It has come to our attention that humans are not born as fully formed adults, which means it’s time to talk about child characters. What’s the difference between writing kids for kids and writing kids for adults? What stories do a good job portraying the perils of childhood? How much like Wesley Crusher should your character be? Find out the answers to all that and more.
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I’d like adding Barry Ween to the list. He’s the only child genius I have encountered who doesn’t sound like a shrunk adult.
My perspective on the use of children as main characters in science/fi/fantasy novels is that if writers are successful in creating a bond between the reader and the child protagonist especially with adult readers (think some of Stephen King’s characters-“fire starter” comes to mind first), you already have a suspension of disbelief. I loved Something Wicked this Way Comes-all time favorite-and it’s such a great example of this. In addition, as adult readers, especially of fantasy/sci-fi, I think we realize that we’ve lost our sense of wonder as we grew in our understanding of the world-and we want that back. In embraceing the child-hero we give ourselves permission to believe in the impossible and to hope again for wonder in our lives
It’s certainly true that readers are less critical of stories they are enjoying.
I think that in Ocean at the End of the Lane, the child characters are supposed to be from a retrospective point of view (the narrator) and immortal and actually very old (Lettie)