I…I think weird thoughts sometimes.
Anyway, snark. In particular, snarky characters. In even more particular, snarky teenage protagonists. Although I can’t think of any off hand, I’ve heard this is a common trait for YA main characters and it’s both overdone and uninteresting. This of course ties my insides into a knot because I have a snarky MC.
I can understand why people might be turned off by yet another sarcastic MC, especially in the first person point of view. The thought is that the snarky voice is used so much because it’s an easy way to sound like a teenager when in reality you’re in your thirties and have three children under the age of eight.
But for me, it wasn’t about trying to sound like a teenager. My character’s sarcastic because, as anyone who has read any of my blog posts knows, I’msarcastic. Shades of snark show up in all my characters, especially my main characters, and not just the YA ones either. For me, part of crafting voice is using my own way of talking and thinking, which in my head is ninety percent complaining and making fun of stuff. And if I changed the snark in COLLAPSE, for example, I think it might lose something.
Is that true? I’m not sure, but it definitely merits thinking over. And yes, I’m going to finish with some questions. What do you think of the sarcastic teenage voice? Do any of you have examples of snarky main characters in fiction (YA or not)?
