Looking over my recent writing, I seem to have included a lot of children, or childlike, characters. They offer such unique perceptions and ways to frame a story that can really delve deeper into certain themes, yet they can be difficult to write. Considering I am no longer a child, and haven’t been for a fair while now, it’s hard to remember how I felt in situations or my perspective of the world from back then. So, when writing children in my stories, I do put a lot of time and effort into considering how they’d perceive the world and what they’d realistically know, understand, and respond. Unfortunately, it’s obvious when writer’s don’t take the same approach.
Most of the time, there’s two main problems that crop up. One, the child has no character, they are a plot point or object that just happens to have a human shape. Or two, the child’s age isn’t accurately portrayed. Both of these can badly impact on the portrayal of the character and leave readers questioning the author’s writing.
Both these issues can crop up in a popular plot dynamic right now: the lone wolf and the child. A solitary rough (frequently male) protagonist is softened by a young, vulnerable kid they didn’t particularly want but have been saddled with. Two recent example of the trope are in Netflix’s Witcher series and Disney+’s Mandalorian. I happen to really love this trope, I think it can create great character dynamics, character development, and an interesting, conflicted motivation. If done right. It is easy for the character depth and development to become one sided, the child is there to merely show the softer side of the bigger, tougher main character. This is especially true when the child is younger, they essentially become a MacGuffin (a random item that is required for a random reason for the plot to occur) with no personality of their own.
And children do! They all have their own likes and dislikes, interests and hobbies. Have you ever tried to force a child to eat something they don’t like? Or watch your 7 year old niece show you her recent MMA lessons and realise she could probably kill you if she wanted to? Children have their own goals, even if they are smaller than adults or they don’t know how to achieve them yet, they have aspirations and wants and desires. They’re human.
Now for the blasphemous opinion, this was the problem I had with The Child/Baby Yoda. Do not get me wrong, I love the Mandalorian series, however for the most part ‘Baby Yoda’ could be replaced by a (green) doll and it would have been exactly the same! I get that this is because the little guy is only a baby in terms of development, yet we do see him being able to walk around and cause mischief in later episodes. I found those situations far more enjoyable, he was no longer a sentient prop for the main character but engaging with the world around him in a meaningful (and sometimes unhelpful) way.
Because guess what! Children make mistakes! That’s how they learn, how is little 3 year old Timmy meant to know that opening that pretty looking book is gonna unleash a hell demon? The writing on the front you say. Well the kid can’t read yet, never mind read Latin! He’s gonna open the book if unsupervised!
This brings me to the most important thing you can do when writing a child; research the expected development and behaviours of the age you’re portraying them as. Sometimes you will see young children being portrayed as far older than their age in terms of development (how every new-born baby is somehow the size of a four month old in films). However, the opposite can also be true, older children can be infantilised within stories. Of course, with all humans there is a spectrum and this is a very generalised comment. Some children may understand certain things quicker, like science, but may struggle with social cues. There is a lot of information out there regarding how children of a certain age will speak, read, move, understand emotions, and so on. This includes information for neuro-divergent children, such as autistic children or those with learning difficulties, as well as physical disabilities. Do the research! Your writing will be much richer for it!
If you have family or friends who have children, spend some time with them, it’ll not only be a lovely experience but you can see how children react and respond to adults. If you do not have any young family members or friends with children, or you want to see how children act unsupervised, watching documentaries like The Secret Life of 4/5/6 Year Olds (Channel 4, 2015) will be incredibly helpful. This documentary series in particular has the children interact unscripted, and also presents them with moral dilemmas and challenges. You can watch them online: https://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-secret-life-of-4-and-5-year-olds/episode-guide
It does take time and practice and conscious effort in order to portray a child character well, especially in difficult situations that may appear in your story. Hopefully this talk will help you be more aware of the possible problems, which will help you to avoid them in the future. Of course, not everything is set in stone and every person (and child) is different!
What is you favourite child character from a book, tv show, or film?
-S
Hint of the Week:
Seeing yourself in a narrative can be more difficult than you think.
2 Pen 