Talk About Embarrassing! (Mary Strand)

This month at YA Outside the Lines, we're talking about the most embarrassing thing(s) that happened to us as a teen ... and how that helps us write humor in our YA (young adult) novels.

When I think about teenage embarrassments, I usually come up short ... except for the two most embarrassing things I can remember. But I also think I don't remember many embarrassing things because, even as a teen, I always used humor to get out of tight (or, say, embarrassing) situations. If everyone sees that YOU'RE laughing, they're far less likely to laugh AT you.

The first event was embarrassing by any standard. I was in 7th grade. The Cutest Boy on Earth was in 9th grade. I don't even know (or remember?) his name, but I think we rode the same bus to school. The bell rang for a fire drill, and I was on the third floor, so there was a mad scramble of a zillion kids racing down the stairs to the first floor. I was wearing my pride-and-joy plaid elephant pants with cuffs. (Yes, I had no taste whatsoever. I also never wore them again after that day.) Cute Boy was RIGHT in front of me on the stairs. And ... I tripped on the cuff of my pants. FLEW forward and landed right on him in the middle of the stairs.

I would say I died of embarrassment that day, but I'm still here, so there's that.

I also broke my own rule. Believe me, I did NOT laugh or make a joke out of it. I wanted to crawl into a hole and die. (But again, still here.)

The second event was embarrassing only in my own mind, so I'm pretty sure no one else noticed it at all. I was a sophomore, and my school had its first pep assembly for the boys' and girls' basketball teams. We HEARD that they'd have us do a wheelbarrow race, matching boys with girls, and I kept picturing some guy holding my legs in the air. And, well, trauma. So I wore sweatpants or loose jeans, even though we'd be in front of the whole student body. But then they had the girls pick up the boys' legs for the wheelbarrow race. (Good call.)

As the only sophomore girl on varsity, I assumed they'd pair me with the only sophomore varsity boy, which would be fine. But noooo. They paired me with a senior varsity boy I had a major but completely pointless crush on. (His girlfriend was a cheerleader and way beyond cute and perfect, like the cute girl that Jake in Sixteen Candles was dating, you know? Exactly. I was LIVING a Sixteen Candles life, but in my version I did NOT wind up with Jake.) He was always nice to me, but like I said, pointless. So I nearly died of embarrassment that day, even though NO ONE (including him) noticed.

I am lucky to be alive. (But yeah, still here.)

I do write humor in my novels. (YA, adult, and even children's novels.) Even in my tough novels, there's humor. I live it in my life and joke around much of the time. But I think embarrassment is one of the greatest ways to use humor, because — whether the rest of the world sees our embarrassment or not, and whether we admit it or not — we've all been embarrassed. The reader is SO THERE with you in that moment of embarrassment. And if you (as the writer) can make the embarrassment funny, especially if it makes life a tiny bit better for the character feeling that embarrassment, the reader is relieved right along with that character.

But my hot tip? Always laugh your way out of embarrassment before the heartless jackals in life can laugh AT you.

Mary Strand is the author of Pride, Prejudice, and Push-Up Bras and three other novels in the Bennet Sisters YA series. You can find out more about her books and music at marystrand.com.