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It is quite common for young writers when they first begin to create characters not to include what the characters are thinking. They like to have the characters talk together, and some children who like to read have the characters move as they speak. But almost all children have to be taught how to have their characters think as they interact.
Once young writers have learned to create protagonists with whom their readers should be able to easily identify, they are ready to show their readers how their characters think. Of course, the easiest way to do this is to have their characters thinking as they are interacting.
If you want to help your children understand how to do this you will have to talk to them about how people think as they are dealing with other people. It is best to start with simple examples. The following conversation should make clear how this process might begin.
Mom: Betty, I think it might be time to show you how to make your characters more understandable by showing them thinking. What do you think?
Betty: I think I understand them pretty good now.
Mom: How about your readers?
Betty: I believe my readers can think, too.
Mom: Good joke, but I want you to try this.
Betty: Ok. What do I do?
Mom: Let’s talk through a conversation. We’ll talk as though you were writing our conversation for someone to read. I’ll turn on the tape recorder so we’ll remember what we said. We’ll start talking the way you have been creating characters. We’ll go through the body movements just the way you describe it when you write. What do you think?
Betty: We could do that. How do we start?
Mom: Like this. "Sally, I’ve asked you four times this week to clean up your room. Have you done it yet?"
"I’ve been working up to it."
"What’s that mean? Have you been taking bids from toxic waste companies?"
"It’s not that bad."
"I looked in the door this morning when I called you to get up. I saw what it’s like."
"It’s like I like it."
Mom: That’s a good start. It sounds like two people are really talking. Once you put body movements in it, it would be very realistic. Now we should have the same conversation, but this time I want you to think like your character would but I want you to think out loud. This will mean that every time you hear me say something you think out loud before you say anything back to me. This will be just like good writing would be. But before you have your character think out loud, you’ll have to decide some things.
Betty: What things?
Mom: You’ll have to know how old the girl is, what kind of relationship she has with her mother and how she feels about her mother telling her to clean up her room. Does she resent it or does she think that her mother is right to ask it of her.
Betty: That’s a lot to think about.
Mom: I know it is so we should take just a part of it to start with.
Betty: How does that work?
Mom: Let’s start with the relationship the two people have. You’ll have to think about what kind of a woman the mother is so—
Betty: What’s that got to do with it?
Mom: If the mother is a kind and loving person and is asking the girl to clean her room to train the girl to be neat, the girl would know that. But, if the mother is a neatness nut and just wants to control everything around her, then the girl would know that, too. What the girl knows about the mother will dictate what she thinks when her mother asks her to clean the room.
Betty: Boy, is this getting complicated.
Mom: You’re right. That’s why there are so few good writers.
Betty: You want me to think out loud when you ask me to clean my room, but first I’m supposed to know what kind of a person you are, right? Do I tell you what you are before we start?
Mom: Sure, I’ve got to know, don’t I?
Betty: Ok, here we go. You will be a mother who wants to control everything. You even alphabetize the spices in the cupboard. You don’t care what I want, you only care about controlling me and my room. How’s that?
Mom: Good. Now your readers will know why you’re saying what you say because they’ll be able to read what you’re thinking as we talk. Let’s have the same conversation, but this time you should think out loud before you speak. It’ll slow down the conversation a good bit, but that’s ok, that’s what happens when we read. I tape recorded what we said and I’ll play it back and then we’ll remember how it goes.
"Sally, I’ve asked you four times this week to clean up your room. Have you done it yet?"
"I’ve been working up to it.
"What’s that mean? Have you been taking bids from toxic waste companies?"
"It’s not that bad."
"I looked in the door this morning when I called you to get up. I know what it’s like.
"It’s like I like it."
Mom: Good, now let’s try it again with showing what the main character is thinking.
"Sally, I’ve asked you four times this week to clean up your room. Have you done it yet?"
Oh boy, here we go again. Watch out dust bunnies, here comes Mom. "I’ve been working up to it " I know that won’t do it. It ‘II just give her a starting point.
"What’s that mean? Have you been taking bids from toxic waste companies?"
That’s a good shot. She must have been thinking about this a lot to come up with that one. "It’s not that bad."
"I looked in the door this morning when I called you to get up. I know what it’s like."
That little piece of paper I put in the hinge of my door is never there when I get home from school, so I know she looks in my room every day. Why can’t she look in her own head instead of my room all the time?
"It’s like I like it." I don’t think I’m going to get away with this.
Mom: That’s good. I don’t like the girl very much, but there must be girls like that who think that way. You did a good job. Now I’d like you to write it out and let me see it.
This is just the start of a child learning to develop a character. There are lots of things that Betty would have to decide before she could show her readers her character thinking and have them understand the character. Betty would have to decide how smart the girl is, how much courage she has, how far she thinks she can push her mother, whether she reads or not, whether she likes to use words or not, whether she and her mother have had similar conversations before, whether she has brothers and sisters and whether they are older or younger and how they interact with their mother.
You can see that this is a very complicated process and it has to be taken in small steps, but it is an essential one if your child is ever to be a good writer of fiction.
Important Notes: The lessons included in this Let’s Write section are similar to those found in Dave’s Writing Strands series of textbooks. Which, in my opinion, are some of the best books I have found to teach a child to organize their thoughts, follow a pre-writing process and then move on to completing a satisfying finished product. The texts include abundant examples and are extremely child/teen/parent-friendly.
For more information about the work of Dave Marks please visit: http://www.writingstrands.com
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