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*gasps* OUR GUILDMASTER HAS DESERTED US.

Okay guys. We need to get organized.

@literatureforthelight an unreliable narrator is when the narrator believes something untrue about the circumstances in the story and tells it from a skewed perspective, and this is obvious to the reader. For instance, if we had the story of a lazy, neglectful, abusive husband whose wife left him, but the husband (who is the narrator) believes she was stolen by aliens. So on the surface the story would be about a kind, easy-going husband whose wife was spirited off in a flying saucer, but only because the narrator is self-deluded, and the reader can easily piece together the truth. It’s an extreme example, but that’s the concept.

@Samuel I like that idea, but I think we need a bit of a plot framework and emotional hook before we can decide what kind of narrator we need. Children do make exceptionally funny/touching/endearing unreliable narrators though, so let’s definitely keep that in mind.

Okay. Just gonna throw a bunch of stuff out here.

Three things I struggle with when writing children:

• Condescension. We tend to assume they’re naïve and haplessly innocent, leaving us unable to write them as the complex, struggling, growing and wondering human beings that they are. Their outlook may be black and white. Their personality isn’t.
• Oversimplification. Just because they don’t know as much and their brains aren’t as well-trained as ours doesn’t mean their natural smarts are any less keen. In fact, children are often far more perceptive than adults when it comes to people.
• ‘Sainthood’. It’s very tempting to use children, with their refreshingly simple and straightforward outlook, as plot devices to represent perfection and cure all ills by holy example.

The key to writing a child’s POV effectively is to remember that the only thing incomplete about them is their level of self-control and their ‘filter’— they don’t usually understand reality quite as it is because they haven’t experienced as much. That doesn’t mean they’re hesitant to draw conclusions and form opinions, unable to experience the full spectrum of complex and complicated human emotions, or don’t feel strongly about their beliefs and react with corresponding violence when those beliefs are challenged.

Those are the things I really struggle with writing young characters, so if you have anything to add to the list please do.

In fact, why don’t we do that now. Try to think of everything you don’t want to do, and just put it all down here so we can get on the same page. Child characters you hated and why; struggles you’ve had writing child narrators; child characters you loved and why you think they worked… anything. Ready, set, go. Let’s hash this out together.

@raemarie @mcnoggin @cindy @kate @elizabeth @girlsetfree @theresa-play @r-m-archer @literatureforthelight @livgiordano @lady-iliara @m_corinnemusic @j-parkhurst @gabbyj @sierra @cassandria @chalice @noahlitle