Wanna/Gonna

imagoodgurl4 · Nov 25, 2007

Does anyone know if using "wanna" and "gonna" and the like is appropriate in dialogue? It just sounds more natural for some of my characters to say this, versus, "want to" or "going to."

Any advice welcome. Thanks.

~ imagoodgurl4 ~

scarletpeaches · Nov 25, 2007

Anything's appropriate in dialogue, as long as that's how your characters would speak.

WendyNYC · Nov 25, 2007

It's fine, but a little goes a long way. Saying "gonna" is more natural than reading the word "gonna." At least to me.

imagoodgurl4 · Nov 25, 2007

Yeah, that's why I wasn't sure. I didn't know if it would be something that would turn agents off. I know they look for reasons to reject manuscripts, so I didn't want to have slang or any type of dialogue that an agent might consider incorrect.

Shady Lane · Nov 25, 2007

It freaks me out when I'm reading a teenager's dialogue and they say 'going to.'

Just saying.

job · Nov 25, 2007

My advice would be to wander into the YA section of your public library and see how other folks do this. You might also try chicklit.

I'm reading Beagle's Tamsin, which is magnificent for voice.

imagoodgurl4 · Nov 25, 2007

Do you mean check out YA for research purposes? Because I'm not writing YA, I'm writing adult fiction.

WendyNYC · Nov 25, 2007

imagoodgurl4 said:
Yeah, that's why I wasn't sure. I didn't know if it would be something that would turn agents off. I know they look for reasons to reject manuscripts, so I didn't want to have slang or any type of dialogue that an agent might consider incorrect.

I don't think they will think it's incorrect, but I think that if you just sprinkle the "gonnas" and the like, it's enough to let the reader know how this person speaks. It doesn't have to be every time.

imagoodgurl4 · Nov 25, 2007

Thanks, Wendy. I had only planned on perhaps the first few sentences of dialogue in the first chapter, just to inform the reader and then transition back to the correct form, so as not to hit them over the head with it. One thing I hated in the Harry Potter books was the way Hagrid always talked. That kind of thing drove me nuts.

job · Nov 25, 2007

imagoodgurl4 said:
Do you mean check out YA for research purposes? Because I'm not writing YA, I'm writing adult fiction.

Yep. I'd check the YA books specifically for how they handle the highly idomatic, slangy dialog of teens.

Dustry Joe · Nov 25, 2007

Yep. I'd check the YA books specifically for how they handle the highly idomatic, slangy dialog of teens.

That sounds like just a way bad idea, frankly. It's tricky enough trying to be up to date on hip teen talk and YA books are usually comically "off". If you don't listen to kids talk...kids like the ones you're writing about...or aren't writing about kids from your own youth, you should be extemely careful with this or you look really, really lame.

Danger Jane · Nov 25, 2007

Dustry Joe said:
That sounds like just a way bad idea, frankly. It's tricky enough trying to be up to date on hip teen talk and YA books are usually comically "off". If you don't listen to kids talk...kids like the ones you're writing about...or aren't writing about kids from your own youth, you should be extemely careful with this or you look really, really lame.

Yeah, books like Gossip Girls pull this off...horribly. But there is also great YA that makes it work and feel real. Some stuff doesn't change...like the use of the word "gonna".

GOOD way to learn, just like with any technique. Just pick the right materials. You can learn from good and bad, as long as you can discern which is which.

wayndom · Nov 25, 2007

I once struggled with this very question, until one day I realized that if I write, "I'm going to quit tomorrow," most peoples' eyes glide over "going to" and read it as "gonna."

I drew this conclusion because I've almost never seen dialog that includes, "gonna," but when it was appropriate for a character, I heard the character saying "gonna" in my head. So I let the reader make the switch.

The danger of writing "gonna" and "wanna" (or almost any other phonetic spelling in dialog) is that they draw attention to the writing (because they're non-standard) and as such can annoy the reader. "Going to" and "want to" will never annoy the reader.

job · Nov 25, 2007

Dustry Joe said:
That sounds like just a way bad idea, frankly. It's tricky enough trying to be up to date on hip teen talk and YA books are usually comically "off". If you don't listen to kids talk...kids like the ones you're writing about...or aren't writing about kids from your own youth, you should be extemely careful with this or you look really, really lame.

You are very right about avoiding the lure of transient street slang.

I would recommend YA books, not as a source of particular slang words,
(the OP is not looking for the latest slang,)
but because well-written YA books teach the technique of working with non-standard language.

YA shelves are a good place to find masterful examples of how to represent slangy, informal speech. This isn't about particular 'hip' words. This is about cadence, sentence length, speed of narrative, Italics, intrusive internals, paragraphing, neologisms, contraction, and non-standard usages like 'gonna' and 'wanna'.

job · Nov 25, 2007

wayndom said:
The danger of writing "gonna" and "wanna" (or almost any other phonetic spelling in dialog) is that they draw attention to the writing (because they're non-standard) and as such can annoy the reader. "Going to" and "want to" will never annoy the reader.

I agree here. There's lots of tricks that make us 'hear' the informal slurring of the words without actually writing it out.

OTOH, the very occasional ...

From the back seat arose the dreaded, "Mommy, Cindy's gonna hurl," and I swerved across four lanes of traffic, cut off a 16-wheeler, and hit the verve.

... nubs the nubbins.

Garpy · Nov 26, 2007

My advice would be to grow yourself a teenaged neice and nephew - they're priceless research material for writing YA stuff.

For my tuppence though, I'd say a light sprinkling of 'gonna' throughout the book is acceptable. In my current WIP I have a 19th century trapper/frontiersman who drops his 'g's from the end of 'ing's...eg: I'm goin' north. I agonised about how to deal with this. To put it in occasionally, or all the time? Putting it in all the time, got irritating. Putting it in occasionally was odd...it made him sound inconsistant. My solution ended up being to put it in all the time, but rephrase his dilaog so that he wasn't using 'ing's (minus the 'g's) too often that it grated.

blacbird · Nov 26, 2007

Dunno.

caw

seun · Nov 26, 2007

Garpy said:
My advice would be to grow yourself a teenaged neice and nephew - they're priceless research material for writing YA stuff.

They're also handy for nicking your dvds.

imagoodgurl4 · Nov 26, 2007

Garpy said:
My advice would be to grow yourself a teenaged neice and nephew - they're priceless research material for writing YA stuff.

I"ve got cousins that are sill teenagers, will that do?

KTC · Nov 26, 2007

As Judas said way up thread...anything is appropriate in dialogue. If you're doing some historical piece that takes place in a different century I wouldn't think wanna/gonna were big flyers back then...but I don't know. I didn't walk the 1800 cobbled streets of insert some 1800 cobbled street here. I do know that I use those two words almost exclusively because people say them like that almost exclusively in dialogue. Unless of course they're uptight speakers pinching loaves of self-righteousness with every squeak-filled footstep they take.

rwam · Nov 26, 2007

wayndom said:
I once struggled with this very question, until one day I realized that if I write, "I'm going to quit tomorrow," most peoples' eyes glide over "going to" and read it as "gonna."

I drew this conclusion because I've almost never seen dialog that includes, "gonna," but when it was appropriate for a character, I heard the character saying "gonna" in my head. So I let the reader make the switch.

The danger of writing "gonna" and "wanna" (or almost any other phonetic spelling in dialog) is that they draw attention to the writing (because they're non-standard) and as such can annoy the reader. "Going to" and "want to" will never annoy the reader.

I think I like Wayndom's advice here. Just like your tags (he said, she said), I think there are certain things you want in your dialogue to remain invisible. Although I have used "gonna" in dialogue in order to avoid the more formal "going to", "gonna" is not an invisible contraction like "aren't", "isn't" and "haven't". "Gonna" sticks out. People notice when you use it. So, even though it's a more realistic portrayal of the way people talk (grownups and teens alike), I think "going to" is more invisible. As such, I believe the occasional "going to" is far less likely to irritate a reader/agent/editor than the occasional "gonna".

Good thread.

BruceJ · Nov 26, 2007

imagoodgurl4 said:
Thanks, Wendy. I had only planned on perhaps the first few sentences of dialogue in the first chapter, just to inform the reader and then transition back to the correct form, so as not to hit them over the head with it. One thing I hated in the Harry Potter books was the way Hagrid always talked. That kind of thing drove me nuts.

I'm not sure the inconsistency would be helpful. If I were reading along and was used to seeing a particular vernacular, I would trip over it if suddenly the same character stopped using it (unless there was a reason for it; e.g., the character finds him/herself in a more formal setting, or there's a maturation process going on.). The technique is to text-paint the character's personality, so, unless it changes, the painting shouldn't either.

Looking at the above exchanges, though, there appears to be a lot of subjectivity, as some are annoyed by the technique, others to a lesser degree and some not at all. I fall in the last category.

DonnaDuck · Nov 26, 2007

I'm not going to throw the book acorss the room if I see it but at the same time I don't want to see too much of it. Unless you have a very exact reader that's going to read "going to" exactly as it's printed, most people are going to blur those words anyway when they read. Personally, it's something that sounds more at ease in speech than it does in writing so if it were me, I'd either not use 'going to' a lot of this is how a character speechs or let people make the assumption that when they read 'going to' it's 'gonna' that's being said since not too many people actually say "going to."

imagoodgurl4 · Nov 26, 2007

Hmm...there seems to be a lot of opinions at both ends of the spectrum and all of you have very valid points. I'm thinking, perhaps, I'll write the story and then have my beta readers tell me what they think.

ACEnders · Nov 26, 2007

I think you have to be careful with it...even with characters that would talk that way - teens or whatever. I have characters that say stuff like that in certain situations..like a waitress sometimes says "What can I getcha?" But she woudln't say that outside of work. I only use that sort of slang in very select circumstances...but then, I haven't been published you. (maybe querying would help....)

Wanna/Gonna

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my name is hannah

In the end, it's just you and the manuscript

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fiddle-dee-dee

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In the end, it's just you and the manuscript

In the end, it's just you and the manuscript

In the end, it's just you and the manuscript

keyboard monkey

Horror Man

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Stand in the Place Where You Live

Me and my Muse

My Worlds Are Building

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Self-Banned