Children’s personalities are generally simpler than adolescent or adult ones, but are nevertheless unique. How do you write children to make them memorable and stand out?

Birth to 13.

I don’t know what to write in a journal. I wish that I could just have some kind of thing where all my thoughts are recorded when I think them.

I’ve thought that as well. It would also be helpful to have a decent memory.

You just have to eliminate everything you remember learning after puberty lol.

i know, eh?

It’s THAN, Puppet! THAN! Not THEN!!!

Actually, no!

/grammar nazi

The world needs grammar!

/spam

Hey, give the child a break. ;)

I remember being a kid and having these little epiphanies like, “when I’m older I will remember X so I won’t be an oblivious adult like my parents”.

No, write them down! Get it down on paper or you will forget it. Looking back, I wish Little Juniper had written Big Juniper some notes on how to understand kids, how to remember to think like a child again.

Lol, you do need to write stuff like that down. No one else is going to read it.

I remember being a kid and having these little epiphanies like, “when I’m older I will remember X so I won’t be an oblivious adult like my parents”.

Yeppers yeppers, Sgt. Peppers.

I used to headbutt stop signs and fuseboxes when I was in first grade. Supposedly, this is where my tested IQ dropped quite a bit, but I don’t buy it, since I eventually got smart enough to quit.

Haha, I can see where you could come to that conclusion.

I fond that really interesting, thanks for the link, RandomX2. :D

np Puppet :) He’s a pretty interesting guy though, eh?

@happycrab

I find 10 to be the ideal age in which one can make some intelligent decisions/ unique ideas and also be innocent or foolish. Having a genius character who also throws temper tantrums would be a bit strange, though.

Is the temper tantrum a thing the character starts off with but grows out of throughout the course of the novel?

Have any of you ever read God of Small Things? My english teacher assigned it over the summer. But it does a really freaking good job of characterizing the way children think and behave.

“When I lost my memory, I never really

‘really’ needs to go. It’s not something a child would say.

felt like I was missing anything. It felt like I had woken up into the world for the very first time. But when I started to bond with Alya, for the first time since falling from the sky I felt like there was a hole inside of me; something I had been missing my whole life.

she’s elaborated too much. Children don’t. They just say what they think is right, and they think everyone understands what they mean. This means that the girl may become a little incoherent sometimes. Say something like, “Her brother understood that she meant she had felt something missing from her life.(in better wording, of course). You can use her brother to become the medium for the reader to understand what’s going on.

Alya filled that hole, and when I got my memory back I realised what I had been missing was my mother’s love. She was more of a mother to me in the short time I knew her than Cassiopeia was my entire life.

Again, too coherent. Kids at eight understand these concepts, but they can’t put them into words so well. They don’t add additional information unless it’s crucial. So saying ‘in the short time I knew her’ etc isn’t something an eight-year-old would say.

And now she’s dead!!”

“I don’t want to go back to having the mother that chose her country over her own daughter!

Now, kids would feel that but never say it so blatantly

I don’t! Alya, please come back… please come back”

I like that part.

What I can tell you is that she’s too coherent. Limit the number of words she uses to a smaller vocabulary, and don’t let her elaborate on her ideas too much. You’ve got the concepts down, you’ve got the feelings right, but not the wording. You’re summarising too much of the story in a character’s words, which is unneccessary and boring. And you use too few exclamation marks for a kid of her age :)

Here’s how I would word it (using ‘Bro’ as substitute for brother’s name). Be warned—it changes drastically:

“I didn’t know anything, Bro. Didn’t want anything. Everything was all new. But when Alya came and I… it wasn’t there! It wasn’t there! And I never had it and I didn’t know till then that I had a hole inside me!
[Starts to tear up] And Alya made it better, and she… she mommied me, Bro! And when I remembered everything, it was all gone! I didn’t have a mummy/mommy, ever! Cassi’peia never did, ever. And now…”
[Bawls her little eyes out]
“Why didn’t she choose me?” instead of her country? Bro finished silently. He moved to comfort her, but she shoved him away. “No! I don’t want you, Cassi’peia!” she said through the tears. “I don’t!” And she pushed at her mother, who was really Bro, and cried again. Her body was shaking. “I don’t want you! Alya, please come back… please come back…” Huddled up on her bed, she made no move to stop her brother when he put his arms around her.
[silently sobs away] [Brother comforts her and sings her to sleep]

Phew, that was hard and I’m really scared I’ve stuffed it up. Anyone got anything else to add?

Yeah I thought I made her too coherent and elaborated too much.

Well, what did you need me for?

Can I just ask everybody if that concrit was way off the mark or not?

Thanks. And thanks again.

Lol, I’m not trying to be egocentric, it’s just that I’m terrified of being wrong.

I am ego-centric without trying to be. And I’m terrified of being wrong (which is sometimes the cause of my arrogant bluffing).

What I have in common with certain/random people is creepy.

a lot of series have abnormally smart children, so I might make her pretty smart (and there would be a secret special reason for her smartness) which is why she can’t relate to children her own age and thus still plays with her dollies at a possibly too old age. Although as someone said would a super smart child throw tantrums? Well I guess the tantrum I wrote wasn’t exactly a tantrum. Older people can argue their point pretty loud all the time thinking they are right with no logic involved.

1. I ditched stuffed toys at about age five, thinking they were babyish.
2. If a lot of series have abnormally smart children, make yours normally smart. It’s probably worth the extra effort.
3. I still throw tantrums, and I’m sixteen.
4. That last sentence means you need to make a child’s logic a little more disjointed. Partly it’s personality in older people, partly her age.

Oh, another thing about children: They don’t get embarrassed at the things you think they would.

@ Steph: What, you ditched the stuffed toys?! cuddles Wolfie, Snowy, and Larry

I like swenson’s view. I repeat again, we need to collaborate all of this into an article for the main site.

@ SWQ: I just saw no use for them. I did display them, though, and felt horribly guilty for not playing with them. I thought they came alive at night and missed me. I did hang onto my Barbies for a while, though they never ‘came alive’...

Hey, if somebody wants to put this all together in an article… you’re welcome to shamelessly steal my words!

Or could we divide it up into sections- one person writes about a child’s view of the world, one person writes about a child’s experiences, one person writes about other characters’ reactions of the child, one person writes about having a genius child and why/why not an author should have one, etc.

Making children under the age of five distinctive is easy. I have two nephews and a niece in that age range, and each has a prominent characteristic. The younger boy gets into everything, but is impossible to be mad at because he is ALWAYS giving impulsive hugs and kisses. The girl is very sweet, a little pouty, obsessed with pink… a real girly girl. The older boy is precocious, curious, and always asking questions. And he’s ridiculously tall- only 4 and tall as most 7 year olds.

It could be called How to deal with and write children. Weaving the ‘to deal with’ part in would probably help organise it.

Agreed, that book is wonderfully written and quite touching.