Getting What You Want

A few nights ago, in the middle of the night (around 3:43am, to be precise), Anthony (age 3) started talking. "I'm so tired. I'm so tired. I'm so tired." He wasn't fully awake or fully asleep; he didn't open his eyes.

I told him that it was okay and that he was already sleeping. He stopped talking and continued sleeping.

We spend a lot of time thinking about character's (and real people's - even our own) motivations. But even when we understand what we really want, do we always know when we get it?

Too Obvious?

When I'm driving, Anthony often warns me, "Don't crash!" (I'm not really that bad of a driver!) Recently, on a walk, we saw a roofer up on top of someone's roof. Anthony shouted, "Careful! Don't fall!" (I don't think the roofer heard him, but fortunately, he didn't fall).

These warnings seem a little obvious, but when to state something and when not to is a question I struggle with as a writer. I struggled with it as a college freshman as I left off what I thought were obvious conclusions only to be told that I needed to make them. I struggle with it now with my novel. What can I expect people to reasonably understand and what needs to be explained? You don't want to spend time boring your readers by explaining the obvious, but you don't want to make it incomprehensible either. And it's tricky, because what's obvious and what's not obvious depends on your background and experience and you don't know the experiences of all of your readers, although I guess that relates to knowing your audience as well. 

Age Appropriate

Whether you agree with kids having "screen time" or not, my three-year-old watches YouTube sometimes. Among his favorite videos is "The ambulance song" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1xLtk6F27E). When I start searching for "ambulance song," the top suggestion that appears is "ambulance song for kids." Do people really think there is an ambulance song for kids whose primary audience is NOT kids?

Choosing the right age group for my own writing is something I struggle with. When I began writing the novel I'm currently working on, I thought my main audience would be adults, but a few months ago I began to question that. Maybe it's a young adult novel. Maybe it's even a middle grade novel. My main character is definitely an adult now (although I guess she doesn't have to be), but the focus is on her middle school and high school days (although it goes as young as two years old). Many people advise that you can tell your intended age group by the age of your main character: A middle school character suggests middle grade; a high school age character suggests a YA novel. If they're any older, then it might not be meant for kids at all. With so much jumping around in time, I still feel unsure about my intended audience. No worries, though! Like I've been saying, it's all about playing and experimenting. I'm having fun working on a version meant as a middle grade novel. I may try another version in another month or two that's meant for adults. We'll see!

Toddler Logic

At age three, Anthony knows that police cars stop cars that are going too fast.

He explained that a police shopping cart would therefore stop a shopping cart that was going too fast, and a police airplane would stop an airplane that was going too fast.

And who would stop an Anthony that was going too fast? A police Anthony.

What you DON'T need

With the weather getting nicer here in Michigan, I decided to wear a skirt and sandals the other day. My three-year-old informed me that I was missing my pants and socks.

Sometimes it's hard for us as writers to cut things from our stories, but sometimes (like my pants and socks) we really don't need them.

An Unexpected Turn of Events

Sometimes things aren't exactly what you expect. It's fun (as a reader) to sometimes have things work out differently than you expect. It's also sometimes necessary when you're writing to do something a little differently than you planned. Then there are the times when my three-year-old son, with his great imagination, does things a little differently than I might expect:

We were playing outside and he grabbed a stick. "I'm going to cook a fire!" he said, which I assumed meant he was going to gather some more sticks and make a pretend campfire. Instead, he started pointing the stick in different directions like it was a magic wand making a ring of fire around him as he pointed and made a sound effect.

Then the next day he asked me to open the last of the bunny-shaped peeps from Easter. I did and he took two of them. I assumed that he had eaten them until I found them driving his firetruck a few hours later.

Boo!

Kids are also good for spooky inspiration. Since I'm not really into scary stories, here's one you can have:

First Born Son (three years old) woke up in the middle of the night and said, "What's that?"

I said, "What do you think it is?" 

He said, "A ghost." Then he went back to sleep.

On the other hand...

Last week I told you that doing something a little differently can lead to great discoveries. On the flip side, the same son also demonstrated how ineffective it can be:

Second Son woke up one night but didn't immediately start crying. Spouse and I were watching on the video monitor and decided to see what he would do. He was clearly looking to breastfeed, but couldn't find me. Instead, he found his brother's belly button. It didn't produce any milk no matter how much he tried. (Eventually, and without waking up his brother, he started fussing enough that I went back in and helped him go back to sleep. The End!) 

Discoveries

One of the coolest things about babies is the level of amazement and pleasure they get from things we take for granted.

Usually I dress my one-year-old in shirts with snaps on the bottom so they don't ride up and leave  him cold. But recently I dressed him in a regular t-shirt and pants. He kept lifting his shirt up, pleased that his belly button was available for him to touch whenever he wanted. 

Maybe there's something usually hidden (in your mind or metaphorically), but not that hard to access that will inspire your (or my) writing! Try something just a little bit different and you may be surprised what you discover!

Dead frog song

Warning: if you are very sensitive, this may not be the post for you. On the other hand, if you are curious what it sounds like when I try to sing (spoiler alert: not good), this may be just the post you are looking for.

Often when I'm walking with my kids and dog, we (okay, I) sing songs about what we see. Here is one example (no pictures of the deceased amphibian, I promise).

Lyrics (for those of you who want to know, but can't listen because there's a baby sleeping on your lap or something):

Dead frog in the middle of the road!
Dead frog (or possibly a toad)
Dead frog.
Ribbit. Ribbit. CROAK.