Slang is among the hardest and most important elements of a client’s voice to capture.
Get it right and the book sounds like the person whose name is on the cover. Get it wrong and something feels off on every page, even if the reader can’t say why. For how voice capture works overall, see how I capture a client’s voice.
Of all the parts of a voice, slang is the one I’m least willing to fake. When a ghostwriter doesn’t know how a client really talks, the manuscript fills up with somebody else’s expressions, and the people who notice first are the ones who know the client best. I’d sooner leave a line plain than put words in a client’s mouth they’d never say.
Why Does Slang Matter in Ghostwriting?
The differences go deeper than vocabulary. They reflect where someone grew up. What industry they work in. Which generation shaped their speech patterns. And how they relate to the people around them. For more, see video interviewing tips and What Does a Ghostwriter Cost? Real Pricing, Real Client Results, and How to Choose the Right Tier.
When I interview clients, I listen for these patterns before I listen for content. The stories and ideas will come. But the voice, the way this person strings words together, is what makes their book sound like them.
A major component of that voice is slang. A client who says “that deal was fire” communicates differently than one who says “that was a home run” or “that was bloody brilliant.” All three mean roughly the same thing. Each one places the speaker in a different world. Getting this wrong in the manuscript is immediately noticeable to anyone who knows the client.
I’ve got no patience for writers who solve the problem by sanding every client down to the same polite business English. It’s easier for the writer, and it hands the client a book their own friends don’t recognize.
Where does a ghostwriter hear a client’s slang?
The ghostwriting interview process is about listening to how the client delivers that information. I record every interview and review the recordings for speech patterns as closely as for content.
I’m listening for repeated phrases the client returns to without realizing it. Industry jargon they use fluently. Regional expressions that mark where they come from, generational slang that places them in their era, and the informal language they drop into when they stop being careful about how they sound.
That last one matters most. Clients often start an interview speaking formally, because they know they’re being recorded and their words will become a book. As the conversation deepens and they relax, their real voice emerges. The slang comes out. The sentence fragments appear. The expressions they’d never write in an email but use every day in conversation start surfacing. That relaxed voice is the one the book needs to sound like.
What kinds of slang does a ghostwriter encounter?
Industry jargon. Every profession has its own language. A tech founder talks about “runway,” “burn rate,” and “pivoting.” A real estate developer talks about “cap rates,” “entitlements,” and “getting to vertical.” A military veteran talks about “boots on the ground,” “sitrep,” and “squared away.” This language is second nature to the client and their intended readers. Stripping it out sanitizes the voice. Keeping it in makes the book sound authoritative and real.
The challenge is calibration. If the book targets people inside the industry, heavy jargon works. If the book targets a general audience, the jargon needs to appear naturally but be understandable from context. The ghostwriter’s job is knowing where that line falls.
Regional and cultural expressions. A client from the South might say “fixing to” instead of “about to.” A client from Brooklyn might say “deadass” to mean “seriously.” A British client might describe a bad situation as “a proper shambles.”
These expressions carry identity. They tell the reader something about who this person is beyond their professional credentials. In memoir especially, regional language is essential. A memoir about growing up in South Boston that reads like someone from nowhere in particular wrote it has lost something fundamental. The ghostwriter needs to preserve these expressions even if they require occasional context for readers outside that region.
Generational markers. A client in their sixties uses different casual language than a client in their thirties. The older client might describe something impressive as “first-rate” or “top-notch.” The younger client might call it “legit” or “next level.” Neither is wrong. Both are accurate reflections of how that person speaks.
Getting the generational tone wrong is one of the fastest ways to break the illusion that the client wrote the book. A 65-year-old CEO whose memoir suddenly includes “that meeting was lowkey a disaster” will confuse everyone who knows him.
Memoir clients in their nineties come to me fairly often, and they’re where a careless writer does the most harm. Put a phrase from this decade into a ninety-year-old’s account of her childhood and the grandchildren reading it will hear the fake on the first page.
Profanity and rough language. Some clients swear constantly in conversation. Others never do. The book needs to match.
Getting the generational tone wrong is one of the fastest ways to break the illusion that the client wrote the book.
A client who drops an f-bomb every third sentence in interviews should have a book that reflects that energy, cleaned up enough to be readable and never so sanitized that the voice disappears. I’ve had clients tell me during the interview process that they want the book to sound “professional” and then speak in the most colorful, profanity-laced language imaginable for the next two hours.
In those cases, the conversation about voice is important. Sometimes the raw version is the right version. Sometimes a moderated version serves the client’s goals better. But the ghostwriter needs to capture the full range before making that decision with the client.
| Kind | Examples from the article | How to handle it |
|---|---|---|
| Industry jargon | “Runway,” “burn rate,” “cap rates,” “sitrep,” “squared away” | Keep it; calibrate how heavy it runs to whether readers are insiders |
| Regional and cultural | “Fixing to,” “deadass,” “a proper shambles” | Preserve it, with occasional context for readers outside the region |
| Generational markers | “First-rate,” “top-notch,” “legit,” “next level” | Match the client’s era; the wrong tone breaks the illusion |
| Profanity and rough language | Some clients swear constantly, others never | Capture the full range, then decide raw or moderated with the client |
| Formal speech | Some clients use little or no slang | Keep it formal; never inject slang to make a reserved client sound hip |
I won’t make that call alone, and I won’t let a client make it blind. Hand someone a scrubbed version without showing them what came out and they’ll never know what their book could have sounded like, and it’s their name on the cover.
How do you keep slang in a manuscript without losing readers?
The first rule is to write the way the client talks. Most people speak in shorter sentences than they write. They use contractions. They start sentences with “and” or “but.” They use slang and informal language that they’d never put in a business email. The book should sound like the client talking to a friend instead of drafting a memo.
The second rule is consistency. If a client uses “y’all” in chapter one, they should use it throughout the book. If they say “gonna” instead of “going to” in conversation, the manuscript should reflect that consistently. Inconsistent voice, formal in one chapter and casual in the next, reads as if two different people wrote the book. Which, of course, they did. The ghostwriter’s job is to make sure nobody notices.
The third rule is context. Slang that the client’s audience will understand immediately needs no explanation. Slang that a broader audience might not recognize can be clarified through context without stopping to define it. “The deal was upside down: we owed more than the property was worth” uses the slang naturally and provides enough context for any reader to follow.
When Does Slang Not Belong in a Book?
Not every client voice includes significant slang, and not every book benefits from informal language. A book positioning a client as a thought leader in a conservative industry may need a more measured voice. A medical professional writing for other medical professionals may use dense technical language but no slang at all.
The ghostwriter captures what’s there. If a client speaks formally, the book should sound formal. Injecting slang to make a naturally reserved person sound casual is just as wrong as stripping slang from someone who speaks casually. The goal is accuracy. If a reserved client asked me to make them sound hip for a younger audience, I’d push back hard, because readers can smell a costume and the client is the one who has to stand on a stage afterward and talk like themselves.
My take
Accuracy beats style when you’re capturing a client’s voice. If they talk in slang, the book should too, with enough context that any reader can follow. If they speak formally, leave it formal. I’d push back hard on a reserved client who wanted to sound hip, because readers can smell a costume. The client has to stand on a stage later and talk like themselves.
How does a ghostwriter write 54+ different voices?
Every client I’ve worked with across 54+ ghostwriting projects had a different voice. Different industries, different regions, different generations, different levels of formality. The retired military officer didn’t sound like the tech entrepreneur. The chef didn’t sound like the financial advisor. The slang was different in every case, and getting it right was part of making each book sound like the person whose name appears on the cover.
That’s the job, and I think a ghostwriter whose clients all end up sounding alike has failed at it, however clean the prose is. If I read two of my books side by side and couldn’t tell the authors apart, I’d consider both of them spoiled.
Schedule a free consultation to discuss your book project and how the voice-capture process works.
Voice is the core of any ghostwritten book. The Ghostwriting Advantage explains how the rest of the process works, across forty-eight chapters drawn from 54+ ghostwritten books.
