What a Character: Writing for Children's Narratives - Shannon Horsfall
Writing characters can be either the most fun or the most challenging aspect of creating a narrative for children. Sometimes characters can come to us like a dream—you can hear them whispering in your ear, see them skipping around your legs. They are just so vivid that you think them real. Other times ... well, we try to drag them kicking into the world we want them to inhabit only to have them throw a tantrum at our feet. It is in those ‘other times’ you need to listen to your character and let them take you by the hand to where they want to be written. Forcing them to go the way you want to take them often ends in a stilted, inauthentic story.
One of the biggest challenges as an adult writing for children’s books is that we can have a skewed idea of how children think and feel. For many of us, being a child was a long-distant (and often dim) memory. This carries across to our writing and the characters that we create. They can lack the authentic voice of a child. They can feel flat and lifeless. Making your characters feel like real is the most integral step to creating a successful story. Real characters elicit empathy and therefore become more likeable and enjoyable to read about. They are consistent. But they are also nuanced. They have contradictions, just as real children do. This is the key. Their actions, thoughts, and dialogue all work in harmony to make them convincing and easy to imagine existing in real life. Think of the brilliant Lauren Child and the character of Lola from her Charlie and Lola picture book series. She is so real that as a reader I completely and utterly fell in love with her. What does Child do so brilliantly to woo me? It is in Lola’s voice that she becomes real. The way she speaks is like listening to any 5-year-old you have ever met. So, it must be easy then, you say. Well, it would seem so, but it takes effort to take off the adult goggles and truly immerse ourselves into the child world in order to present their characters with verisimilitude. It takes effort, but it can be done. Focussing on how children speak, gesture, react, act and what they find amusing, scary, sad will have you part of the way there. Further to that, in thinking of each character as an individual and not one of a homogenous whole will ensure you have a unique and nuanced character.
Join me at Queensland Writers Centre on 16 October for an afternoon of child character crafting for young peoples’ narratives. There will be laughter. Guaranteed.
- Shannon Horsfall
