, no one wants to be stereotyped, but this brings up another point: There are distinct subcultures among teens. Populars are not going to use the same slang as Goths or whatever. Don't generalize.

Speaking of trendiness...one thing that seems to be a trend in teen fiction, especially in sci-fi, is made-up slang. One of the pioneers of this is Scott Westerfeld, author of the Uglies series and several other teen sci-fi/fantasy/steampunk series. He does it right, btw. The problem is there are too many authors trying to do this too, and it falls flat. Some examples of books that drove me nuts are Maze Runner and Glitch.

In those books I just mentioned, the made-up slang has another issue. It's not really a slang system--just cussing replacements. Like in Glitch, "crack" is the replacement for the f-word. As in, oh, man, were cracked, or that's so cracking messed up. (Just made those up because I didn't want to look up actual examples from the book, but that is how it's used.)

This kind of thing *can* work, but one thing I've noticed is that the words need to be sufficiently different from the original cuss word. In both Glitch and Maze Runner, I found the substitutions to be close enough to the real words to make if feel childish. Like, hehe, if I say shitake I've said the s-word but mommy can't get mad! That's where Westerfeld really shines. His words function as more than just cussing, and the words aren't just twists of existing words.

Just an FYI--the WORST book I've read so far when it comes to slang is Dark Companion by Marta Acosta. I cringed through that book. Well, as much as I was able to bear reading. It was horrid. The MC was supposed to be from a rough neighborhood and really street-smart, but she's speaks so cleanly except for the occasional use of "ax" instead of "ask." O.o And the slang that gets used most is that of the rich chickies at her new school, who give nicknames to EVERY freaking person and place they encounter and use the word "coitus" as a sub for the f-bomb. I normally don't go out of my way to bash books (other than Twilight) but this one is right up there! And it was published by TOR. Really???? I am devastated by that.

Anyway....

Hope this little list is helpful.

End with your Hook

I’m going to do something I’ve never done before—I’m going to give major spoilers about a book here.  If that bugs you, don’t read this beyond where I mark the spoilers. But I have to do this, because my point in writing this post is to illustrate why authors need to have good endings to their books.

So much of learning about writing focuses on “the hook.” You have to grab the reader in the first chapter. Oh, no—I mean the first couple of pages. No, wait, it’s the first paragraph. Uh-uh. The first sentence. There are even whole books about writing craft that focus specifically on the first five pages. It’s that important.

You may find a book or two, a blog post here and there, the occasional workshop, on “middles.” The middle of the book does have to keep the reader reading. Sure.

But what about endings?

I, personally, would rather have a book start slow. Give me good writing, yes. Give me a character I can connect with. But I don’t need to be “hooked” by some clever line, or some odd or intense action scene. I want to get to know my characters, and in some sense, I like to have stories sneak up on me. I would prefer a book to start slow, making me take time to warm up to it, and then grip me tighter and tighter throughout. I want the *ending* of a book to leave me begging for more.

Uglies by Scott Westerfeld did that. The first several chapters were world building. I was getting to know the character of Tally. It was enough to hold my interest, but I can’t say I was blown away by the first chapters—but I could tell more was coming. I LIKE the anticipation of wondering what is going to be discovered LATER. You see, I have this assumption when I start a book: it’s a book because there is a story to tell. I don’t need that story to slam me like a freight train the moment I open the first page to know it’s there.

More recently, the book Tyger, Tyger by Kersten Hamilton won me over this way. Lots of character building. Yes, there was some conflict—Teagan’s friend Abby had a dream the goblins would be coming. But the story moves at a slow pace in the beginning as we get to know the cast and gain the information necessary to understand the major action to come. And come it did. By the end, I couldn’t get to the library website fast enough to put the next book on hold.

Think about theme park rides. Many of them start off as stories. Splash Mountain tells the tale of Brer Rabbit with animatronics lining a slow moving “river.” The end of the ride is the big splash. But who would want to ride it if it were the other way around? Or…what if the whole ride was thrilling, and then the end was a complete dud?

See? Anticipation is what counts in rides like that. Get the thrill part over with in the beginning and have nothing as good afterward and riders will complain. Or have a thrilling ride end in a dud, and most riders leave the ride with a sour taste despite all the fun they had in the beginning—because they didn’t have that “wow” to look forward to. There was nothing to anticipate.

*Now comes the spoilers, folks.*

I finished reading a book yesterday called Dark Eden, by Patrick Carman. The book starts off with this blurb by the main character, Will Besting, which is actually sort of part of the ending. No, that’s not right—you find out at the end that it’s a thought he had during his experience at Fort Eden.

Because I knew.

That’s what I’ll say when they ask.

I knew, and I was afraid.

It sounds all creepy and suspenseful at first, and then you get to the end and discover it’s really meaningless. Of course he’s afraid. He’s got anthrophobia (fear of people).

Will and six other kids his age are chosen to go to Fort Eden to receive a cure for various phobias. They are taken to a building deep in the woods. Will is too scared to go in, and you find out partway through it’s because he’s so afraid of people. He discovers a bomb shelter in the basement of the bunker next to the main building where he hides.

There are video monitors that show the various rooms inside the main building. How convenient. Will, of course, thinks he’s really lucky. It’s obviously a set-up. But, because we’re dealing with kids who have serious mental issues, it seems acceptable. You know something is coming as he watches each of the other kids get “cured” by being hooked up to this funky helmet with wires that connect to the ceiling and experience their moments of greatest fear. So it’s no surprise when Will is trapped in the bomb shelter and discovers that the headphones he’s wearing to listen in on what he sees on the monitors are actually a modified helmet.

Each kid is, as I said, cured by experiencing their biggest fears. Those fears show up on the monitors as well, as though the images in their heads being displayed. If this was ever explained, it must have been in the last couple of pages which I couldn’t bear to read. At that point I was so mad at the book’s ending I could barely see straight, much less read. So we have psychotherapy, complete with mad scientists. The main doctor, who goes simply by Rainsford. Will’s doc, Dr. Stevens. And the groundskeeper, a codgy old woman named Mrs. Groning.

Will is never “caught,” of course. They know where he is the whole time. Although he does sneak in a few times and speak with a couple of the other kids. All the character interaction and relationship building though is for nothing. It has not a stinking thing to do with the ending.

Each kid also ends up with some side effect from the treatment. Joint pain, vertigo, fatigue, headaches, hearing loss, etc.

OK, following so far? It really does sound like a story with serious potential.

And then the kids all get to leave at the end. No attempt by anyone to keep them there. You’re cured. Sorry about the side effects. Go home to your families and live out your lives. None of them remembers anything about their cure experience, but they are all happy just to be cured.

Will, however, is given something by Mrs. Groning as he leaves. He’d entered Fort Eden with a digital recorder, and she ‘d added some audio files. It was her, telling the story of who Rainsford and Dr. Stevens are, and who she is herself.

Rainsford was her husband, and Dr. Stevens is her daughter. And the children’s “cure” was a side effect of Rainsford stealing their blood. Yep, he’s a vampire, and he hooks himself up to the kids to exchange blood with them, ridding himself of his old, contaminated blood—which is why they all end up with “old people” symptoms (rolls eyes)—and taking in their blood flooded with chemicals produced by intense fear, which is what he feeds on, what makes him turn young again.

ALL of the explanation is given in the last several pages, with Mrs. Groning telling Will via the digital recorder.

Made. Me. Want. To. Scream.

A vampire? Really? Not a HINT of anything supernatural in the whole rest of the book. And if Groning actually cared about the kids, why was she so mean to them? Spitting in their food—which Will saw her do and still ate it. Ew. And why even bother telling Will? I mean, he’s not going to do anything about it. It was just a way for the author to tell the reader what was “really” going on, rather than integrating it into the story and letting the reader discover it. 

Actually, there were mini versions of that technique throughout, that bugged me each time, but were mixed in with enough suspense to make me forgive them. But really? Will makes some rather hefty jumps to conclusions, or statements of the obvious and it was obviously the author not wanting to lead the reader. Instead, he’d have something happen, then Will would state specifically what is going on “The headphones were really a helmet!” Duh.

Lazy, lazy author. Ugh.

I’ve read other books that do this. Page-turning plot and a complete dud of an ending. Ted Dekker is a big one. Yes, go ahead, throw the tomatoes. I’ve liked a few of his books, but they mostly make me want to throw them across the room when I get to the end, so I’ve quit reading his stuff. Another book that did this was The Maze Runner by James Dashner. This one, Dark Eden by Patrick Carman, has been the worst by far, though.

I beg of you, dear writers. Think about the endings of your books. A twist is fine! But is it really a twist if you are telling one story and then turn it into something else? To me, this kind of ending is like having the main character wake up and discover everything is a dream.

Endings, even twist ones, need to come organically. You can’t tell one story, and then tack on a big explanation at the end saying that it was all really something else, haha! Yes, maybe a good portion of information can be saved for the last part of the story—we’re all familiar with the villain monologue. But make it integrated, not what is essentially an appendix at the end.

So, sorry if I’ve spoiled a book for you. But it had to be done. This kind of writing atrocity makes my blood boil. I’ve been told a few times that Finding Angel is a little slower in the beginning than some people like. BUT every reader I’ve had so far has agreed that the ending completely sucked them in. I can totally live with that. I’d rather create a story that builds from good to better to best, than a story that starts with a bang and ends with a dud. A hook at the beginning is fine, but if it lets loose during the story, even three pages from the end of the book, the reader isn’t going to stick with that author. But if in the end the hook is still firmly in place…