The Target Audience

Writing is all about what will attract and hold the interest of the reader.

I get that.

Lately I’ve read or started to read a couple books that were intended for adult readers even though the story began when the protagonist was a child. The authors chose to present the young part of the story as an adult looking back. The language was sophisticated, and life-experiences of the adult were apparent in the telling. These authors apparently believed their adult readers would relate more readily to a young voice if viewed through the lens of memory.

I get that too.

But for someone who’s in the trenches, striving day after day to make my teenage characters’ voices sound realistic and young (without appearing to work at making them seem realistic and young), this approach seems too easy.