: Re: Using slang as a narrator - pros and cons Is it advisable to use slang and euphemisms as a narrator, in addition to the main characters who use it? Are there arguments for and against it?

@Martha805

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For a good, modern example, see The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. The entire story is told by a narrator who speaks, not only with slang, but with impenetrable, culturally specific slang, largely in Spanish. It gives the whole book an immediacy, and you feel almost as if you're sitting on the steps with a beer, listening to this crazy dominicano telling you the story as he paces back and forth on the sidewalk, making big hand gestures. Quality book, won a lot of awards, sold a lot of copies.

So the answer is absolutely, with the caveat that, if it's not done well, it's better not to do it at all. And it should (imho) only be done in the first or second. Even if you're using some Gatsby-esque first-person-pretending-to-be-third-person device, that's fine, but impersonal narrators speaking in slang is a little weird, again, in my opinion.

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