Write A Child’s Story
This is ‘the story of a child’, not necessarily a story for children’s story
Tips
- Children are adventurous. They are open. They are surprisingly insightful. They see the world in bright colors, not moral greys. They are, in other words, great hero material.
- Children are inexperienced in the world and therefore, generally, not paralyzed by potential consequences. This makes them great hero material AND great villain material (Lord Of The Flies).
- Around the age of ten children are aware of themselves, have some empathy for others, a growing facility to play with the more sophisticated language they hear from adults, and a fairly well developed ability to survive without an adult’s help. They are developing an awareness of their own personality and its affect on others and their ability to choose what they do with that. This is why so many great child-characters are written at this pre-teen stage. Consider making your protagonist this age
- If you don’t have much exposure to children right now, consider writing a story in flashback, where your older character tells the story of themselves as a child (as Rob Reiner did in Stand By Me).
Here’s today’s story. There’s more of a child in it than comes out in hastily thrown down first draft. I’ve decided to work on revisions and submissions over June-October to keep my brain fresh as I hunker down into book mss revisions. This is one piece I’d like to do more with.
http://guptacarlsonshortstories.blogspot.com/2013/05/bittermelons.html
Hello, haven’t checked in for a few days, though I have written a story every day. I thought I’d follow up yesterday’s Christmas romp with one to match today’s rainy weather. Alas, it’s not about young children on an adventure, but teens reacting to a classmate’s suicide. Read if you like on WordPress at http://gravatar.com/sarahcain78. Cheers. Sarah C
Here we go! http://starvingactivist.wordpress.com/2013/05/28/the-write-now-story-a-day-28-mash-up-little-johnny/