Friday Feedback: Alohas & Age-Authentic Voice

yep, i spent time making
myself a big, fat lei.

So, today, we're going to do something a little bit different on Friday Feedback.

Pay attention. Read the rules! ;)
Oh, and first, grab yourself a pineapple, a coconut, and a pretty little lei.

Here, I'll wait for you. . .

Okay, ready?


A few weeks ago on Wednesday's Teachers Write! Q & A, a camper asked:

"How do you know if your characters sound right for their ages? My characters are pretty geeky ...

but I’ve been told they don’t sound like teens because they don’t use lots of slang

and because one character talks formally all the time."*

Good question! How indeed?!?

Yeah, yeah, Margo has lived in
Hawaii and has a REAL lei.
Rub it in.

I decided to invite
(a/k/a unwittingly wrangle in)
today's lovely guest author,
Margo "Leipua'ala" Sorenson,
to tackle this topic,

because who better than Margo --

who writes everything from picture books
to MG to YA,

including her upcoming tween adventure/mystery 
Island Danger --

to talk about age-authentic voice and characterization?

The truth is this is an issue that we -- as adult authors of kid, tween and teen fiction -- all struggle with at times: how to conjure an authentic teen voice, when for some of us that age is at least a few *cough, cough,* long years behind us.

Margo offers some advice on how to do this:

"As many authors have said during this wonderful TeachersWrite virtual camp, one of the keys to writing authentic characters is eavesdropping. I know, your mother would be appalled!  Listen in (ever so politely, of course!) to conversations around you. Really hear the cadence, the thought-centers, the inflections, the vocabulary choices, and particularly watch the body language.  When I volunteer weekly at the local Boys and Girls Club for “homework help” (aka controlled chaos), I overhear every age from 2^nd graders through high schoolers, and, as you can well imagine, there is really a difference!  Third-grader Maile in my recent picture book, ALOHA FOR CAROL ANN, acts and speaks so differently from Kekoa, the __-year-old** Hawaiian tough in my forthcoming mystery, ISLAND DANGER.  When it’s time to write, I actually squeeze my eyes shut and put myself right where my character is and mimic the body language first. It’s similar to acting, where you inhabit someone else’s skin.  Somehow, at least for me, that is essential to the process of letting the voice of the character flow, and then the conversation begins…"

** nice try, Margo, but I deleted Kekoa's age as, in a minute, our readers are going to be guessing his age in excerpt #2 below. ;)

Of course, the other key is to find yourself some honest, objective readers if you can get 'em, especially of the 'tween and teen variety, not only because they're the target age, but because they can be brutally (cruel and) honest, and that's what you need sometimes.

So, let's have some fun (or, humiliation, as the case may be).          For this week's Friday Feedback we'll dispense with the usual rules (still a 3 -5 para limit, though, please!) and do some guessing about our characters' ages.

*Please remember that doing these exercises here, as we do, from small snippets out of context ,is OF COURSE different than attempting critiques within the context of a complete manuscript. But, we can still have some fun (I hope!), offer each other some food for thought, and be at least a little useful. :)*

So, feel free to give "age-related" feedback on either of Margo's excerpts or on mine below.

How old do the characters read?

What made you feel this way?

Then post your own excerpt in the comments for the same.

And, since Margo is here today, to all of you a big, warm mahalo, and a sunny aloha!

Margo, Excerpt #1: from WIP titled Alex in Translation

Next, we hit the butcher shop – that was a whole other story --“Is that really horse?” Carrie asked, pointing in the butcher’s case at a sign that had a silhouette of a horse next to the word “cavallo.” “Grosser than gross!”


Behind me, I heard a smothered laugh and turned around to see a really good-looking guy, holding a basket. Were there any ugly guys in Positano? I wondered.


He was wearing a blue polo shirt and nice slacks and deck shoes and his dark hair fell across his forehead, but not so far that I missed his hazel eyes. My breath left my body.


“The American signorina has a problem with our food?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.


“Uh, no, not really,” I said quickly. “She’s just not used to it.” I had a hard time putting a coherent sentence together as long as I was looking at him.

“And you?” he asked the obvious question. “You are used to it?” He sounded disbelieving.


“I used to live here,” I said.


“Really?” he answered. “An American? And now you are back.”


“Just for a visit,” I said. “I live in California -- in the U.S. now. I don’t live here anymore.” Did I sound too quick to affirm where I lived now – and that was so not Italy?


“I see,” he said, and his expression shut right down. I must have said something wrong.

Margo: excerpt #2 from Island Danger

 "You no tell da cops on my ohana," he threatened, gesturing back toward the homeless campsite.  "O' I bus' yo' face."

            "No," Todd said.  "No, I won't."  He tightened his mouth.  An idea glimmered in the back of his brain.  Well, why not.  A bargain was a bargain, and he had to keep trying to fake Kekoa out.  "You quit hassling me and my soccer team at the park, then," he demanded. Would it work?

            Kekoa spat onto the path. "Whatevahs," he snorted.  Todd let out his breath slowly as Kekoa continued striding down the path toward the park, shoving aside branches and bushes in his way.  He almost shivered in relief.         

Gae, Excerpt - from Upcoming YA from Algonquin

     “Anyway, enough about me and my stupid, morbid life.” I roll toward her and prop up on my elbow. “Tell me about you and Bradley.”
     She drops her foot, and points the other one. Her legs are perfect like everything else about her. “What’s to tell? He’s a guy,” she says, but her lips crack into a smile.

I feel a stitch in my heart, but ignore it, because I really want to know. “Come on, ‘Zette, details. I swear I won’t be jealous.”

She rolls her eyes. “Total lie. And there’s really nothing to tell. But, either way, I understand.”

“So, then tell me, please?”

              “What do you want to know?”

“Everything.” I sit up and look out over the ocean. The sky is the brightest blue with puffs of white patches drifting by. “Okay, for starters, does he kiss good?”

“Lie back down. You’re blocking my sun.”

               “Lisette…”
               “Really good,” she says. “Really, really good. You happy?”
               “Tongue?”

She laughs. “Yes. Of course. Tongue. Absolutely.”

Gae, Excerpt 2: from WIP titled Jack Keroac is Dead to Me

(this is a WIP I haven't worked on in quite a while, but am going to go back to. . .)

For a while, we stood there on the dock, side by side, watching and thinking like that, but then, suddenly, Max turned to me. “Do you ever wonder what it would feel like to just jump, Jailbait? Dive off the edge and let your body fall? Be done with things, all nice and easy?” He turned back toward the water, held his arms out like wings, leaned forward and inhaled. I grabbed on to the back of his jacket and he laughed. “I’m not going to do it, sweetheart, and if you hold on like that, I’d only take you with me.”

My heart was pounding, and I gave him a look, so he stepped back from the edge and wrapped both his arms around me, and rocked us together in the moonlight. After a few minutes he said, “I forgot, I have something for you, hang on.”

He rummaged in his pockets and pulled out a folded white square of tissue paper. “I got you this. It’s not much.” I looked at him, stunned, and unwrapped it. Inside was a small gold ring with a butterfly with blue gemstones the exact blue of a Morpho’s wings. I slipped it on my finger and it fit perfectly. I blinked back tears. I couldn’t believe he’d done that for me.

“It’s beautiful, Max, thank you.”

He nodded and reached inside his jacket for something else. I waited, wondering what other surprises he had in store. But this time he pulled out a silver flask.       

“Just a little tonight. Everyone is, okay?”    

And there it was again, that thing Max did that could make me so happy and so scared at the same time. I took a deep breath and thought of Aubrey and how annoying it was that she was so afraid of everything. Maybe I was being like that now. Maybe just one night, I could step out of bounds, trust Max, and let it to not be such a big deal.

“Okay,” I said. “Gimme.”

gae & Margo :)

* p.s. I thought the Teachers Write camper who started everything here had actually done a good job making her characters sound authentic and age-appropriate. So there's that, too, that sometimes our readers are wrong. Or, at least, our readers can disagree.

**p.p.s. Hey all, Gae popping on to add a quick note: Margo is having trouble from her end with the reply button, so her comments will be at the bottom with your user names intro'ing them. Look for them there. Also, we will reveal the ages of our characters in our excerpts at the end of the day. Aloha. And happy Friday!