Simple Saturday

I know I said we'd begin to discuss Brooks' masterpiece The Moves Make the Man, and we will, mind you. We will. But last night, it hit me! I finally understood why the voice of the Sportcaster gets my goat. In two words....Author Intrusion! The Sportcaster cannot keep from lacing their text with sport lingo because they are not coming to the page fully from the character's perspective, but rather from their own. 

Like I said earlier, Sportscasters assume that the reader is a sports fan, hence the lingo load. Now, books written in this slant can be quite successful. Though lots of readers love them, they're just not my cup of Gatorade.

For example, highly successful Mike Lupica is a well-loved author and ESPN sports caster, so the voice comes by naturally. The lingo is his schtick. It is a big part of who he is. While his books are very, very popular, his Sportcaster-ness fouls out in his prose from time to time. Here's a line to consider from Mike's Travel Team.

In this scene a twelve-year-old Danny is watching a girl his age play basketball. As she bounds around the court in her budding-cuteness, Danny thinks that she was out there, "...scoring all the points, getting all the rebounds, passing like she was ready at twelve to go play for the women's teams at UConn or Tennessee or one of those colleges where the women's team was better and more famous than the men's" (97). Can you hear the sport casting author speaking rather than hormone-charged, adolescent Danny? I don't think that, while inhabiting a moment like this one, the mind of a twelve-year-old boy would go directly to collegiate rankings. I think he'd keep his eye on the girl with the ball and the feelings she is generating inside of him. In this instance, Lupica's Sportcaster author voice intruded upon the character's voice. Mike trumped Danny. Lupica's voice was louder, sending Danny to the literary showers. Yerrr out! I'm talking now.

There...now maybe I can get some sleep tonight!