: Can an "adult" story have a child protagonist? Is it ill-advised to have a child protagonist (either first or third POV) in a story that contain a fair share of violence and gore ? I'm worried

Is it ill-advised to have a child protagonist (either first or third POV) in a story that contain a fair share of violence and gore ?

I'm worried readers of this kind of story may not relate with a young character, or find the whole thing annoying/tasteless.
To be clear, my story isn't a non-stop stream of bloody, horrific events suffered by the protagonist, but it does contain a few disturbing or violent scenes.

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: The problem here is that your readers thought they were reading a conventional mystery novel, when what you (might have) intended to write was something in a completely different genre. You

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@Pierce369

Yes, you can. Most Stephen King's books have children in them. IT is half narrated by childrens' point of view.

A child is innocent and generally untouched by evil, so it is a very good and interesting character for a weird tale. It forces the adult reader to look into dark themes with a "clean" or detached perspective, so an adult reader can be engaged and be interested. On the other hand, it reinforces the dark concepts, by showing them to a younger and weaker person, thus raising sensations of horrors in the reader.

What you want to avoid is making it gratuitous, such as having a kid suffer horrors just to make your story morbid. That is a meaningless choice, and I would avoid it - unless you want to write dark pulp pornography (which I would also not recommend, but that's just me).

Generally speaking, writing with the POV of a kid is more difficult: it requires good taste, intelligence and common sense, and a strong empathy with your characters. But it is not "forbidden" or ill-advised, at all.

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: Can an "adult" story have a child protagonist? Is it ill-advised to have a child protagonist (either first or third POV) in a story that contain a fair share of violence and gore ? I'm worried

More posts by @Tiffany377

: Balance between character's point of views I wrote the book through the eyes of one of the characters, then added a few chapters from the other character's perspective. But now, I either need

: How can I get into the mindset to write? Depending on the weather, the days events, and other factors, I find myself with a different emotion everyday when I write which I'm afraid is making

: The problem here is that your readers thought they were reading a conventional mystery novel, when what you (might have) intended to write was something in a completely different genre. You

: Another answer links to a different question, which has an answer that says you can "give each of your main characters a conflicting theory of 'who done it'." The short story "In a Grove",

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