What are the do's and don'ts on writing teenangers in comics?

What are the do's and don'ts on writing teenangers in comics?

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Don't hire Mark Waid.

Don't assume that teenagers talk like you talked when you were a teenager.

Don't do what Waid does.

>Music band

Don't throw buzzwords you don't know what they mean.

In fact, you should do research by going to nearby schools and take photos and record conversations of live-action teenagers to study in the privacy of your house.

If you are writing teenagers talking and anyone says a full gramatically correct sentence or has anything resembling an intelligent, reasonable arguement/stance on current issues, you are doing it wrong.

>In fact, you should do research by going to nearby schools and take photos and record conversations of live-action teenagers to study in the privacy of your house.

Well put. Or should I say "What even is sentences even?"

>mfw even as a teenanger I didn't understand teenangers.

If you think you know what the "do's" are, don't.

I feel you, Ben, I feel you.

DON'T: do it

DO: not do it

you got to know the lingo

words like "awake" and "if" and "lighted" are very important as is the number 99

No memes
No slang
Minimal romance
You will fuck it up

Man your reference game is weak

Same here.

You can't write modern teenagers.

Talk to a young adult for help. Someone 18-21, so you don't get v&.

There's not enough dabbing and bottle flipping in comics.

Make sure you, at every possible juncture, have the teenager holding their phone, looking at their phone, or talking about their phone. If their phone is not on the screen, the teenager should be asking, "Where's my phone?"

Cast them as actual teens

>writing
>in comics

>Don't

Write teenagers.

>Do

See: Don't.

>didn't get a phone til I was 20
>mainly just read with it
>people tell me to stop staring at my phone and read a book

I don't understand why people get so autistic about phone use

Obviously you bring in actual teenagers to read the lines and give input on what's "hip" and "with it"

That's not called "casting."

>phone died on the way back to its home planet.

The problem only starts if your face is buried in your phone while you're in the physical presence of friends/family.

That's a very elitist thing to say.

Well you have to cast the teenagers. You can't just pick any random kids off the street they have to fit the characters

Are you Mr Fantastic? You're really stretching this as far as you can to make it work, but it isn't going to.

Do: make them stupid and mean and sex obsessed.
Don't: make them do chores or homework

>Do
Write like G Willow, make them a person, only introduce "issues" when it's relevant to them, have them be concerned or not concerned about the things that are immediately available to them in a way that suits their personality.

>Don't
Write like Waid. #woke??

Don't write them as teenagers write them as characters. The reason why shit like Runaways or NXM worked was because the writers treated them as actual characters and didn't try to be hip or with it.

Just write a proper story and you'll be fine. Do that any slack will be picked up.

Don't use stereotypes

This guy gets it.

just kind of accept that you'll be writing miniature adults no matter what you do and run with it

As someone who hangs out with teenagers (and loaths every moment of it) yes they do. The slang changes, but it's the same shit over and over and over again.

Ancient Greek teenagers probably acted a lot like modern americans in most ways.

Have them skip school to get high on dabs and then posting dick picture on instagram or snapchat or something like that, and then posting the emojis which is like a language of it's own. if you post the "dead" emoji it means that it's a very funny post, etc

This, essentially.

Here's G Willow at TED explaining how it's done.

youtube.com/watch?v=piWo4200G0U

I'd just write how I speak to my friends now, we're in our early 20s, not much has changed in how we speak to each other when we were 17/18, although if you're going to write characters who are under 16 don't even fucking try to "get" them. There isn't much advice to give other than never ever try to use slang that you don't get, like don't even try to get it just fucking skip it, it's probably a flavor of the month meme word like "fleek", "saucin", "skrrt", "dab" etc. timeless shit like "cool", "dude", "what's up" etc. just simple shit like that will do you fine. you could always just talk to some younger relatives who are like in their early 20s at the oldest if you really must know how they talk, if you are anywhere near your 20s then just write how you spoke to your friends in your upper class years of high school. Writing younger people is the easiest shit but so many people seem to fuck it up, how?

Honestly, Bendis is a good reference for writing teens. Even the adults act like teens. Avoid Bendispeak and decompression and you are fine.

Yeah, Night in the Woods writing was off a bit.

Either write them as adults with less responsibilities or write them as children with more responsibilities. But make sure you make them aware of their status. Too many people write teenagers with no self awareness. Even if that may be the case for many real teens, it is not entertaining to read or watch. Teenagers are in the period of their lives when they are becoming more aware of themselves and their world, so always keep that in mind.

My entire life right now is pretty explorative, recently I've begun to listen to music as an actual thing instead of just top 40 stuff in the background and it's been a wild ride listening to all the entry level stuff and then moving deeper to songs with like 1k views on youtube (inb4 that's still entry level, idc).

I often find myself making comparison between my life and the lives described in said music even though I'm an upper middle class white kid who lives with his parents and they're poor mistreated people who have friends who killed themselves and abuse drugs and all that stuff. What I'm getting at is that my life is literally nothing alike what the music I like describes but I identify with it because I enjoy the lyricism and the aesthetic and it describes a kind of casual nihilism about my own existence that I've come to embrace.

I've also begun to kind of secretly question my own place as a person because I think I'm getting sucked more and more into a hole of unsure sexuality and I'm beginning to identify solely with female characters and ideas which is concerning to me for obvious reasons.

The biggest issue is that I'm an incredibly lazy and untalented person, I can't write or draw or create meaningful art on my own and I excuse all my mistakes by saying that I could do things right if I really tried or pretending to be too smart to play the game that everyone else is playing. This extends into my personal life where I seem to be unable to keep friendships or other relationships going because I literally just don't put the effort in.

I don't know how to talk to anyone except the small circle of friends that I already know except for when I suddenly somehow do and stop floundering for awhile.

I wish I was younger again so I could do it all over and have no responsibility.

t. Teenager

God dammit Sup Forums

> I wish I was younger again so I could do it all over and have no responsibility.

Guy in his Early 20s here.

It's only gonna get worse.

>I'm beginning to identify solely with female characters and ideas which is concerning to me for obvious reasons.
Just because you're a girly boy doesn't mean you're a girl.

Read indie comics I guess. Thinking about my conversations as a teenager they were really rambly because I wasn't actually thinking about constructing a conversation. I could talk about the news and then suddenly transition into who I want to fuck. But then around adults I'm very stilted and want to end the conversation as quickly as possible.

30 here, dwelling on the past will ruin you. Cherish every second and move ahead with confidence even if everything seems like shit.

And things change faster than you'd expect. I basically went from homeless to homeowner with a great job in a month's time. And for 90% of my life I thought I was bi-curious until I got into an intimate relationship with a man and was like "nope, no boner!" and it was like a 20 year weight was lifted off my chest.

I'd say once you hit 25 you learn how to see yourself years ahead. But between 18-25 a month feels like forever.

You can start by not blogging on Sup Forums, you faggot.

What's the problem with Mark Waid? I'm 18 and I've been reading Impulse lately and I like it. It seems like it would've been a series I'd have loved as a kid and would've been cool as an animated series.

Anyways, do's and don'ts:

Don'ts:
-No memes
-No slang
-Don't attempt to be 'in' on what's popular, just give them the most neutral interests you can fathom to avoid this. Eating food, film, dogs; something like that. Don't make them obsessed with Snapchat or some lame shit like that. When you're a younger teen all you want to do is be taken seriously and treated like an adult so factor that in your characterisation.
-Don't make them total halfwits completely oblivious to their own shitty behaviour/consequences of their actions because they aren't little kids. But if they're 12-14 make them as fucking retarded as you want because everyone's a dipshit at that age.

Do's:
-Just write them like you would an adult or any normal person except with a slightly skewed scale to what counts as a legitimately big problem and what doesn't

Leave Sup Forums before they turn you into a massive fag.

DO: Be someone other than Mark Waid
DON'T: Be Mark Waid

It also doesn't mean you have a shot with lesbians.
I like this, we're all contributing valuable life experience to user's development.

We actually know for a fact that they did thanks to the preserved graffiti of pompeii.

pompeiana.org/Resources/Ancient/Graffiti from Pompeii.htm

>describes a kind of casual nihilism about my own existence that I've come to embrace.

AW SHIT IT'S POMPEII GRAFFITI TIME

THE BEST KIND OF TIME
>Weep, you girls. My penis has given you up. Now it penetrates men’s behinds. Goodbye, wondrous femininity!
>On April 19th, I made bread
>Theophilus, don’t perform oral sex on girls against the city wall like a dog
>If anyone does not believe in Venus, they should gaze at my girl friend
>Chie, I hope your hemorrhoids rub together so much that they hurt worse than when they every have before!
>O walls, you have held up so much tedious graffiti that I am amazed that you have not already collapsed in ruin.

It's depends. Everyone had a different teen/high school experience. As long as you aren't in your 40's or something, it's probably pretty safe to base a lot of conversations/situations similar to your high school conversations.

just copy Archie. Teenagers need to be more wholesome like they are IRL, instead of dirty punkbags like the foot clan in the first Ninja Turtle movie

>wholesome like they are IRL

I wish, user, but sadly kids are just getting dumber and gayer.

>Basing everything I do with "what would Jughead do?" since elementary school
>no friends and 300 pounds overweight

Gods, Theophilus is such a faggot.

>I wish I was younger again so I could do it all over and have no responsibility.

Stop taking on the mindset of your parents and of society and of /r9k/ and think about what you really enjoy. You don't want to be fucking younger, you don't want to be told what to do, how to dress, what time to go to sleep and you don't want to be in school for 6 hours a fucking day being told what to do by a bunch of asshole teachers who hate their lives and probably you. You don't want to sit in a dirty fucking yard/canteen and be forced to listen to kids screaming and get hit by balls while you're trying to eat lunch. You don't want to be around a bunch of fickle shallow morons who think being popular and good at sports is the most important thing in the world. That fucking sucked. It all fucking sucked. That was your life a year (presumably) or less ago. High school drama, thots, getting told that some fucking Stacy was hot shit because she buys LSD off the internet, filthy fucking canteens and school grounds, smelly public school classrooms, getting bossed around all fucking day and forced to do useless work. Don't tell me you liked that shit, because that's a crock of crap.
You're at an age where you have freedom but it's still acceptable to do things like be a NEET and actually enjoy it. Being between the ages of 17 and 25 is great, take a step back and look at it for what it is. And once again, think about what YOU actually like.

youtube.com/watch?v=BsyHQgiem8c

>you don't like what you liked
>you like this thing i'm telling you to like

I assumed this was pasta, but people replied to it

I don't know what to believe

Every other teenager these days is sore to the point of being severely depressed about being a NEET and that's inherently retarded.
There's literally nothing wrong with being an 18 year old who likes sitting at home playing video games, eating pizza and sleeping til 10am and is a little lazy, and there's no good reason why anyone should feel bad about fitting into that category. It's not the 1890s, you don't need to be sent to the mines or the fucking glue factory to support your 10 polio-ridden younger siblings since your mother died at the grand old age of 35. Enjoy youth and freedom and don't take on the damaging mindset/beliefs of someone much older than you in an attempt to be self-aware and mature.

...

But his young Justice comic was GREAT


oh, wait... its like 19 or 20 years old. a long enough time to forget how kids speak

Get teenagers to write them, then use your professional skills to polish the turd

Don't expertly write a turd yourself, it'll just come off as awkward

>Impulse
True. should've said Don't hire current Mark Waid.

>What's the problem with Mark Waid?
He's doing the opposite of this:
>Don'ts:
>-No memes
>-No slang
>-Don't attempt to be 'in' on what's popular, just give them the most neutral interests you can fathom to avoid this. Eating food, film, dogs; something like that. Don't make them obsessed with Snapchat or some lame shit like that. When you're a younger teen all you want to do is be taken seriously and treated like an adult so factor that in your characterisation.
>-Don't make them total halfwits completely oblivious to their own shitty behaviour/consequences of their actions because they aren't little kids. But if they're 12-14 make them as fucking retarded as you want because everyone's a dipshit at that age.

simply epic response

the point was that's literally what coop does and he's pretty satisfied with his life.

>Weep, you girls. My penis has given you up. Now it penetrates men’s behinds. Goodbye, wondrous femininity!
this should be a banner

This is great, and proves the guy who made A Knight's Tale right

He logicked that the 70s are always the same, no matter which century it's the 70s of. Hence the Queen music and hairstyles.

>not tedious graffiti

the guy who decided to go full gay is something you'd actually read here
the fact that the same wording was used many centuries ago makes me shed a single tear of pride

oh that's cool then, lol

Well shit, I didn't know that but I have heard a lot of people shitting on him on here and always wondered why based on reading... well, just Impulse. Care to share any notably cringeworthy examples of his writing?

Agreed.

Just don't go overboard on trying to adopt the slang, because that's usually a give away when it's forced.

Don't kill them off for edge points.

I've got an ongoing comic with teenage characters, and people keep telling me it's great. I often wonder if they're just kissing my ass. But I've storytimed in various places, some of them well known for hostility and it still comes out pretty well liked.

My tips are:

-avoid five dollar words. Unless a character is studying for the SATs they won't be using a lot of polysyllabic words.

-while not having extensive vocabularies, that won't mean they won't say mature things, especially when it comes to sex or vulgarity. In fact they often overcompensate and act too vulgar. People always comment on how vulgar the dialogue is in Superbad, but they usually fess up and admit that's how they talked in high school

-avoid shortlived slang, like "gettin' jiggy with it" and ""hella epic" and "oppam gangnam style" and "cuck cuck cuck cuck cuck SJW cuck."

-the old classics are still valid. Like, "like." and "Oh my god."

-keep it simple, stupid. dialogue in comics should usually be short and punchy and situational at any rate

People reply to pasta all the time.
People still reply to the fucking Harry Potter pasta and that's over a year old

Do: Write them as idiots who think they understand everything based on their limited life experience

I always hate when they write a designated "smart" kid by having them use big words and SCIENCE! stuff.
They are still kids, just a bit smarter. They shouldn't know everything, just be faster about what to look up and where.
Also kids are biased as shit because they usually only have a single primary source that influences their views.

You are asking us? In this same month some fag said that he thought that Rebecca Black is the most popular singer between normies

>Also kids are biased as shit because they usually only have a single primary source that influences their views.

b-but if I write kids as multicultural and universally tolerant, the irl kids will become just like that and i'll have saved the world from racism

Just write them as young adults. Do not even attempt to do slang. Forget about it. Get it out of your head immediately: you will ruin EVERYTHING if you use even one word of slang

Individual groups of friends have their own slang anyway so you could probably get away with made up words and have it be less cringe inducing and dated than trying to badly use IRL slang.

Same here.

The localised nature of youth slang is a bit of a problem, yes.
I live in Germany and our dictionary publisher is collecting youth slang every year to crown a youth neologism of the year. Invariably nobody has actually ever used any of them because they tend to come out of very specific circles and the criteria clearly favor novelty over applicability.
So anyone attempting to use their so-called youth dictionary will invariably become incomprehensible to almost everyone.
Still, some slang people around me actually used:
To call someone a moron, we would use Spaten (spade) or Klappstuhl (folding chair), which got fused into calling them a Klappspaten (entrenching tool/ folding spade) instead.
A trolley would be dubbed a Hackenporsche (literally a heel Porsche).
And a small dog we called Fußhupe (foot horn) because, so far the macabre reasoning, if you were to step on them they'd function like a pedal-operated air horn.

>To call someone a moron, we would use Spaten (spade) or Klappstuhl (folding chair), which got fused into calling them a Klappspaten (entrenching tool/ folding spade) instead.

This isn't a lot different than calling someone a lemon or a door knob.

dont
>make them annoying
>if you do, give them some well deserved comeuppance

do
>make them likable
>make them interesting

They don't know everything.
They think they know everything.


There you go.

Consider yourself lucky that you've only read his Impulse. It's basically the only time he's been successful with a young character.

Compare it to his modern Champions and wonder where it all went wrong.

>tfw 9 younger step-siblings, no polio or anything crazy like that though
>mother died at the age of 42
I work at a local paper factory and help around the house with stuff and my step father works at car shop ~40 miles away.
I get that I'm the exception rather than the norm, but just saying it's pretty funny that your example just happened to hit pretty close to home for me.

Wonder what a movie about someone learning about the thoughts of the internet, or modern teens, would be like. Well I suppose they might go the Ultron route, purge.

>he doesn't know that there are teens smarter then himself