Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Adult Children (or I Don't Want to Grow Up, I'm a Year 2000 Kid*)

*with apologies to Toys 'R' Us

Tip of the Day: See author Erin Dionne's blog post about How "Homeland" and "The Walking Dead" have made me a better writer. Great points and things to think about when developing characters and plot elements! I'll be looking at LOST when I write my thriller sequel.

FaceBook, Twitter, texting, emails, blogs...with the turn of the century came the turn of communications to one even more heavily based on technology, where face-to-face dealings aren't required for the exchange ideas.

Techno world is also, apparently, the prime place for whining. Why? Because whiners have an entire audience "following" them, people who will "listen" to their grief, people who will "pay attention to them" even if in real life they would never announce the same things they do online or through electronic means.

And these people are adults.

How is this related to writing for kids and teens?

Well, in some ways it's not; I just wanted a public forum to whine (ha ha!) about the whiners who clearly just want attention.

In other ways, it totally is related to kidlit. Just pull up your FaceBook account, skim through your Friends' posts, and stop at the ones that sound passive-aggressive, whoa-is-me, or inappropriate for a public forum (such as posts made during work hours that make derogatory comments about said workplace). Then borrow those for future manuscripts about teens who use technology.

Or hell, just keep the characters who act that way as adults. Contemporary realistic YA fiction is coming back, right? Let's just keep it real.

Whine away!

Deena, Miss Subbing for Pubbing

2 comments:

Andrea Lipomi said...

Thank goodness for "unfriend" and "block"! ;)

DeenaML said...

Oh yes, those are the tricks of the digital friend trade! What is always disappointing is when someone starts out normal and fun with their posts...and then turns into an emo monster. You keep hoping the funny person will return....