Being Human ...

Joseph Merrick, Elephant Man.

I think there are two types of people in the world. There are cat people and dog people. No, sorry, being flippant there. Start again ...

There are two types of people. There are people who find anything and anyone who is different threatening, they hate change. And then there are the people who are curious about the world and invite experiences because they welcome change.

Science Fiction writers and readers, by definition, are in the second category.

Many years ago I read a book called 'Freaks', (nowadays it would not be published under this title, the authors were referring to how the disabled made their living in earlier times). Joseph Merrick was one of the people featured in the book. I remember coming away from reading this with a profound respect for these people and one line always stayed with me. 'No one loves Coffey for himself.' That quote is from memory after 30 years. Coffey worked for Barnum and Bailey and I think he was the 'Man with Rubber Skin'. I don't remember, I just remember Coffey wishing someone could see past the disability to the person inside. Having said that, the people who worked as Freaks formed a tight knit community and accepted each other.

Here is an article by Mike Treder, on how we (I think he means Western Society in First World Countries) are getting better at accepting the differences in people. He says, 'We have learned to accept differences in appearance caused by nature or by accident. And we are getting better about appreciating the diversity of bodily expression that modern society has brought. But all this is only the beginning.'

He quotes Elephant Man, 'I am not an elephant! I am not an animal! I am a human being! I am a man!'

As writers, we portray people. We sometimes write from a male perspective, or female, or child of either gender, irrespective of our gender or age. If we are Speculative Fiction writers, we'll write from the View Point (VP) of characters who are not human, dragons, elves, aliens and Artificial Intelligences (AIs). Backw hen her First Earth Sea book was published, Ursula K Le Guin was congratulated for writing about coloured characters. Before this, most fantasy had been populated by 'pasty white guys', to quote Ursula.

How often do we write about people who are disabled? (Differently-abled, if you want me to be politically correct). George RR Martin writes from the VP of Tyrion, the dwarf. When I met George at World Con in 2005, I told him Tyrion was my favourite character in the Fire and Ice series. He confessed, Tyrion was his, too.

I have a small, genderless character in my Shallow Sea series, which is currently with my agent. One of the 'Twisted', the character is not pretty and charming, but ugly to outsiders and resentful of them. And I thoroughly enjoyed writing from this character's VP. I really hope this series gets picked up by a publisher. Maybe, if Mike Treder is correct, it will, since I'm exploring what makes us human and how we treat differently-abled people.

Maybe Spec Fic readers will enjoy my Twisted character and sympathize with their frustrations. But the people who most need to learn how to empathise with others won't be reading my Shallow Sea series, or any other books about AIs, Aliens, or Orcs, because they find anything different frightening. How do you reach people who reject difference and want to live in mental strait jackets?

I used to judge a children's writing Competition for World Vision, short stories and poetry by children on the topic of refugees, persecution and hungry children. I'll never forget one 10 year-old boy who said at the end of his essay, 'Why can't we all just be a little bit nicer to each other?'

What led you to becoming a reader/writer of Speculative Fiction? Have you read any interesting depictions of characters who weren't the traditional hero/heroine? Lois McMaster Bujold's classic series about Miles Vorksigan springs to mind.

Child Characters in Adult Books

(Thanks to Dave for an entertaining blog post -- a round robin story about goblins and hooligan juice. We'll have to see if we can put it up somewhere).

Thanks to John Singer Sargent for his painting of children.

Something that came up during the week's blogging was the subject of children and how they are (or in some cases are not) portrayed in books for adults. Are the child characters treated realistically? What purpose do they serve in the narrative? etc.

I write for children as well as adults so I'm comfortable writing child characters but do adult readers want child characters in their books when there are holiday destinations that ban children? Fantasy books often have a young (15-17 year old) protagonist. I tried googling this topic and didn't find much on it. (Perhaps it is just me!)

Here is a list of classic books with child characters. It raises some good points:

Read or reread a classic (or at least well-known) adult novel from among the titles listed. Think critically about the work from the singular point of view of how the nature of the child and the condition of childhood are represented via the child character or characters. Consider questions such as:

Is childhood characterized as a halcyonic or nightmarish period?

Are there striking or subtle autobiographical references to the author's life?

Is the child exceptional, proto-heroic or more in the normal range?

Is the portrayal of the child character(s) predominantly external or internal?

Is the view of childhood represented by the novel appropriate to the date of composition and/or to the fictional time setting?

Does this work evoke comparison to or contrast with any children's book(s) of the same time period in its perception of the child and of childhood?

Is the portrayal realistic for a child of the class, society, situation, and time?

Then I found a list of books for adults with child narrators like:

To Kill a Mockingbrid (Harper Lee)
The Tin Drum (Gunther Grass)
A Painted House (John Grisham)

A High Wind in Jamaica (Richard Hughes)

But why use a child narrator? What can you reveal (or hide) by using a child narrator? A child is essentially a 'stranger in a strange land' because they are constantly trying to make sense of the adult world.

And then Gary William Murning has a section on his site about writing child characters in adult books here.

He comes up with some good suggestions.

So how do I approach writing child characters for adult consumption? This is a difficult one to answer. My way of writing is fairly instinctual. I’ve been doing it so long that I no longer think about it (that’s a joke, incidentally… more or less.) Nonetheless, a few points occurred to me earlier today that I thought I’d share with you. Feel free to add your own.

1. A child is as multi-faceted as any other character. The expression of these “facets” will differ in many cases to those of an adult, but they will nevertheless possess common roots in the reality we all share. Their interpretation of the world around them may at times be unique, but it’s the same world your adult characters inhabit.
2. Writing completely from a child’s point of view can rob the work of necessary perspective. Try to allow for adult exposition etc. (for example, I tend to have my narrator looking back from a future place, slipping the odd insight in here and there — though there are other methods.)
3. Don’t overplay the “childishness”. Be selective and remember that fiction is merely real-life with form and well-defined boundaries.
4. Toys, favourite TV programmes, pop groups — all these can give a good sense of time, place and character. But don’t do it on every page! (See David Mitchell’s Black Swan Green if you want to read a great book on childhood that almost falls into the Space Invader Syndrome trap.)
5. And finally… child characters are not adult characters, but they deserve to be treated/represented with the same degree of honesty. Childhood can be a terrifying, confusing place — even for a child with a stable background. Don’t fudge it. Be prepared to revisit those childhood nightmares and ask yourself, Did they ever really go away?

I like Murning's point about honesty. In George RR Martin's Fire and Ice series several of his main characters are children and Martin doesn't treat these children any differently from the adults. Nasty things happen to them, their parents are killed and at the end of the last published book we still don't know if they will survive. Like so many children in the real world, the fact that they are youngsters does not save them from life's cruel realities.

Personally, I try to avoid exposition (Murning suggests using adult exposition to overcome the fact that children won't understand everuything they see). I like to leave it up to the reader to make deductions about what the child sees and fill in the gaps. I think readers should be made to so some work.

What books can you think of that use child characters? How do they treat these characters? What purpose do they serve in the narrative?