Mantra

I recently wrote a short story from the perspective of a young boy and had it critiqued by a writer's workshop I attend every week. The group seemed to feel unanimous about one thing: the voice didn't sound authentic to the age of the character.

But here's the thing: the character is six years old. So how do I pull that off? Because (not to be mean, but...) a TRULY authentic six-year-old voice would not be written very well at all. I still have some of the notebooks and school papers that I wrote when I was six years old, and they're almost unreadable. Aside from the grammar, which was utterly incoherent at times, I sometimes forgot whole sentences, because I was so absorbed in my own little world.


For example, when I was a little kid I wrote the following story:

--
once opon a time ther was a big ugly mean dragon names bob that was real real mean to every body he saw so one day all the peiople who didnt like him at all decide they were going to kill him. so they him hear are hotdogs do you like them and he said i love hotdogs. than he got a big long barbaqu fork and stuck the hotdogs the end and blew fire all over from his nose. but sudenly right than all peple a real big miror and sudenly he said OOOHHHHH NOOOO IM ON FIRE HELP ME and he died and every body lived happilly ever after. THE END.
--


You see my point? How do I authentically write from the perspective of a child, yet make my writing coherent (not to mention accessible and enjoyable)? How do you find the balance between good writing and a child's authenticity?

Thanks

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Aevin

I write from kids' points of views quite a lot ... almost exclusively, in fact. When writing from a young character's perspective, you kind of have to meet halfway between authentic and meaningful. I look at it as if I'm a translator for the child's voice. This kid has something important to say, and it's up to me, the author, to help him or her relay the message. Knowing how far to go in this direction is something that needs to be felt out and practiced. It's easy to make it sound too much like you, the author, and have the readers forget there's a child involved at all. I think it's better to weight it in the other direction. Your natural tendency will be to write as an adult, and through editing you can easily add in as much clarity and maturity as the story needs. It may be more difficult to artificially insert the simplicity and innocence that could come only from inspiration in an original draft.

Of course, depending on the story, you may not want it to sound like a child at all. I've read some pieces which tell the story about childhood through adult reflections. The narrator grows up and tells the story. And, of course, there are times when it may be necessary to heavily weight the story in the kid's voice. The balance you need really depends on the particular story.

You might also try posting some of the story in one of the creativity forums. If people see what you're working on, it may be easier to give you specific advice.

Hope this was helpful!

PS: Cute story!

--Aevin

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mwd

Judging from your question I'm assuming you're writing in first person? If you're writing in third it's really quite easy to manage, since how closely your narrator speaks like your POV character is simply a matter of how much narrative distance you want. Your narrator can speak like an adult while telling the story of a child.

If you're writing in first person, though, I guess it would be a lot tougher. Like Dark Aevin says, you can have an adult reflecting on their past experiences. If, however, you want to narrate from the child's POV while they're still a child, I guess what I'd do is use simple words and simple sentences, but perfect spelling and mostly correct grammar (you can fudge grammar quite a bit while still remaining readable, if you're careful). The thing is that in that case the story will be coming from the narrator's thoughts ... that is, how they think but not necessarily how they speak to other people or how they would write it down themselves. So it's perfectly okay to use the spelling of an adult, and what matters are the actual words your narrator uses and their sentence structure.

Also, make sure to keep your child ignorant of things that adults know about but children wouldn't. Just because you've grown up and learned a lot of things doesn't mean they've learned it too, at that point in their lives. While replicating childlike speech patterns can help make the writing seem authentic, nothing will make it sound inauthentic faster than a child that knows about things they shouldn't, and possesses an almost uncharacteristic amount of wisdom considering their age (unless this is adequately explained).

Omnisu

Though the narrative can probably benefit from simplified language, it doesn't have to change at all. Only the child's speech, thought, and actions need be child like. The actual language you use to show that needn't be.

If it is first person, you can always cheat. Say the narrator is telling the story from some point in the future, after they've had some time to grow up.

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Janelle_34

You can always watch kids somewhere, like in a mall, or something. I do not mean stalk them either.. lol but from where I am. I have a 15, 6 and 8 year old. So its a little bit easier that way

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mammamaia

the best thing you can do is go to the library and take out a bunch of successful and award-winning children's books that do what you're trying to do... study how those authors handled it and your confusion should soon be a thing of the past...

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Mantra

Thank you very much for all the responses.

Yes, I was writing in first person point of view.

I did consider writing it as an adult looking back on his life, but I decided that it would be more powerful if I had the boy tell his story as a child, that way it would almost feel like you were reading a child's first-hand testimony. The story tells a tragedy so I want it to be as heartbreaking as possible. I figured this was the best way of doing that.

I don't know if any of you have ever read Meg Rosoff's novel, "How I Live Now," but it's similar to what I was trying to do, only it's written from a fifteen-year-old's perspective. It was written as a sort of diary, and it has lots of run-on sentences, as well as odd punctuation and word usage. But the effect is very powerful. You feel like you're reading straight of a teenage girl's diary. This makes her story (about surviving a war in England) even more powerful than it would have been had it been written in a more traditional fashion.

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"When you write, you want to get rid of the world, do you not? Of course you do. When you're writing, you're creating your own worlds."

- Stephen King, On Writing

aspiring

I have read 'How I Live Now' and I agree it's a great book.

However I probably wouldn't try to do the same thing written from a six-year-old's perspective simply because it's quite limiting. You have to show events as they are rather than draw conclusions from them - a child experiences the same as everyone else but they cannot make interpretations in the way that an older person can. The other mistake some writers make is to have their main character say or think things that simply sound too old-fashioned. Slang moves on quickly, and I critiqued a story recently where the 12-year-old protagonist said that someone else's reaction was 'priceless'. I queried that, because it simply sounded too 'adult'. Those are the sorts of things that, over the story, can contribute to a feeling of unreality about your character.

mammamaia

good input from aspiring!... also, how you write it will depend on who you're writing it for... is this aimed at the adult market, or for some specific age range of the children's market?

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Mantra

Well, I hadn't planned on any age range in particular. It's definetely not a kids story. I suppose it's written for anyone ages 12 to adult. How do you think that will affect the story?

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"When you write, you want to get rid of the world, do you not? Of course you do. When you're writing, you're creating your own worlds."

- Stephen King, On Writing

bob rulz

"Priceless" isn't a very outdated word. Sure, not a lot of 12-year olds would say it, but that doesn't mean there aren't some. I say it (me being 16 years old). I know other people in my age range who say it periodically. It's not really outdated.

Stewart

May I recommend you get a hold of Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle? The boy narrating that novel is, if I remember correctly, eight years old and going on nine. His perception of the world is childish and while he notes everything going on around him, he's unable to put it all together and understand the meaning. Until it's too late, of course.

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aspiring

I never said it was outdated. I said it as 'adult'. And the bit I have highlighted is my point exactly. It stuck out in the manuscript because the 12 year old protagonist didn't sound like the sort of person who would use the word in that way. As with all of my critiquing though, it is purely my opinion and the author is entitled to ignore it.

Emerson Darkness

I must say that i am in no way experienced in writing from the point of view of a child. Perhaps you can check out books in which the author did take on such a challenge.
Personally i only know of a few where such examples exist, so...
Terry Goodkinds "Wizard's First Rule" has a young character who is maybe eight years old at the most. She was actually a character that is very identifiable, and you can even grow attatched if your not careful.
His character Oba Rahl, from "Pillars of Creation" may be in his early twenties, but he truly had the personality of a six year old.

George RR Martin has taken quite an interest in younger characters as well.
(Arya Stark, Bran Stark...) to name but a few.
You might want to check out how the pros do it. you'll find differences in all of them, but i am sure you can pick out intricate similarities of the more under developed mindset in such characters.

mammamaia

a major mistake, if you hope to sell it... even in your query, agents and publishers need to know what market you're targeting...

and, from a writing perspective, if you don't know who your reading audience is going to be, you can't write believably/convincingly... to be reader-friendly, your work has to be aimed at either adults or a specific children's age range... the vocabulary level mentioned by some posters is only one aspect that has to be considered and carefully managed, when writing for kids, especially...

12 to adult is way too wide a range, imo... what will appeal to a 12 year old won't be of much interest to a 30 year old... and vice/versa... it's not a matter of how the age of your target market will affect the story, but of how it should affect what story you tell and how you write it...

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