Discussion on examples of YA age group slang (meaning, sentence, difference)

[Lovehound]

I've been reading my market, urban fantasy and urban romantic fantasy / paranormal romantic fantasy, for the last 5 or so years, and I'm getting to the point that I feel I know the market pretty well, what is popular, and there are plenty of statistics and lists of what's selling well, enough for me to target my audience.

Why urban fantasy? It's simple! Write what you love! UF has taken the place of SF in my heart because SF was so trendy and huge with the possibilities of what the future may (probably would) bring. Space exploration, intelligent computers, the laughably quaint "Dick Tracey wrist-watch radio" (duh, Apple makes them now only you can place international calls, listen to music and do stock market trades, and more).

The simple fact is that SF is worn out, passe. Half of what they wrote in the '50s is now what we call science or engineering. The other half (FTL travel, aliens) is far beyond our reach in terms of centuries if not millenia. In speculative fiction our biggest new rising star is fantasy. Myself I'm not much of a fan of medieval fantasy (not since I read—and enjoyed—LOTR and GOT) and urban fantasy is what we have left. (Will Geo. RR Martin ever finish GOT?)

(Factoid: urban fantasy differs from generic fantasy in that UF is set in the modern, mundane world, with autos, computers, Internet, cellphones... but also may have paranormals, witches, vampires, werewolves and the whole plethora of fantasy races and species. There are 3 sub-genres, the mundane public does NOT know about the paranormals, the mundane public DOES know about the paranormals, or some paranormals are known while others are still in the closet.)

And damn! I really like UF/URF! I read a lot and to have spent the last 5 years reading primarily UF and URF I've become not only enthused but addicted too. I'm not so fond of the romantic part but as my reading experience expands I've found great examples of a more sensitive treatment of romance far more attractive and appealing than the thrusting and sheathing dreck. Although I've read plenty of authors (J K Ward comes to mind) who manage to make the thrust/sheath stuff work. My reading goes into fast forward for most of this type of writing. I understand now that it's the romance part that many people (including me) find interesting, not the mechanical part. I don't want to really add that part but I know the market desires it, and I can't expect to be successful unless I satisfy my market. But that's my problem, not yours, and I've always risen to the job, I know I can make that work.

In today's discussion I'd like to discuss youthful slang. I wish to target the market just above the YA market but I know for certain that just like people my age (far past YA) like UF and URF novels, there will be a more mature YA demographic that will overlap my market, and I need to get a better idea of today's modern youth-speak slang, to prepare for the YA overlap, and noting that YAs mature and will age into my market anyway, will remember their slang, and my novels will have more zip if they show authenticity with the slang they are used to. — In fact I've started adding some youthful terms to my own vocabulary, much to the confusion and amusement of my friends! (I'm way older than the YA market, old enough for them to be my grand children.)


So let's start out with a few examples. I'm not going to define them, you can Google any word plus adding "slang" to the word and you'll end up at a slang dictionary site.

As it turns out, we older people never had the word phat. It turns out that something that is phat is good! And strangely, sick can take on an entirely new meaning. The sentence, "That's sick!" can indicate approval!!! Who'd a thunk?

I'd like it if people who know what slang our youth is using e.g. perhaps tweens to mid-20s are using, please give examples, and what they mean if that's not asking too much.

I want to season my writing with modern, youthful vocabulary, enough that I don't seem like some old stodgy oldster sounds. I need to learn to speak like today's youth speaks.

I'm hoping you will help me along to improve my youth-speak, and it might be amusing for everybody—even those who don't intend to write professionally—to explore what has happened to our language now that a new generation has mangled, twisted, and corrupted our language.

As an introduction to what I mean, please read this article: Inverted meanings: sick, bad, and wicked

I hope I'll get some really sick, wicked ideas on the new youthful slang from your replies! Thanks in advance!

[Nonchalance]

I get what you're saying, and I also get market demands...but in fifteen minutes, that stuff is gonna sound as dated as characters saying 'Twenty-Three Skidoo.'

The only thing I know is 'beast.' As in, 'Zenyatta... what a beast!' And it'no doubt already history.

[Lovehound]

Well thank you NC for at least allowing my topic to not go unanswered.

I guess I'll pick up the slang from reading my YA competitors. That's just really sick!

I had hoped this topic could become a source for those writing for YA audiences who are not YA themselves.

[banjomike]

I joined NanoWriMo a couple of years ago. There was a writer in my group that was working on a young adult novel, a romance, who was very worried about getting all the youth-speak perfect.

She was so obsessed with it that the work was straying far away from her outline. Finally, she just handed what she had to a kid she knew, and the kid read it. The girl came back and said it was a good story so far, that she wanted to know how it all worked out in the end, and not to worry about the slang so much.

The writer did finish, and the last I heard, was sending the manuscript around to some reading groups. She said she was picking up the slang she needed from them, but was getting more feedback on how to make the relationship between her characters more realistic as well, and that was more valuable than the slang.

Honest emotions well written and a good resolution to a romantic dilemma are the elements that tough a reader's heart. Go for that stuff, and don't worry about the slang; make sure your characters are clearly portrayed in thought, word and action to the reader, and the words will always work, no matter how old the book is.

[Lovehound]

Thanks Mike!

I'm also thinking of writing some published authors and asking them how they did it.

I've already had a dialog with one of my favorite authors. It appears that authors might be more approachable than one would think.

I'm reading an urban fantasy right now, #2 in the series, noted a drastic improvement from the debut, and if I can get her email address I intend to ask her what happened to improve her writing so much.

Authors and writers are people. If you are nice to them they might sometimes give you a personal reply!

[banjomike]

I think attending a YA writer's conference might be very useful. Catching people at the right place and talking with them is often the easiest way to get information like that, Lovehound.

While I don't know much about the genre, I'm sure that it evolves and changes, just as they all do. You were right about those conferences; marketing is always a major topic, but much of it is directed at meeting the market as it is at the moment. From what little I know, YA and Urban Fantasy seem to be quite strong these days. Magic realism seems to be, too, in whatever genre it's written.

I know a few authors. The thing about them is their names may be well known, but relatively few are recognized by their faces. The ones I know are pretty gregarious; I think it comes from spending so much time absorbed in solitary work. When they're working, they don't like being interrupted, but when they're not working, the ones I know really like to kick back and talk about their work, especially with other writers.

[Lovehound]

Thanks Mike. Yes I agree with all you said. (I just wonder though, will I get carded and told, "You're too old to addend?")

The urban fantasy thing is easy to explain. Our SciFi authors of the '50s got it mostly right, except it isn't called science fiction any more. These days they call it science, they call it state of the art. They call it marketing when you can go buy your wristwatch phone. SciFi is mostly dead because reality caught up with fiction.

That's why I enjoy urban fantasy today. UF is the new SF.

I have been planning on attending a few writers' groups (but too busy with my day job so far), but you can be damned sure I won't be bringing any of my own writing with me. The last thing I want is for other writers to read my work, and worse, God forbid, have them influence my writing! The only thing a committee ever did well is obfuscate any issue until it's so ruined that progress is impossible. (Oh, excuse me, I seem to be describing the political state of America today.)

One problem I have is that I'm too old to hang with kids for fear they might mistake me for being a predator. My only interest is in learning their lingo. Actually to tell the truth I detest kids. I like dogs. Dogs are like kids except without the bad habits.)

For what it's worth actually the demographic I'm aiming for is the one just above where YA ends. But I recognize that a lot of the YA crowd will cross over if my work is successful, reading above their maturity level.

Hell, I used to read Mickey Spillane when I was 13-14 years old! My gramma was a fan and she gave me her old paperbacks when she was done. That was back when Spillane was currently publishing. Now he is currently staring at the lawn from the wrong side, the side with the roots on it.

But really I covet the demographics beginning where YA cuts off, and up. Even though I would be considered an old timer I enjoy some of the YA novels except those directed at the youngest audience.

Pretty much the whole UF market is YA and just above YA. I've been reading UF for about the last 5 years, maybe 4-5 novels/week so I'm learning the market and intuiting the demo pretty well.

[banjomike]

Maybe talking to some teachers could be a place to pick up current slang.

I suspect that kid's slang is still pretty regionalized still. Big city kids have different slang than small town kids have, I noticed long ago, along with many differences in regional slang.

I think it would be wise when selecting some slang word that sounds very obscure to explain the meaning of the word in some way when using it, by choosing some defining words or actions that follow the word.

There was some slang I didn't understand at first in Kerouac's "On the Road", but the understanding came with a lot of repetition in the book. That was way back in the day, when most hipster slang was quite mysterious to most folks of any age.

Some of the words were never well defined. Keroac riffed and improvised with words like a jazz trumpeter riffs on his horn. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Some unknowns can be exhilarating to read, even if not fully understood.

"A Clockwork Orange" was full of author-composed slang no one understood, but all those strange words sure carried a lot of weight and power. Without them, the book would have never been as popular as it was. Anthony Burgess created them all very carefully and used them all very well for effect.

The book was knocked out, Burgess claimed later, in 3 weeks. Burgess had been mis-diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor, and in hopes of providing for his family after his passing, he cranked out about 6 novels in a year.
And then he learned the doctor made a mistake.

"A Clockwork Orange" went on to become a literary classic and his best-selling novel.

Maybe the speed of its creation helped make it so? Who knows?

[Lovehound]

As always Mike your posts are interesting and informative.

Well one thing I have going for me is my reading a lot of YA novels that overlap my target market so I understand sick and phat. Wicked has been in use since I was that age.

So in a sense I'm being exposed to other authors' knowledge of kid-speak, and I can google the words +slang to get the definitions, get the use from the context in the novels.

I'm currently reading at least 3-4 novels/week. Writing and my business are cutting into my reading time...

[JimRom]

I'm not well versed with YA slang, but thanks to the fact that I have not one but two female children in my house approaching the tween years (12 and 10) I've got a good grasp on tween speak. What I've noticed for the most part is that they, like our generation did, have a tendency to brush the edges of adult talk by substituting words. As an example, they will say "Oh, flip" rather than the adult version which I can't write here. Hell becomes heck, that sort of thing. Honestly, I try not to listen too much when they start talking - living with a 12- and 10-year-old is noisy....

While I realize that this should probably cause me some alarm, I honestly don't see the harm in it. My wife and I are known to using expletives as punctuation on occasion, and we haven't really been worried about sheltering our children from foul language since they were around 4 years old and could understand that certain words are used by adults and not by children. It's actually rather amusing on the rare occasions that they slip, because they'll fall all over themselves trying to pull the words back into their mouths.

Not that it matters or is even necessary for me to say, but I do have to take exception with the idea that SF is passe. If you think about it, most of those futuristic inventions that were featured in SF novels in the 50s were considered far beyond what science was capable of. 60 years later, here we are with artificial intelligence, "smart" watches, glasses that project an image directly into your eye, and we've been to space and back multiple times. Not really space exploration, per se, but we definitely have a presence there. Saying that SF is passe because all of those things are beyond our reach by centuries or millennia ignores the fact that scientific discoveries happen on a daily basis. The college kid that graduates next year may be the one that discovers the secret of FTL, or possibly someone is in the midst of discovering it as we speak. I wouldn't write off SF as a genre, although I would never encourage anyone to write it if they don't feel the attraction of the genre. Personally, I'm a reader of SF but I doubt that I could ever write in the genre. Every plotline I come up with is more akin to epic fantasy in the David Eddings style than SF in the L Ron Hubbard genre. No matter how I twist and turn the plot devices, I always come back to fantasy. I'm sure it's the same with you and urban fantasy.

As a side note, do you have any favorite authors for urban fantasy? I've read a few which I'm fond of, but not sure if they really qualify for the genre. Ilona Andrews is one, and Jim Butcher's Dresden Files series is another. Any other recommendations for the genre? I'm coming to the end of my current stash of books I haven't read, and don't really want to start the re-reading cycle just yet.