3 Tips for Writing Children

by Lucia Tang with @Reedsy

Let’s start with a note of clarification. This is a post for writing child characters, not for literal children hoping to write their own books. Still, any precocious, under-12 authors who happen to read it are more than welcome to weigh in with their expertise!

Actually, fiction as a whole could probably benefit from a little more young blood in its authorial ranks. When well-intentioned adults try to craft young characters, the result can easily tip into uncanny valley or ring jarringly false.

Have you ever read an otherwise great book filled with questionably written children? Maybe the main character’s 6-year-old babbled with a toddler’s slapdash grammar, or a 2-year-old did nothing but make oracular pronouncements, like a chubby-cheeked foreshadowing machine. Either way, it probably took you out of the story.

Don’t put your readers in that position. The children you write shouldn’t trample over their delicate suspension of disbelief — they should make the world you’ve built feel richer and more real. Follow these 3 tips, and you’ll be able to bring realistic, compelling young characters to life.

1. Do your homework— and accept that there’s going to be a bit of reading

If you were working on a book about Malawi, you’d start by doing some research. And you’d definitely feel obligated to  study up if you wanted to write historical fiction set in 1776.

So think of childhood as a foreign country — it certainly was a foreign time. But wait, you might say. Those authors have never been to Malawi or crashed a meeting of the Continental Congress; I’ve actually been a child. But don’t rely on your memories alone: every author, after all, has a childhood to look back on, and some still write less-than-convincing kids.

You can spend time observing and talking to children. Not every writer has kids they can press into service — or even a nephew than can borrow for an afternoon. If that’s your situation, read!

Developmental psychology might be helpful — especially if you’re decided to take on a child protagonist. But if you’re in a hurry (or only concerned with young supporting characters), take the time to read some well-regarded books aimed at the age group you’re hoping to depict. These stories will help you empathize with your characters, and let you learn from the depictions that resonate with the ultimate experts: kids themselves.

2. Pay special attention to dialogue

Shoddy dialogue might be the biggest symptom of poorly written children — it’s certainly one of the most glaring. From bizarre diction to improbably cutesy turns of phrase, making your kid characters speak strangely is a sure way to jar your reader out of the story.

Writers are often keen to make sure their fictive kids have age-appropriate vocabularies, but they end up overdoing it: they’re too restrictive with the words they put in their young characters’ mouths. Sure, an 8-year-old wouldn’t necessarily complain about the “fetid odor” of his dad’s favorite cheese, but would he really call it “yucky”?

While you’re watching out for improbable diction, also take the time to examine the conceptual basis behind what your child characters say. Does 10-year-old Joshua (or 2-year-old Khaleesi) know enough to ask that question? Are they naive enough to make that comment?

One final, but crucial,  note on dialogue: be sparing with your use of eye dialect, the nonstandard spelling that draws attention to a character’s idiosyncratic pronunciation. Children may not always pronounce words with strict correctitude, but a toddler who always complains about being “vewwy hungwy” will quickly grate on the reader’s nerves. There’s no need to make anyone talk like they’re doing a table read for Elmer Fudd — even if they’re barely out of diapers.

3. Always have the child’s interiority in mind

This tip will keep your child characters from coming across as nothing more than cutesy plot devices. Every time you write a scene with a child, figure out how they’re feeling and what’s going on in their head. That way, their actions will have an internal logic — and won’t be strictly subordinated to the needs of the plot.

Even if you’re not using a child as a POV character, it’s useful to write from your young characters’ perspectives, if only as an exercise. Say that your reporter protagonist, Rebecca, is taking a call from her editor. It’s a tense conversation, one she’s already put off for a few days. And now her 4-year-old, Ethan, is screaming in the background.

You’ve got a strong sense of how Rebecca feels in this scene. But what about Ethan? His motivations might be totally opaque to her — she can’t even tell if his shrieks are from joy or from rage, and let’s be honest, for a second she doesn’t even care. But they shouldn’t be opaque to you.

Try rewriting the scene from Ethan’s perspective. This exercise in empathy might just teach you something new about your characters — an insight that will bring a totally different dimension of your story to life.

Lucia Tang is a writer with Reedsy, a marketplace that connects self-publishing authors with the world’s best editors, designers, and marketers. Reedsy also provides tools to help authors write and format their books, as well as free courses and webinars on publishing. In Lucia’s spare time, she enjoys drinking cold brew and planning her historical fantasy novel.

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