Writing child characters can be both demanding and entertaining. Children are full of love, humor, innocence, and fun, which provides many plot opportunities for writers. But children aren't mini adults, which can be difficult to remember while writing young characters. If you are writing a story regarding children, it is essential that you create characters kids will love. Follow along for the 5 best tips for writing characters aged five to eleven.
Give Them Individual Goals
Like adult characters, child characters should have their own goals and motivations. The goals of child characters will be small, but they will still have importance to them. For example, rather than falling in love, they may want to fend off a bully or catch the Tooth Fairy. As you write child characters, it is important you give them goals that are different and distinct to them. The children in your story should have separate goals from their parents, but goals that make sense to them. Before writing, take some time to think about when you were your character’s age, and consider the goals you had back then and what you wanted. Young-aged characters should be just as well-rounded and interesting as the adults.
Consider Their Environment
Our childhoods make up our formative years, which is why our environments deeply impact us. While writing child characters, pay attention to their environment and backstory. The family, environment, and economic status of a young person will affect their character, which you must remember as a writer. Even simple things like a new pet can have effects on the development of a child's character.
Avoid Making Them Overly Cute
Sure, kids can be cute, but you shouldn't make them overly cute. You may be attempted to make your young characters extra cute, but their cuteness should feel natural. Characters who were put into the story just to be cute won't feel realistic to readers. It is important to not force cuteness but to let the characters feel developed and reasonable. To avoid making characters overly cute; give them individual traits, let them grow, and make sure they are smart. Making characters overly cute may offend young readers and repel them from your book.
Pay Attention to Their Speech
Connecting to the previous point, don’t have your child characters use baby talk. Baby talk may sound cute, but it can be hard to understand and it may insult readers. As you write child characters, don't be afraid to have them speak in complete sentences. To make your characters realistic, they should also speak without a filter. Most young people haven't learned about social norms and therefore speak without a filter. Avoid annoying readers by using baby talk or having a professor-sounding child, rather have your characters speak in full but childish sentences.
Research Child Behavior
In order to effectively write child characters, you may want to research about their behavior and psychology. You can conduct research either online or by physically spending time with kids (i.e. babysitting or spending time at a park). Both of these types of research will give you information on the behavior and personalities of kids, which will be helpful in your writing. While observing kids, consider these questions: What upsets them? What makes them laugh? How do they pronounce certain words?
Child characters are fun for adult and child readers, alike and provide many entertaining moments for writers. Even though it is hard to effectively write child characters, these five tips are sure to help!
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