Write from a Child’s Point of View
If you’ve taken courses about writing for children, or you’ve read any good children’s books lately, you probably realize that, most often, a child should be the point-of-view character in any story for kids.
Otherwise, what you are writing might be a story about children, but it probably isn’t a story for children.
By that I mean, it probably isn’t a story children themselves would enjoy reading.
Quite often, beginning writers think they are telling a story from a child’s point of view when, in fact, they are looking back to what it was like when they themselves were children.
What they are actually doing then is telling their story from an adult’s retrospective.
This is not the same thing as telling the story from a child’s point of view.
To tell a story from a child’s point of view, become that child right at the start of the story.
Don’t begin your opening paragraph letting the reader know you are now an adult.
That spoils everything for young readers.
Here’s a sample of an adult’s retrospective:
I was about 12 years old the summer my family decided to drive our old Chevy to the lake for a week of vacation. But I remember it like it was yesterday even though 40 years have passed since then. All 6 of us kids, and the family dog, Scooter, crowded into the back seat of the car. My mother passed out peanut butter and jelly sandwiches wrapped in waxed paper.
Notice how right away this lets young readers know that the point of view character is now an adult, even though he or she is trying to relate what it was like to be a kid many years ago.
This ruins it for most kids reading the story and they will probably put down the story and read something else.
It doesn’t take much rewriting to become that child once again and tell the story from a child’s point of view. Like this:
Dad decided to drive our old Chevy to the lake for a week of vacation one summer. All 6 of us kids, and the family dog, Scooter, crowded into the back seat of the car. Mom passed out peanut butter and jelly sandwiches wrapped in waxed paper. When she and Dad unwrapped their sandwiches in the front seat, I could tell they weren’t peanut butter. “Hey, how come you guys get bologna?” I asked.
Mom turned around and looked at me. “Because we’re adults,” she said, “and you’re kids. Now eat your sandwich.”
Do you see the difference in these two passages?
Does the second one lead you to believe the point of view character is actually still a kid?
Now…write a story from a child’s point of view instead of from an adult’s retrospective.
Think back to what you were like as a child, but then become a child again and write as if that child were showing and telling everything in your story.
Use these photos to get started if you can’t think of anything from your own childhood to write about. Just write down how a child might describe these photos.
Try it!
Happy writing!
The Working Writer’s Coach
www.workingwriterscoach.com
P.S. Let Nancy I. Sanders teach you, step by step, How to Write a Middle Grade Novel (for kids 8-12) in Just One Month. In this course you’ll learn the tricks of the trade so you can easily write from a child’s point of view.
For more information about how to write from a child’s point of view, read this article from Melissa Abramovitz called Think Like a Child If You Want to Write for Kids.
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