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Hey, I’m not sure if this is supposed to go in this forum, but I’ll give it a whirl….
I’ve having trouble writing a nine-year-old girl’s voice in a secondary WIP I’ve been thinking about. The style is supposed to be very humorous (think The Best Christmas Pageant Ever) while still retaining a child’s voice (think June Bug by Chris Fabry). I’m pretty terrible when it comes to humor, but this character popped in my head and I can’t get her out, so I just have to write about her. It’s also first person, which makes it difficult. Do you guys have any thoughts/suggestions? Thanks a ton!
Oh, and I hope you don’t mind me tagging you, but here goes…
@gracie-j, @issawriter7, @mkfairygirl, @kathleenramm, @lydia-s, @godlyfantasy12, @scripter-of-kingdoms, @abigail-m, @joy-caroline, @seekjustice, @jodi-maile, @joelle-stone, @anyone + everyone, @all those I forgot to mention.
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@faith-q Giiiiirl, I wish I could help, but I’m having a very similar problem. Just wrote a scene from my seven-year-old character’s POV and, boy, was it cringey! The one thing I have the most trouble with is little people’s POVs… Joy Caroline could probably help you the most there.
As for the rest of yous, I’d appreciate any advice/tips you have for Faith too! 😉
Wow, this is a tough one. I honestly get the struggle, I’m not entirely sure if I’ll have any helpful advice, but here’s just some thoughts.
The first thing I recommend is just to read everything and anything you can find that is a story told from a child’s pov. Especially ones with girls around your character’s age and maybe try to find some that are also humor books. You’ll find a lot of them in the middle-grade genre. But anyways, by reading those stories, especially a lot back to back, you’ll start to catch on to the tone of them and even study what they are doing. The best way to learn is by studying books similar to yours!
Also maybe just spend a lot of time with children. I honestly love to hang around kids and when you’re around them a lot you’ll pick up on just how they act and how they view the world. So it might help you construct your character’s writing voice. 🙂
And well, I’m not sure about anything else, but I searched the web to see if I could find anything and I found this article that might help. (I only skimmed it, so I’m not sure.) https://www.standoutbooks.com/childs-perspective/
(Oh, and I’ll tag you @gracie-j since you said you wanted some advice, too.)
Yeah, I don’t know if any of that helps. I don’t really write stories from a child’s perspective (though I have done some backstories of my characters for when they were children) so I don’t know if any of that will help but maybe.
God gives His hardest battles to His strongest soldiers.
TeenWritersNook.comAlso, @gracie-j I just HAD to say that I LOVE your tagline. It’s pure gold, sis. XD
and I can honestly relate waaAAAAAaaay too much XDGod gives His hardest battles to His strongest soldiers.
TeenWritersNook.com- Rank: Eccentric Mentor
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Seems the forum ate my first reply. 🙄😂
I love writing from a kid’s POV! Sounds like a cool project. Here are some tips I’ve learned from my own experiences with young POVs:
(1) I’d suggest reading a good variety of books from a child’s voice. By “good variety” I mean different tones and settings. I recommend To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (1930s South, first person POV, incorporates humor brilliantly while dealing with extremely heavy themes like racism, discrimination and perjury); Forever Rose by Hilary McKay (first person POV, a hilarious contemporary tale about a young girl with an eccentric, artistic, dysfunctional family); Ginger Pye and The Moffats by Eleanor Estes (early 1900s, hilarious while still singing important truths but keeping things lighthearted); and Ramona Quimby, Age 8 by Beverly Cleary (contemporary with pretty much nothing but humor). Each child in each book has a very different voice, yet the authors use humor in ways that are fitting to the voices. There’s a vast difference between TKAM, which is an adult read despite being from a kid’s perspective because of the dark themes (but there’s brilliant humor); and the last book I listed, which is nothing BUT humor.
(2) Keep in mind that while children are innocent and do say some pretty laughable things (is laughable a word? XD) they can see things that adult protagonists often can’t, precisely BECAUSE of their innocence. Having a child protagonist is a great way to highlight important truths without being preachy. But what I’m trying to say is treat your child protagonist like an intelligent POV instead of having a “oh, she’s a kid, she won’t know” tone.
(3) That being said, do note that children interpret things differently than adults. That could mean a kid won’t always understand someone’s words/actions, and that misunderstanding can lead to wacky and sometimes catastrophic results.
Hope this helps out a bit! Let me know if you need more.
@faith-q That sounds like an interesting character! JC and Issabelle have already said most of what I was going to say, so here are a couple little tips I have for you (and @gracie-j too!):
I suggest you take a look at the stories you mentioned and watch/read them with a notebook on hand, writing down what stands out to you the most about the child characters and why. That way, you can kind of reverse engineer your studies in the kind of humor/child POV you want to get your writing to be. Maybe even watch movies with child protagonists/humor and then write the scenes like they’re in a novel (dialogue, setting, character actions and all) so that you get the hang of the rhythm of the kind of humor you’re looking to include in your story.
Also, I would suggest taking a look into the psychology of child development to give you a more cause-and-effect perspective on why kids do the things they do. I’ve taken a bunch of classes on this subject, but there are resources in videos/books that you can check out without having to commit to a class.
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@issawriter7 Awesome advice, thank you! And I’ll definitely be checking that article out! (And thank you!
I feel you!I love yours too!!)@joy-caroline That advice is pure gold, girl!
@jody-maile Thank you! The writing movie scenes exercise sounds like it’d help a lot!
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Oops, I meant @jodi-maile (and now it won’t let me edit that).
Sorry I’ve been so silent on here. @jodi-maile, @joy-caroline and @issawriter7, thank you all for the advice! It was amazing and very helpful. I’m sure I’ll use your tips! And @gracie-j, I feel your pain. But now I guess we both know what to do now 🙂 And I love your tag. That is so awesome!
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@faith-q Of course! I’m glad I was able to help 🙂
@gracie-j Haha no worries! And yes! I learn a lot from movies, so a lot of my tips have to do with watching them (also it’s fun to dive back into old favorite films…)
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@faith-q Yep! Now we know!! Thanks so much for starting this topic!!
@joy-caroline You’re welcome!
@jodi-maile True dat! 😉Super late to this thread (life has become a whirlwind of activity…), but honestly, I do not have much experience with children’s POVs. The youngest character’s POV I’ve ever written was a… *thinks for a moment…or two* Well, a fourteen-year-old, so she’s not much of a child. I hope the others could help though! 😀 <333
Yeah, I’m not an expert on child POV, but I do have one important side character who is about eight. Although he has to act older than he is for culture and time-era sake, it’s important to keep in mind that their POV will depend on their learning and experience. Tom Sawyer vs Laura from Little House On The Praire. Or depending on their personality in general. If they are naturally extroverted, they’ll most likely be the kid running across the playground. If they like quiet, they’ll not talk to many adults and seek uninhabited places to play or be more agreeable so they don’t have to talk much.
Children can also often think of their own ideas as genius or at least they make perfect sense in their minds. Not stupid at all, but they don’t have the knowledge or experience to know better.
I remember hearing about a story of a little girl who wanted her horse to be white for when her friend came by… so she bleached the horse with Clorox. See? She wasn’t necessarily dumb, she just didn’t consider or know of the consequences. And Joy Caroline’s advice is of course, awesome!:D
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