Thread: Portraying immaturity

I've always been really interested in characters that are 'aged beyond their years', but not 'wise' beyond their years. For example, the world my story is set in is incredibly violent and more or less devoid of innocence, and has a life expectancy similar to that of early industrial societies. Not because of a high infant mortality rate, but because the demographic of young males is over represented, and it's fairly normal for people to be armed in their day-to-day lives. None of the male characters in my story are older than 20, but they're technically fully functional adults, despite the fact that they've yet to develop any real sense of morals, or even a basic understanding of the difference between right and wrong.

I've been trying to make a nice contrast between the characters' mental maturity and emotional immaturity, but I find that I can't come up with an elegant way to do it. The best thing I've been able to come up with is to contrast the intense violence they take part in every day with a fratboyish social life. But I want to find a way to portray them as children from an emotional standpoint. I was hoping for some suggestions.

Just off the top of my head, I recommend reading (or re-reading) William Golding's The Lord of the Flies to see how he handles the aspect of male immaturity.

As far as writing it goes, who's the protagonist? Sometimes it can help to have a slightly wiser protagonist. Through his eyes (and contemplations on the bevahior of the others) the reader can then see a contrast.

Enter woman. What better way to explore the immaturity of young males …

• some of the guys could have the attitude that the 'baddest' get the women
• some of the guys could be trying to figure out why all the women aren't attracted to them despite their obvious wonderful traits
• some of the guys can be indiscriminately hitting on each other's girlfriends with no thought of the importance of boundaries and relationships
• some of the guys might be totally clueless about the concept of settling down and abandoning the reckless lifestyle after finding a mate and having a child
• and some of the guys might start showing signs of battle fatigue and developing the need for slowing down and figuring out what it's all about; these guys might start viewing the others as borderline suicidal and reckless because they never ponder the future
• etc etc

Could you have a scene where one of the younger characters meets an older character and starts to see them as a parent? This may help in bringing out an immature side emotionally. But what exactly do you mean? Why are they immature emotionally? I would think in a violent society where people are armed and fending for themselves they would have very controlled emotions.

Also, why are there so many young males? Have all the young females been killed by these immature guys?

Originally Posted by KyleColorado

Just off the top of my head, I recommend reading (or re-reading) William Golding's The Lord of the Flies to see how he handles the aspect of male immaturity.

As far as writing it goes, who's the protagonist? Sometimes it can help to have a slightly wiser protagonist. Through his eyes (and contemplations on the bevahior of the others) the reader can then see a contrast.

Lord of the flies does seem like a good place to start. But as far as the protagonist, I don't really have one. All of the characters play a more or less equal part in the narrative. They all have their different quirks, but I think making one obviously more wise than the others would bias the story towards him too much.

Originally Posted by wehttam

Lord of the flies does seem like a good place to start. But as far as the protagonist, I don't really have one. All of the characters play a more or less equal part in the narrative. They all have their different quirks, but I think making one obviously more wise than the others would bias the story towards him too much.

You could always be edgy and do a slightly less-wise protagonist. The more you keep your characters on the same level, the more they'll start to blend, so watch out for that. I'm not saying don't do it; just watch out for it.

If you're looking to expound upon moral immaturity, the (slightly obvious) reading I can recommend is To Kill a Mockingbird, but the term "excessive violence" in your original post tells me that's probably not what you're looking for.

Originally Posted by Extinct_Stimulus

You could always be edgy and do a slightly less-wise protagonist. The more you keep your characters on the same level, the more they'll start to blend, so watch out for that. I'm not saying don't do it; just watch out for it.

If you're looking to expound upon moral immaturity, the (slightly obvious) reading I can recommend is To Kill a Mockingbird, but the term "excessive violence" in your original post tells me that's probably not what you're looking for.

I think I'm gonna keep them on pretty much the same level, as far as intellect goes. If I don't keep all the characters on more or less an even footing, I'm sure I'm going to begin to prefer one over the others.

But I think taking a page or two from to kill a mockingbird would do the story some good. Really any coming of age novel would do, I guess. Although, I'm pretty sure that my characters' immaturity is going to be their downfall, instead of the thing they overcome.

Jersey Shore. Hear me out on this one. If you've never seen the show (you lucky man you), you still probably have an idea of how they act, look, are. The obsession with muscle size and the pursuit of the perfect male figure. The focus on hair, on clothing, constant boasting and struggles to be the "alpha dog" in every situation. The looking exactly like your friends, importance of the clique. Obsession with having a good time all the time, any moment of introspection or self awareness is drowned in a sea of alchohol and equally shallow, insipid girl-women. Off the top of my head, I would say having them participate or come across a scene of brutal violence and treat it with laughter, with jokes and threats of their own would lay the immaturity down quite vividly. Find your inner Jersey Shore characters, mix them with the boys from A Clockwork Orange and in my opinion you got your gold.

I've rarely had a problem with portraying immaturity since well... I'm immature myself.

Originally Posted by wehttam

I've always been really interested in characters that are 'aged beyond their years', but not 'wise' beyond their years. For example, the world my story is set in is incredibly violent and more or less devoid of innocence, and has a life expectancy similar to that of early industrial societies. Not because of a high infant mortality rate, but because the demographic of young males is over represented, and it's fairly normal for people to be armed in their day-to-day lives. None of the male characters in my story are older than 20, but they're technically fully functional adults, despite the fact that they've yet to develop any real sense of morals, or even a basic understanding of the difference between right and wrong.

I've been trying to make a nice contrast between the characters' mental maturity and emotional immaturity, but I find that I can't come up with an elegant way to do it. The best thing I've been able to come up with is to contrast the intense violence they take part in every day with a fratboyish social life. But I want to find a way to portray them as children from an emotional standpoint. I was hoping for some suggestions.

Have you ever seen Full Metal Jacket?

Beyond that, all I can say is that let them be jerks to one another. Too often I think writers try to make their protagonists "good"; so just don't whitewash. If they're screwed-up, then they're screwed-up, and should be portrayed as such.

Just a thought:

People here (except for me, I guess, and a few others that I haven't had the pleasure of meeting) are really cool, learned, mature people, or at least to my knowledge. I think it'd be best if you go to a place where there are a lot of young people, say the mall. Just observe them. See how they move, how they talk to each other, how they act, how they do gestures, stuff like that. Then, just describe what they do in your head, then type those descriptions in your computer.

The answers you'll receive here would be really great inputs (just like KyleColorado's post. Lord of the Flies is a good book, and seeing the protagonist there is a young male, you can pick up a lot from there), I'm fairly sure, but they'd be second-hand information (with all due respect to the people here). Watching teenagers do their stuff would be a better source of information.

A quick note: Immaturity is not the stereotype portrayed in television. I'm a kid myself (well, not exactly a kid, since I'm pretty much getting old, too. I'm 22.), but I don't act like those in Jersey Shore or the Kardashians or some other mainstream reality show that features teens or young adults on MTV or similar channels. And for the record, I, and I'm sure majority of those within my age range, would never act like that. It's not immaturity - it's foolishness. Those, I submit, are two very, very different things. I wonder if "reality" shows really depict reality...

Some other references: Kyle talked about Lord of the Flies. Here are a few more novels I've read which feature teenage or young adult protagonists, which I think depict accurate personalities and behaviors of teenagers and young adults, not the stereotypical ones (I should know since, as I've said, I'm a kid myself. ^_^): Kingdom Keepers series by Ridley Pearson, The Dark Materials series by Philip Pullman, The Animorphs series by K. A. Applegate and The Theodore Boone series by John Grisham. The antihero in Deaver's The Empty Chair and the protagonist in Grisham's The Client ​is also a spot-on description, I think.

Can't believe jersey shore hadn't already come to mind. The way you described it- that's exactly what I was trying to do with my characters. I've also really got to be sure to maintain their inner jerk throughout the story.