posted
I've been scarred. For a writing class I once wrote something and the prof said the child was too mature (the kid was 12). Ever since, I've never written a major character who wasn't at least in his teens.
Now, I have a story where I feel I need the main character to be young. He's a street urchin given up easily by his prostitute mother. He is "apprenticed" to a proper rogue and much "hilarity" ensues.
The character needs to be small at this stage so I made him only seven. I often feel that people think children are helpless until they become teens (at least in the States). Is seven too young to have a character who thinks and can perform jobs? He isn't falling in love, he's not killing anyone (yet), but he does need to figure things out and be on his own. I'm trying to walk a fine line between whining and appropriate mourning for losing his family.
posted
Depending on the person, there is no reason to assume a 7 year old child is not capable of taking care of himself. Even a child- the right child- raised in our society today if put in the right situation could take care of himself. It happens all the time, and while it's not pretty these kids do survive.
Even my son, because of an incompetent/unstable babysitter (looong story), stayed alone for two days when he was in second grade (6-7). He was fine. I was nearly incapacitated when I returned from our trip, but he went to school, came home made dinner and even fed the animals. He was fine.
He was OK because he was in a familiar environment and he knew what to do. He knew what was expected and did it. Just make sure that you set the situation up properly so the child understands-at his experience level- what he is supposed to do to survive and it will likely make sense to anyone reading it.
posted
Have you read Ender's Game? iirc, some critics claimed that Ender couldn't possibly be so intelligent and still a child, yet as a hugo and nebula award winner the book's popularity seems to speak for itself. (I'm sure there's an essay by OSC somewhere on this topic, but can't seem to find it just now)
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Anyways, as long as you write, you have to be consistent. Will you do it from that character's point of view? If so, you'll need simple vocabulary, unless he is recounting events years later, which would also affect how he tells it. Kids have emotions the same as the rest of us, so there is no reason to assume they can't tell a compelling story.
posted
To clarify and earlier poster's point - if you're writing in first person POV you probably need to be extra-cautious with vocabulary, but if you're writing 3rd (limited or omni) you have much more leeway. But be careful with the MC's dialogue. Some 7/8 yr olds are precocious, but most wouldn't use that word to describe themselves or someone else. They just use the most straightforward words and most straightforward definitions. They tend to be concrete thinkers, although it's also a time and age of much imagination (but their imagination is often rooted in concrete thinking - my son's imagination takes him to far away lands, but they're ones that have trees and birds and he fights with swords and crossbows.)
A book my son (8 and precocious) and I have enjoyed recently is called The Magic Thief, by Sarah Prineas. It's focused on a main character who is probably about 10, and has a lot of the characteristics you're talking about wanting to put into your MC. The thing that I find interesting/surprising about this book is the way the author portrays some somewhat negative things happening to the boy, but he has such a compelling voice, such an upbeat attitude in spite of crappy conditions, that you don't end up feeling bad for him, you just admire his pluck and determination.
A couple other little details - here in the US, most kids turn 7 during their second grade year in school. By then, most have learned to read pretty well (there are always exceptions) and there is a gradual transition in educational content away from learning to read, and toward reading to learn (where they read books and magazines to learn new content.) However, most 7 year old's reading comprehension is still low, comprehension generally lags behind decoding (the skill of being able to pronounce/understand what a word says.) Caveat: I'm just a parent, although I have a background in adult learning theory. most of what I'm telling you comes from having recently parented a 7 year old boy.
Good luck to you. There is precious little in children's fiction in the 3-6th grade age range (called "mid grade") - so if you are able to get to novel-length with it and are happy with it, you may have some good luck with publishers/agents because there's just not enough good stuff out there.
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When I was 8, I had to stay housebound (there was a bloody revolution going on outside). Bored with my superhero comics, I started reading my mother's sf paperbacks. 1984. COSTIGAN'S NEEDLE. A bunch others that I can no longer separate out from later reading. But I read advanced stories and understood quite a bit of what was going on in them AND outside. I could have survived quite a bit of real world adventure.
[This message has been edited by arriki (edited November 11, 2009).]
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I never believed any of Card's genius children were particularly believable. They always felt like adults in child bodies. Even the way they talk felt unnatural. But the important thing is that they were believable enough. I wanted to let myself accept them because I wanted to get involved in the stories. And after suspending my skepticism I really enjoyed the stories. And isn't that what fiction is based on anyway? Suspending skepticism.
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posted
I think the biggest thing to keep in mind when we're writing child characters is the environment they've grown up in. An American child born in the 21st century and raised in a family with iPods and computers and cell phones is going to grow up a lot slower and be a lot more immature than, say, a kid who grows up on-and-off the streets of Industrial Revolution London. I'm not saying that kid would be fully adult at age 7 or anything, but the kid who is capable of surviving that kind of upbringing is going to learn things a lot faster than the child of privilege. I think we're far more willing to suspend our disbelief when it comes to street kids being smarter than their age, than we are for other types of children.
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posted
I don't think adults give kids enough credit. Their adaptable and soak everything in like little sponges. Look at what kids did with the digital age and the long standing joke and that if you need something done with the computer go and ask the closest kid. I agree with Kitti, a child who's grown up in the street is going to have to know how to survive and do things or else he would have died before reaching age seven.
I work with kids everyday and have my own five and two year old. I find seven year olds to be smart and independent yet shy and timid when placed in new circumstances. Most seven year olds can bath themselves, should be able to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and other simple meals, and basically take care of the themselves within their sphere of knowledge or environment. They like learning new things and have a strong desire to be competent. They like to please and are still figuring out what is real and what isn't. This age is not very defiant (of course this is speaking generally and not specifically). They still play pretend but are moving more toward games with rules.
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In my opinion its all about why the child is mature. I have no problem with a mature child as long there is a reason why they are that way. We all grow up at our own pace. Some are forced to be ahead of the curve, while others lag behind.
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I have a five-year-old and a two-year-old as well.
Babooer,
My experience being around kids is that their personalities and maturity levels vary as much as adults. Some kids are very mature in their thinking, some have wild imaginations, and some have better vocabularies than some adults.
Here are some things I noticed. The younger the kid the less they censor what they say. I have never met a young kid who didn't want attention from adults. Even the ones who seem aloof or antagonistic really want positive interactions with adults. They are very open minded to ideas but rigid in how things are done.
I think you must carefully consider how the child in your story views the world. He won't see it like adults do. He may be savy in surviving on the streets, but without adults to explain how things work, he will have to piece things together and make his own conclusions. It will probably be more logical than how the world really works.
[This message has been edited by MAP (edited November 12, 2009).]
quote:I think you must carefully consider how the child in your story views the world. He won't see it like adults do. He may be savy in surviving on the streets, but without adults to explain how things work, he will have to piece things together and make his own conclusions. It will probably be more logical than how the world really works.
I think MAP has hit the nail on the head here, except that the logic that is applied may be logic from a 7yr old's view.
When we asked our youngest- the one who ended up the de-facto emancipated minor for almost 48 hours why he did not tell anyone at school or afterschool care that his sitter was gone. He just shrugged and said that he knew what to do (as the youngest of 3) and he figured that she would come back. It apparently never occurred to him that he should not be alone. God only know where he got that one because he had never been left alone before- but as the youngest of three in a very busy house he was and still is (9 years later) a self-assured and resourceful person.
For him, it made sense because he was used to getting his own breakfast, taking care of his pets etc. He just figured that this was OK and went with it. He even brushed his teeth- and it made sense because it was what he knew.
Really really crazy to me- but I guess from his perspective that made sense. It gave me heart failure, though! Leslie
I have noticed my son, who is seven, tends to stick with fairly simple words in conversation, but occasionally throws in something he has heard or learned in class. However, isn't this how most people behave with language?
I don't see vocabulary as the big difference between the speech of children and adults. It is the using of the occasional wrong word or expression, either in meaning or tense or number, and the general lack of metaphors.
posted
Let me add that I have always admired Charles Schulz for how he wrote child characters. Other good ones are Bill Cosby and Howie Mandel (yes, Howie Mandel - check out Bobby's World). I find that my son often mimics cartoons - I believe cartoons are the vernacular catalysts for every generation of children.
I use to work with inner city kids (5-8 year olds) - they talked more like people do on BET and MTV, which are different types of cartoons.
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I spend a lot of time with my nephews (Just saw 2012 today...nice little bonus in the movie for writers) and I find it interesting how terms and phrases I knew of but never used become 'viral' and spread into their language (Much like texting and /Warcraft). Whenever we talk sports he asked what team another is 'versing'.
"Do you think Michigan will win today?"
"Who are they versing?"
Maybe its just local, but I never heard the word used in a sentence like that, but when talking with his baseball team they all use it that way.
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Young children often take things literally here is a real conversation with my five year old daugther. She had fallen and scraped her knee that day on the playground.
"Mom you know what what Billy's dad says when he gets a bleeding owie?" "What?" "He says just suck it up." She has big eyes and wrinkles her noes like she's disgusted. I start laughing. "You mean Billy's dad thinks he should just suck up the blood?" "Ya."
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Dark Warrior, my 8 yr old says "versing" as well. In my mind, it's a shortened version of "who are they playing against?" Because the way we always talk about games is the Cubs versus the Cardinals, or what have you. So they're just making "verse" into a verb (or gerund? or ... whatever it is when there's that ing...)
It's an example of the way kids over-generalize certain grammatical rules, which is a developmental thing. This is the last holdout of "child-like" pronunciation in my 8 year old son. Among his peers, this is similar, there are very few remaining child pronunciations of words (e.g., my almost 6 year old still says cimmonin, and sometimes does aminal.)
Another example of over-generalizing grammatical rules is the way a kid will say, "Look mom, I runned over there." (happens most often with them trying to make irregular verbs into regular verbs, but also with plurals like fishes.)
However, I would also suggest that trying to portray kid speech in text is aggravating most of the time. It would be an okay thing to have one or two characters have a certain thing they do - a way they talk or a certain way they mix up words, or certain words they mis-pronounce (ideally words that are relevant to the plot) - but to have a whole cast of younger characters talking the way they actually do would be a very painful book to read, and that's not even allowing for the psychedelic storytelling styles of children...where they don't always report events in order, they intersperse imagined things as though they were real, including their own interpretations of what happened, "then a giant claw came down and grabbed up the extra comic books...that's why I can't find them." The way children tell stories indicates what's important to them (remember that much about children is very self-oriented, they are self-centered little beings. The awareness of others and feelings of others is a gradual developmental progression they make, starting early on but really progressing in school age.) A child may emphasize a scary thing or the role a friend played in a playground drama, which tells you what is going on with that child.
My daughter (almost 6) came to tell me this very important bit the other day about how in gym class another child kept correcting the new gym teacher on how to say my daughter's name. "But it was none of his business," she told me, with a wise nod, her eyebrows furrowed. She was clearly bothered by this boy overstepping boundaries. I could tell by how much she emphasized this little drama over the hundred other things she had told me about school from that day.
At any rate - just a few more bits on children, hope it's helpful! I'm constantly amazed at mine, always fun to try to puzzle out what it is that's going on in their minds!
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Proud parent trying to be objective but probably failing miserably:
My 5 year old has an incredible vocabulary and knows how to use it, and has a pretty decent understanding about how the world works. It is sometimes hilarious when he misuses a word, but my correction needs to be gentle lest I bruise his pride. He's an only child and we feed his inquisitiveness every chance we get. He loves math and can already add and multiply fractions, because we let his interest and ability guide his education (homeschooled). He hates to read, but loves to be read to; best of all is when Mom tells him stories where he gets to help make them up as we go. His favorite games are Monopoly (the adult version) and chess.
The neighbor boy who just turned six has a far less extensive vocabulary, a simpler view of the world, and is still learning to count to 100. His favorite games are Chutes & Ladders and Candyland. But with three kids and a fourth on the way, and a very laid back approach to childhood (let 'em run free and play on their own all the time), his mom is content with that. And he's a happy kid.
Just an example of how the environment and/or personality can make a big difference. I think a child who knows how to survive on the streets would need a mentor or guardian of some sort to teach him the ropes, and help him through new and unfamiliar situations.
Here is where both boys are similar--its almost always all about them. Me, me, me. My turn, my ideas, my food, my toy, my rules, my way. If the other boy doesn't cooperate (do things his way), its not fair. That's an overgeneralization, because the boy with siblings is more flexible and willing to share than my son. Leave them alone together long enough, and they degenerate. Send the other child home, and my boy wants attention all the time. So what if Mom has a headache and needs to rest? He's climbing on top of me unless I banish him to his room.
In conversation, I've been trying to teach him to let me know when he has changed the topic. He tends to flip from one subject to the next with no warning. And he sometimes forgets that not everyone will understand his frame of reference.
[This message has been edited by MrsBrown (edited November 16, 2009).]
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