I would appreciate advice on how to successfully narrate in the voice of a child, and the degree to which a more mature outlook or vocabulary is acceptable. Must a scene told from a child's POV be restricted to the concepts and vocabulary that the child would realistically use?

I want to convey the impression of an adult looking through the eyes of the child she was, but I don't really want to set up a flashback scenario to make this explicit - the adult POV arrives later on. I've used present tense to give a sense of re-living experience, but perhaps if I used past tense it would seem more authentic?

The chapter I'm working on is posted to the archive if you want to see what I mean - you only need to read a para or two to get the flavour of it.

(I have read the very interesting thread on use of present vs past tense and feel I should say that only one thread of the novel is in the present )

Grateful for any tips.

Joker

What an interesting post.
If you look at a classic like To Kill a Mockingbird you see some paragraphs are pure child's eye view, some distant and highly analytical in a way Scout couldn't have been at that age. So there is some flexibility.

I always assume a bright if not precocious child when writing in a child's voice, so there's some leeway with vocab. Some readers always say 'oh but a seven year old couldn't possibly know that word. But those readers are never parents of seven year olds, who know that young children do have a wider vocab and intelligence than most adults recall.

Also I always assume (and believe) children understand the adult world far better than they are usually given credit for. But the understanding is piecemeal. So they may have an intuitively exact comprehension of the emotions surrounding an adult problem but misinterpret the reason for the problem, or grasp it in simplistic terms. They may also try to problem solve for the adults, again with emotional exactness but simplistic solutions (does that make sense?)

And, so long as the character of the child is specific rather than general: this character rather than generic 'child', then I think you can get away with pretty much anything. If we believe the character, we'll believe what they say and do, whatever the age.

Also I always assume (and believe) children understand the adult world far better than they are usually given credit for. But the understanding is piecemeal. So they may have an intuitively exact comprehension of the emotions surrounding an adult problem but misinterpret the reason for the problem, or grasp it in simplistic terms. They may also try to problem solve for the adults, again with emotional exactness but simplistic solutions (does that make sense?)

This is the heart of the problem, I guess - I do think children often have an understanding of the world, or of particular situations, that exceeds the sophistication of their language skills. So perhaps it's not necessarily cheating to use advanced vocab.

I think it would be trickier to explore advanced concepts from a child's POV, though - I don't remember being jarred by this when reading TKAMB but I wonder if I would be now.

Must a scene told from a child's POV be restricted to the concepts and vocabulary that the child would realistically use?

Cherys has made some very useful points, so although I would say 'yes' to your question, it does very much depend on the child. It also depends on the perspective of the story yu are trying to portray - since you say you are repeating it from an adult perspective later on. So, a child may see something in detail (or may fix on just one detail) but not understand the meaning, since their limited experience of the world does not give them a context to put it in. eg. A child who has no concept of death and comes across a warm dead body might think the person is asleep - "silly mummy's gone to sleep on the floor" - whereas another child may immediately phone emergency services.
Sometimes it helps to keep the child's age vague, so the reader doesn't pigeon-hole them based on their own preconceptions of how a child of that age should act.
Adult emotions are a lot harder for a child to interpret. They do not understand irony or sarcasm, and jokes are rarely funny unless slapstick or fairly basic. Simmering anger can often be misinterpreted as annoyance, which most children come to ignore since they are often being told off by adults without any consequences; they don't realize an adult has been pushed to the limit of their patience and is about to explode - unless they have seen it happen a couple of times.
A child assumes the world revolves around them, so if an adult is angry, they natually assume the adult is angry with them; that they have done something wrong, but they may not react how an adult expects. They may try to bluff it out, or try to distract an adult in the hope it'll cheer them up, or go into their shell.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer is told in the voice of a precocious and highly intellegant child and has recieved some criticism for that (along with the praise).

Michael Morgurgo is very good at getting into the head of a child. Also R. Dahl, Anne Fine, Dick King Smith, Alan Ahlberg.


- NaomiM

No substitute for reading the authors who've done it succesfully, I reckon. I'd say Roddy Doyle's Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha is a good example. And agree with Cherys about To Kill a Mockingbird - one of my fave books ever.

Rosy

The opening paragraphs of TKAM are instructive.
I once gave them to my students on separate pieces of paper and they couldn't believe they were from the same novel.
The opening about when it started - and Boo Radley coming out and Dill arriving and jem breaking his arm (setting up a whole stack of hooks for the reader to want to read on) is in plain child-like narrative. Three paragraphs on you get an essay on Methodism in stately prose. It works maybe because each line is so well written you trust the next one, but they are certainly not all from a child's pov.

Perhaps using past tense would give you more license to dip into the adult viewpoint of the child's take on events. Present tense might lock you into child's view and limited vocab/understanding.

In Damaged Goods I deliberately did not narrate any scenes from my teenaged character's point of view for precisely this reason.
I felt that they should be done entitrely in POV and didn't feel confidemt enough to pull it off.
However in my second book I have been more ambitious and have scenes from a public school boy's POV and a trafficked child.
For both I stuck to exactly what I thought they would see/belive and I used what vocab I thought they would use. The mss is currently with my editors so let's see if these scenes work....
A Curious Incident is a great example of POV which I feel works extremely well. Ditto My Sister's Keeper.
The Little Friend - Donna Tart's long awaited second novel - works less well, IMHO, because she failed to stay within POV.
HB x

I have read the very interesting thread on use of present vs past tense and feel I should say that only one thread of the novel is in the present

using past tense would give you more license to dip into the adult viewpoint of the child's take on events.

I think maybe you mean introducing an omiscient pov (which tends to be an adult/narrator), for little explanitory asides, which is easier to do in 3rd person, past tense, as opposed to just sticking with te child's pov in 3rd person, or 1st person, past tense.

(Just checked your excerpt and I see it is in 1st peson, past tense. I don't think you need an omiscient pov - unless you wanted to do away with telling it later from the Adult pov.)

Lots of excellent advice here.

I think the crucial thing is to separate voice from point-of-view. Henry James's What Maisie Knew is written wholly from the PoV of the child Maisie, observing her parents characters, lovers and so on, but absolutely not her voice. He uses his narratorial voice (with full range of grown-up Jamesian vocab and syntax) to convey what she sees and thinks and feels. When she actually speaks, of course, it's in her childlike voice.

If you use 3rd person, you can slide in and out of both voice and PoV, of course. If you use 1st, then the PoV is restricted but of course it could still be the adult MC narrating what the child PoV saw/felt, but in adult vocab.

Emma

Yes, I think that's what I'm getting at, Emma. I want to use the child's POV but the voice of the adult: but how do I legitimise this? Is it ok for it to become clear later in the book, ie when the adult appears as herself, or do I need to introduce the adult first and then set up a flashback? (Don't like this kind of thing, I feel it gets in the way of the story)

Can't remember how Harper Lee handled it, if at all - must reread that book, it's been 20 years

I want to use the child's POV but the voice of the adult

To be honest, after reading your extract (which I thought was excellent) I think changing it would ruin it.


- NaomiM

Thank you Naomi! But I thought I more or less was using the voice of an adult, and that's what's tripped people up i.e. with words and ideas that seem inappropriate for a child. I don't want to change it so much as I want to find a miracle narrative device that will justify what I'm doing without having to explain it

Is Harper Lee's mix of voice in a single POV legitimised by the success of the novel, or would it succeed anonymously? (I'm sure there's a whole other debate in there)

Strange to read this today. I've just this moment finished What Maisie Knew.
As well as separating voice from POV, as Emma says, James narrates from a slightly more distant POV than is fashionable these days.

Edward St Aubyn starts Mothers Milk from the POV of a baby at birth. Again he doesn't limit himself to the vocabulary as it would mean the first few pages being, 'Goo, gooo, goooo, gooo, goo, aaarrrghhh!'

But I thought I more or less was using the voice of an adult, and that's what's tripped people up i.e. with words and ideas that seem inappropriate for a child.

Well there were a few words and phrases that tripped me up as I read through it, but not many and very simple to fix. It struck me as mainly being from the child's pov.

One thing I was reminded of afterwards was Sappholite saying her earlier versions of Mothernight were 80% from the child's pov, and she had to change it, but it is certainly worth reading her chapters that still remain of the child's pov, they are a wonderful, and wonderfully dark.

I keep trying to remember the novel told from a Japanese (or was it Chinese) child's pov, written by a male American author. Big thick book, but the title escapes me - anyway, worth checking it out if anyone can post the title.


- NaomiM

Interesting what you say about Mothernight (also on my must read list) - do you know if it was the editor that made Sappholit change her child's POVs? Just wondering if there is a commercial distaste for it.

(Thank you Rainstop for making me laugh out loud )