So, this might be better in GQ, but it’s about how an author goes about developing their characters, so I put it here. Please move if deemed appropriate.
To the question: I have been thinking how an author could create a believable narrative from a child’s point of view. For this question I am postulating a child who doesn’t have any development issues.
I certainly formed my world view over a period of time. (Hopefully it is still changing these many years later.) Now I am thinking of maybe a 10 year old. By that age I knew enough to know that other folks had feelings that could get hurt and I knew that getting my feelings hurt, well it hurt and etc. But I don’t have much memory of my inner dialogue at that age.
So an adult author trying to write a plausible inner dialogue for a child who has some sense of self, how does that author go about it?
Alice in Alice in Wonderland now strikes me as more of an adult then a child.
This all feels somewhat vague and confused, I think I have an idea of what I am trying to express here, but the above seems somewhat inadequate to that idea.
Well, hopefully someone will have an understanding and maybe there can be a dialogue to flesh this out.
One that I’m fond of is the science fiction short story “Poppa Needs Shorts”, by Walt and Leigh Richmond. All of the kid’s thoughts make sense, given the input and experience (or lack of it) that he has, but those thoughts end up going in completely different directions than an adult’s would.
Now, saying just how to write a child character, that’s a lot harder than just pointing out examples that did it well.
And ([moderating]), yes, this is the correct forum for this thread.
I think if the child relates to the feelings aspect he will automatically relate more to the process the inner dialogue walks him through even if it is possibly more mature than what you might expect from a 10 year old. I remember enough about 10 to know that I already had a well developed sense of empathy, possibly over developed and maturity walked it back a few steps. My sense of time was probably the biggest difference between now and then, I was not nearly as aware then at how quickly things blow over and become non issues so little things had greater importance attached to them.
So, given the replies thus far, developing a character is perhaps one of those creative process that is difficult to impossible to describe.
It might make as much or little sense to ask how did someone make some mathematical or scientific discovery, generally the discoverer can’t quite describe their thought process either. The whole creative processes is one of the big ideas that, as far as I know, has yet to be solved in AI.
As far as it goes, I think my enquiry has been answered as well as it can be.