Child For Sale

Yesterday afternoon I took a walk (I do that sometimes). As I rounded a bend, I heard young voices bouncing off the houses.

"Tell your mom to have another baby!"

"No, I want this baby."

"Well, maybe I'll have to sell him for sale and then you can buy him!"

That's an über-weird conversation. To give it a little perspective, the wee speakers couldn't have been more than five years old apiece.

Ah. The world according to a very small child.

Which brings me to my point. When writing for children, it's imperative that the voice of the story -- and of the characters -- resonates in the child's world. Authenticity in dialogue, both internal and external, is a skill to be honed and re-honed in the world of kidlit. If a main character has inner thoughts that seem like they belong inside the head of a thirty-year-old, then something isn't right.

In pondering the snippet of dialogue to which I was privy yesterday, it struck me how "normal" it was for the tykes engaging in it. To them, the idea of selling a baby brother to your neighbor wasn't odd in the least. And as I listened to their amusing exchange, I felt like I was "allowed into" their very real world. I didn't question it; I didn't worry that something was "off."

That's the way it should feel when we read the dialogue of not-quite-grown characters. We shouldn't question it, struggle with it, roll our eyes in dismay at it. And in order to provide this delightful experience for our readers, we need to write with a level of authenticity that accomplishes this.

Adult fiction will often have a youngster or two on its pages, so the same thing applies. Your twelve-year-old secondary character needs to be as believable as your twenty-nine-year-old protagonist. You can't just make him a little shorter with the same vocabulary.

And the bottom line is, if you want to learn how to get into the world of children -- their language, their perceptions, their reactions -- you need to spend time with children. You've heard the ridiculously old adage "write what you know." Well, you have to "know" children in order to write them.

You don't have to give birth to or raise or sign a two-year lease on a child in order to accomplish this. Hang at a playground. Take your hyperactive nephew to the pool. Babysit. Let your hair down and spend some time with small people. Listen to their words, their games, their songs. If they're teenagers, listen to their fears and dislikes and passions and the latest teen-speak. Learn to laugh with them, cry with them, pay attention to the meaning behind their words.

They really are endlessly fascinating. And if you can grab hold of the fascination, regardless of age level, you will transfer that sense of immediacy and reality to your characters.

There's your challenge. Make what you can of it.

I think I'll take a walk!