What is considered "childish" in fictional writing?

The emotional lives of children, adolescents, and adults are very different. This sometimes lead adults to dismiss the emotions of children and adolescents as trivial or inconsequential, which is unfair. If anything, the emotions of children and adolescents are more deeply felt than those of adults.

With adulthood comes emotional maturity, which generally involves a dampening of emotions. One comes to recognize one's emotional reactions and learns to regulate them. You know the highs and the lows are going to pass, and so the highs are a little less high and the lows are a little less low, all of which is a good thing, because it means you are less likely to be undone by your emotions. You are able to carry on with your everyday activities even when it the grip of high or low emotions, which makes it much easier for you to show up for work on a sunny day and not throw yourself off a bridge when you are disappointed in love.

Childishness in literature is mostly evident as the lack of the emotional regulation that characterizes adulthood. One of the things you will notice about almost all children's literature written by adults is that it display an adult level of emotional control, both it is own tone, and in the actions and reactions of its characters. I think this is the natural reaction of adults to model emotional regulation to children, combined with the natural emotional regulation that adults have learned and more or less assume as the human norm.

Morbidity is also a lack of emotional regulation. It is an inappropriate dwelling on dark thoughts. (Inappropriate here really means that it is inconsistent with the emotional regulation that an adult learns to use to keep themselves functioning more or less cheerfully.) Dealing with dark subjects is not in itself a sign of morbidity. There is lots of adult work that deals with dark subjects. Morbidity is a lack of emotional regulation when dealing with those dark subjects.

Learning emotional regulation is just part of growing up. Certain life event, such as a first job, moving away from home, becoming financially responsible for your self, getting married, and becoming a parent, all force a greater degree of emotional regulation on you.

It is important to note that the emotions themselves don't change. It is the ability to regulate them that changes. Some people never learn it though. For most of us, it just comes with time and experience.

It really isn't a writing technique, so it can't be fixed by writing methods. As your emotional regulation improves in life, it will be reflected in your writing.

posted over 7 years ago

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Mark Baker‭

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You are probably suffering from a case of Grimderp - when your dark parts go too dark and it stops being dark and becomes just silly. It is when a work of fiction goes so dark that it wrap around in the scale and becomes somewhat ridiculous for the reader.

Writing dark, emotionally deep stories is hard. It's extremely easy to get pumped up when adding details to a murder scene or a tragic moment, go over the top, and then lose the suspension of disbelief. My best example for this case is The Dark Tower, from Stephen King. While the world building of those books is extremely good, the overall story is painful to read if you aren't really, REALLY into King's work. The story of Roland and his quest for the Dark Tower is childish and morbid. But, why? What makes a work feel that way?

It mostly comes down to exaggerations. Suspension of disbelief gets more delicate the older you are - it's easier to break. Something that seems incredibly awesome for a fourteen year old may make my grandpa raise his eyebrows in confusion, wondering what the hell did I smoke and where he can get some for himself. Superpowers that destroy planets, demigods stuck inside orphans or super-perfect, hyper dark kids are the type of things that make very hard for a more serious reader to enjoy your work.

Think about Twilight. Those books are full of exaggerations, mostly around the protagonists. The things that happen, that unexplained "specialness" that a incredibly bland girl has, the one-dimensional aspect of the characters - it created a following, yes. But among what type people? How many of twilight readers didn't look back after a few years and thought "what was I thinking?" when looking back at the fan fiction they made for themselves?

The same goes for a few other works in other media. Naruto is a good example - while it may have been a blast to watch it with kid eyes, try watching it again a few years later. Then go to the mirror and try to explain to yourself why the hell you liked Sasuke back then.

Having a book rated "childish" or "too morbid" is probably a good signal that your tone is too over the top.

posted over 7 years ago

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T. Sar - Reinstate Monica‭

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I +1 to several of the above, and it is good advice; and I admit I haven't taken the time to read your work so far.

I'd add this observation: Writing will appear childish when the main characters (both heroes and villains) are made overly simplistic, ignorant, naive, or incapable or very limited in their reasoning or strategic thought.

Beginning writers will often over-explain things in exposition (details of their world, their characters emotions or motivations) or have their characters over-explain these things in dialogue.

But readers don't like to be treated as if they are five years old.

Along the same lines, young writers are often uncomfortable writing about adult romance or sex. Which is fine, stories can be written without that, but the writer should not aim to avoid it by writing characters that are NOT five years old with a five year old's understanding of romance and sexual attraction and activity. In other words you don't have to make adult themes central to your plot or description, but you shouldn't pretend they don't exist, or that any of your characters older than 13 (or past puberty) do not have any inkling about it.

This again is not treating your readers like five year old's, they expect characters that are physically adult to have the knowledge, motivations, and feelings of adults. A young teen can fake that, but don't do the opposite and have your characters so naive they don't know anything at all (unless they are all prepubescent children). You can fake it several ways. By "polite indirection" (e.g. 'At fifteen she thought she was in love, and became pregnant.') or allusion ('She was cheating on her husband, with his business partner.' or 'She was having an affair.'), or you can get yourself some indirect experience: Read other authors and see how they describe adult romance and sexual situations.

I focus on the sexual aspects not to be a pervert, but because adult romance, love and sex are common major ingredients of plots. They are also especially an obsession for those in the age bracket of 15 to 24: Somewhere in there most begin their own sexual lives; and both before and after it think about it often! Without any reference to it at all, a story may appear to them either written by a child or intended for children.

Isaac Asimov avoided sex in his stories, but remember he also said (I paraphrase) 'It is difficult to imagine a man risking his life in battles against overwhelming forces to save a woman because she is such an interesting conversationalist.' In other words, the love interest was present all along, so was the sexual interest, but the latter was not detailed. That does not mean it was ignored; behaviors and decisions and emotions must still be consistent with it driving the characters.

That does not apply if your characters and POV is nearly all children, like the Harry Potter stories: At 11, sex and romance are pretty far from the minds of the heroes. Authors completely averse to sexuality can similarly write with children heroes and avoid the topic completely. (Even for teachers, parents and other adults in the story; caregivers may be circumspect in their behavior and language around children and a prepubescent child's POV doesn't need a sexual imagination or suspicions).

Naiveté extends to other areas, as well; some of which can be researched online, others you may need the indirect experience of reading. Examples are the law, running a small business, being a politician, being a doctor, being a star of some sort (singer, artist, sports, musician, actor, writer), being wealthy, being a killer, being a criminal, being a soldier or Kung Fu expert.

My own stories include killers, but I have nothing remotely close to direct experience. Mine is indirect, I went back to authors I thought wrote convincing killers and studied how they presented them. I suspect they did not have any direct experience either, but I figured if they convinced me as a reader, then by emulating them, I could convince readers too.

So I encourage you to apply that lesson to writing about anything else with which you feel you have insufficient experience.

posted almost 7 years ago

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Amadeus‭

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