DISCUSSION: How to Write 10-Year-Olds Like Actual 10-Year Olds

[InfiniteBakuphoon]

So lately I've been thinking about the potential challenges involved in accurately portraying younger characters, especially those that appear in Pokémon fanfiction. Basically, I sometimes fear that as the older and more mature we become, the less likely that we'll still have "the voice of a child", so to speak.

In the more literal sense of that term, I can say that I myself have always been somewhat "formal" in my way of speaking for my age, both in real life and in my writing. Naturally, most children don't actually speak or write like that all of the time - if arguably really at all - which means that I'd have to re-calibrate my "voice" in order to realistically portray how an average 10-year-old would speak. But of course, that's easier said than done when that manner of speaking doesn't come naturally to you, and at the same time, there's definitely the risk of re-calibrating too much, and thus making them sound too informal and too immature.

And then there's the less literal sense of the term, or in other words: a child's overall perspective on things that someone older would likely see differently. How would we relate said perspectives with a 10-year-old's actual personality that's independent of how old or mature they are? Or could we argue that the two are actually not so independent from each other after all, and if so, to what extent exactly is that the case? And in the context of Pokémon fanfiction especially, how can we reconcile possible answers to all of the above with the one of the most significant differences between the real world and the Pokémon one: the allowing of 10-year-olds to travel alone across the world in the latter, with literal pocket monsters at their command all the while?

 

[Beth Pavell]

The reason why most 10-year-old journeyfic trainers (Including in the official media) end up acting and sounding like various teenagers is because suspension of disbelief would crack in half if they sounded authentic. This need not be a problem since I don't think there is anything in any canon that insists trainers must go off into the world at ten.

I remember seeing a discussion on ff.net once, where actual parents commented that they wouldn't allow their 10-year-old kinds to go unsupervised for any length of time. This seems significant, because heaven knows a lot of non-parents like to talk childraising theory despite having virtually no contact with 10-year-olds since they were 10 themselves.

When it comes to getting that authentic voice, for any character I don't think there's any substitute for listening to the real thing

 

[diamondpearl876]

Like any other characterization aspect, it depends largely on the person themselves: culture, experience growing up, intelligence...

Some cultures are more trustworthy of kids going off on their own. Kids travel by themselves at a young age all the time in Japan, for example. Not so much in the U.S. So, that's not really unbelievable to me that a kid would be allowed to go off on a journey with magical animals at the age of 10 if the culture is akin to Japan, where adults are expected and very, very likely to go out of their way to help children any way they can (thus making parents feel okay about sending their kid off), but you can put safeguards in your world just in case. I've seen fics with rest camps in the middle of routes set up for trainers so they're not having to build shelter on their own or sleep in the middle of some Houndoom's territory, Pokémon Centers are free to help with financial costs, emergency help is available at the touch of a button with the help of technological devices... That said, I agree with Pavell that no one has to travel at 10, really. That age used in the games seems to just be a way to connect to their target audience. Like most canon things (mechanics, levels, abilities, etc.) it doesn't always translate well into prose without a ton of creativity behind it.

Experience growing up is tough. I certainly didn't talk like or fit in with any 10 year olds when I myself was 10. Why? I was forced to grow up a little too soon after a traumatic event. I was always considered way, way ahead of my classmates in terms of maturity and was treated differently for it (not in a bad way, but in a noticeable way). I'd say if you're writing a kid (or any character, honestly), it's important to figure out why they talk and act the way they do. If you can't make a connection or have an explanation, character depth is missing and development will feel lacking in the actual story.

Intelligence: some kids might use more advanced vocabulary and sentence structure, especially if they're considered gifted or are pushed heavily into academics by their parents. But in reality, most won't. It's hard to get the voice of a kid right in that it's both believable and not irritating to read after five chapters full of it, since most kids are rude, cruel to others, and arrogant (or at least, the most extroverted and outspoken ones tend to be, if the pervasive amount of bullying these days is anything to go by).

 

[Beth Pavell]

The prevalence of support and supervision is a key point, I think. People often point towards the Japanese model without acknowledging that a high school kid living by themselves are also effectively under supervision for most of their day. And in any case, there's a gulf of difference between being trusted to do your own laundry and productively planning each day for weeks at a time.

The whole idea that maturity is essentially a matter of opinion has some weight to it, and I'm sure we could all find examples of kids almost as responsible as young adults. Generalising from that is problematic, though, because: a) Maturity isn't just a social construct, and people's brains really do change through childhood and adolescence; and b) Kids sometimes are forced to grow up fast because society has failed them.

The idea of the trainer's school as a kind of after-school program, to prepare kids for a training journey could neatly step in to solve some of these problems ... but methinks they will invariably used as a high school setting + elite awesome monster battles

 

[diamondpearl876]

There's mental maturity (the social construct) and physical maturity (the person's brain/body growing with age). Being mature mentally doesn't automatically mean you're physically mature or vice versa. And, although I might call a kid mature, it's still physically impossible for them to fully grasp certain concepts (particularly abstract concepts) until their brain reaches a greater capacity. Same thing could be said vice versa again, though: a physically mature person's brain/body might've reached their full capacity, but that full capacity doesn't necessarily include mental maturity.

It's complicated (TM), I guess. Character depth, methinks, is the key to success with understanding and writing 10-year-old characters.

 

[lucarioknight56]

The last time I tried writing a ten-year-old was back when I was writing PMDLU, which was probably...two years ago? Yeah, it's a been a while, and I remember specifically trying to simplify my language to make it more similar to how a kid would sound like. Sure, he was still more mature than say, my sister, but that's something that ends up being sacrificed in the course of writing. We older people can't be expected to make completely accurate portrayals of the characteristics of our characters. We're really making educated guesses based on what we know about them, and the closer we get to the mark, the better our work becomes...in most cases. I'm sure there's a point that being too true can be a detriment.