: Re: Is it okay to have made up words/slang in a story? In my story there are some words in there that even Grammarly couldn't understand, but they make sense in the story. They're slang, or things

Read James Joyce's Ulysses and David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest and realize that there are no rules.

There is no inherent problem with the excerpts you gave. The "slang" is appropriate and immediately describes the character quite successfully. Some people might warn you that you can overdo it, and that is certainly true... but if you overdo it with purpose and with confidence, it might turn out great exactly because of your different and fresh approach.

The one thing I would try to avoid is language that sounds as if an adult came up with it and put it into the mouth of a teenager. We immediately notice this because it usually sounds a bit too clever and a bit too forced. (There's a beautiful award in Germany for the "Youth word of the year", where everyone is certain that many of the winners have been made up. One such word is "smombie". It's a very clever portmanteau of "smartphone" and "zombie", you see, so it is a brilliant piece of social critique wrapped in a cool word that teenagers totally use all the time, in sentences such as "Dude, you're such a smombie, that's not rad bro".)

Edit: Just a clarification, the first sentence is a bit tongue-in-cheek. I agree with the other answers that advise caution. I just wanted to mention that two of my absolute favorite novels threw caution to the wind and ended up as masterpieces.

Load Full (0)

: Should I signal completion of a decision point in an interactive novel? In my visual novel (an interactive, narrative-based video-game), I have a detective character who decides whether he believes

@Kaufman555

Load Full 3 Comments

: Nanowrimo and typewriting I am a happy user of an Underwood 5, an old typewriter from the beginning of the XX century. I use it to type letters, short stories, greeting cards, and labels.

@Kaufman555

Load Full 2 Comments

: Does it really serve a main character to give them one driving want? I often feel that we fall into a trap of believing that we must provide a driving goal for a main character at the outset.

@Kaufman555

Load Full 7 Comments

: What is the structure of a paranormal horror story? Building on the definition of a Paranormal Story (as opposed to Dark Fantasy) described in the answers here: What are most common tropes of

: Re: Is it okay to have made up words/slang in a story? In my story there are some words in there that even Grammarly couldn't understand, but they make sense in the story. They're slang, or things

More posts by @Kaufman555

: Should I signal completion of a decision point in an interactive novel? In my visual novel (an interactive, narrative-based video-game), I have a detective character who decides whether he believes

: Nanowrimo and typewriting I am a happy user of an Underwood 5, an old typewriter from the beginning of the XX century. I use it to type letters, short stories, greeting cards, and labels.

: Does it really serve a main character to give them one driving want? I often feel that we fall into a trap of believing that we must provide a driving goal for a main character at the outset.

: What is the structure of a paranormal horror story? Building on the definition of a Paranormal Story (as opposed to Dark Fantasy) described in the answers here: What are most common tropes of

Login to post a comment!

0 Comments

Back to top