: Re: Children's Dialogue I'm having some trouble writing dialogue (and emotive responses) for children in the age bracket of roughly 10-13. They end up reading more like adults with limited vocabularies

@Yeniel532

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It's definitely important to spend time around children if you're going to write for them, but I think it's also imperative to read things aimed at your chosen demographic. Writers for that age bracket do a lot of research in order to appeal to their target audience. The creator of TV show 'Awkward.' did a focus group with some teenagers from her old school and asked them their thoughts on various aspects of life. (You can read the interview with her here: collider.com/lauren-iungerich-awkward-interview/).
Writing for children is a lot harder than it sounds and can require more research than writing for adults because you have to revert to how you thought ten/twenty/thirty/etc years ago.

That being said, not every children's writer will get it right. Research the most popular ones for not only children's fiction but the genre your piece fits into. I'd recommend The Book Thief if you haven't read it as that's about a girl growing up during WW2. She's very intelligent and also likes to steal.

Also, do you know anyone with children, either your characters' ages or slightly older? You could ask them for anecdotes which will help you get an idea of how children interact with those older than them as well as each other.

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