By Diane Mae Robinson
When writing children's literature, finding your own child voice is the only way to create realistic characters, believable dialogue, and succinct narrative that will grab your reader’s attention and keep them involved in your story.
My writing students often ask me: So how does a writer find their child voice?
My answer to students is this: Before you can find your child voice, you must think like a child. To think like a child, you must play like a child, even if it is only in your mind.
Seems like a relatively simple thing to do, right? But as adults, we often let go of (or lose completely) our childlike attitudes and behaviors; tuck them away in a memory box.
So, open the box. Remember. Put on a costume and dance around the room, go to a park and cruise down the slide, visit a classroom, read children’s literature, or hang out with some kids and just observe. Soon enough, your own childhood memories will come flooding back about what it was like to be that age--what was important, what wasn’t important, how you acted and how you talked, what the world sounded like, felt like, and tasted like.
Once your own inner child is awakened, you will be able to immerse yourself into your child character’s head with more freedom, and your writing will be filled with pizzazz.
Another exercise I have my students do to get into child-mode thinking is to look at things, people, situations, and emotions; write down all the different ways to express it with originality. Then, break the sentences down again and again until the emotions and situations are expressed simply, with the innocence of a child’s heart.
Here are some examples of my child voice that I’ve used in my own stories:
Excited: He felt as if a herd of jumping bugs were doing cartwheels in his stomach.
Sad: My heart fell sideways and stayed lying down all day.
Descriptive dialogue: "I’m sure grandma can fly. See that flapping skin under her arms? Those are her after-dark wings."
Descriptive narrative: The wind pricked and jabbed him, becoming so mean with all its yelling and howling that Tom decided the wind wasn’t worth playing with any longer.
Here are some examples of my child voice that I’ve used in my own stories:
Excited: He felt as if a herd of jumping bugs were doing cartwheels in his stomach.
Sad: My heart fell sideways and stayed lying down all day.
Descriptive dialogue: "I’m sure grandma can fly. See that flapping skin under her arms? Those are her after-dark wings."
Descriptive narrative: The wind pricked and jabbed him, becoming so mean with all its yelling and howling that Tom decided the wind wasn’t worth playing with any longer.
So, if find yourself dancing and twirling around the kitchen, doing cartwheels across the yard, or finger painting like a four-year-old, and somebody comes along to tell you that you are acting immature, take it as a compliment and start writing.
Diane Mae Robinson is the international multi-award-winning author of the children’s fantasy/adventure series, The Pen Pieyu Adventures. The author is also an artist, art teacher, editor of children books, and a writing instructor. Diane lives in central Alberta, Canada.