We’ve all been children before, but writing from a child’s perspective as an adult can be a difficult task. So much of our experience has been lost to memory and for some of us, the cultural changes over time have been drastic. Any good writer knows that great writing comes from great research, but going to observe today’s children at sporting events and local playgrounds and when they’re in the streets unaccompanied is looked down upon.

And older children, when you tell them you’re a writer, will just tell you that “books are gay” and when you tell them that you’ve slept with more women than they ever will, and not just because “global warming will certainly reduce their lifespan,” they still just laugh in your face and say who’d want to have sex with a bald bitch, even though I’m not bald at all, not even a little bit.

Of course, if you have children of your own, research might be easier. You can listen to their conversations pretty easily from the comfort of your own bedroom, or better yet, sit down and have a conversation with them. Now, for writers like me that can be tricky. The few of mine that I have visitation rights with are pretty annoying and they usually make up excuses so they don’t need to come to my apartment. But there are still workarounds. Bribing them with toys and with concert tickets, or telling the police I think their mother is addicted to PCP – these have all earned me some quality time with my kids.

You might be thinking, John, is this really worth it? Well, some of the most iconic characters in recent fiction have been children. Twilight was one of my most successful stories, and it follows a street tough 12-year-old chess prodigy who uses the power of autism to fight an army of zombies. The little brother character Dougray ended up being the highlight of Tomorrow’s Sorrows Borrowed. His love for his brother was the beating heart of the story and his catchphrase “I’ll tear open your nutsack” provided the biggest laughs.

Still, there’s a lot of things you need to look out for. We don’t want to write a bunch of Wesley Crushers and Alexanders, and then turn our dads into deadbeats because our audience doesn’t like having that child around. We’ll write kids that we’d actually want to be around on this edition of Stories’ Matter.

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Tip 1 – Make them smart, but not improbably wise

When a writer decides to make a child smart, they often go too far with it, making them a sage wise beyond their years. This is also a problem many writers have with black people, elderly Asian people, and Native American characters.

Kids can be clever, sure. They can solve riddles and they might surprise a character with an interesting fact or observation. I myself learned how to cook at a young age, for example, and I had a great knack for helping my dad identify which guys at the dog track were associated with the mafia.

But it’s really the emotional intelligence that young people lack. For years I thought it was my fault my birth mother left my father and I. Though that was mainly because my father told me that almost every day. It wasn’t until I matured that I realized that she left because if she’d stayed, she’d be an accessory to several crimes.

Tip 2 – They should be as complex as your adult characters

A lot of times we write our child characters as simplistic, as a rigid archetype. The spoiled rich kid. The orphan with a heart of gold. The fucking fatass. And this tendency to flatten our child characters makes sense. We think of kids as being simplistic because they’re usually pretty stupid.

But kids have conflicting needs and often face complex dilemmas, same as any adult. Maybe they’re conflicted about reporting an elder sibling for shoplifting, even though that sibling has helped them deal with an abusive step-parent. I know as a child, I was often conflicted between calling the police on my dad for his various scams and frauds, but also realizing that a foster family wouldn’t let me have ice cream with every meal.

Tip 3 – Watch out for outdated slang

Now, back in my day, a kid like me didn’t have rizz; I was bodacious. People with negative aura were either geeks or dweebs. We didn’t glaze people. We (long series of extended bleeps) in their tight assholes.

If you don’t want your story to be dogwater, you need to auramaxx your fiction with up-to-date slang, no cap. Your reader will think it’s totally sus if modern-day kids in your story use words like “radical” or  “aw shucks” or “blunderbuss.” Stop being an NPC and start literarymogging by rizzing up that research.

Tip 4 – Know Your Age Range

A three-year old shouldn’t be playing Roblox. Your nine-year-old shouldn’t still be playing with Duplo blocks. Six-year-olds don’t usually have homework. And while some thirteen year olds get to fingerbang their girlfriend on her trampoline, it’s usually only the really cool ones.

Now, this might be a little confusing depending on how you were raised. I assumed that it was normal for nine-year-olds to earn some extra cash for their families by rifling through the coat pockets of strangers who came over to your house and went directly to your aunt’s bedroom for fifteen minutes at a time. But not only do most nine-year-olds not do that, most children of any kind don’t.