First off, OMG YAY THE HARRY POTTER TRAILER IS OUT. ONLY TWO MONTHS AND FIFTEEN DAYS UNTIL IT COMES OUT! I'M SO EXCITED~~~!
Now that that's over with... Majority of us are YA writers, I'm sure, and I know that one of the biggest worries that any YA writer (really, I an include MG with this too--kinda) is having a voice that is too old. You can't expect a 16 year old (or a 12 year old) to have a 24-+ year old's voice! (Just picked a random age with the last bit there.) Even those super mature, "old-souls" have moments that are completely and utterly teenaged. So, how do we achieve a MC that sounds young--and not the type of young that adults think is young.
We all remember being a teen and having our parents use general assumptions of how teens are against us. (I know mine did). I would've never read a book that sounded like that when I was in high school. We have to treat our MC's voice the way a model does their face. The younger it is, the better. (In this genre!)
Informal speech, contractions, a bunch of slang--some ways we can make our voice young, but they don't always work. How do you make your MC's voice sound like a teenager?
Also, just for my own curiosity, what are some things that when you read them, they just make you disgusted? Bodily functions? Gore? Bad spelling? Horrible grammar? Excessive swearing??
Great question. It's going to sound odd, but I try not to think about it when I write. Slang, like you say, can date a book (or just not work) so I don't add that. I just try to connect with how I felt at 15/16. Emotions, for me, add to the voice.
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