: Re: How can I make dialog sound like that of a six year old? I'm a contemporary romance author writing a romance Christmas book. The hero in my story has a six year old girl. There are lots

@Frith254

Vote Up Vote Down

I mentioned this in a comment, but thinking it could be considered an answer too. (Observing my recently turned 6 niece and remembering her mother at that age.)
There's a lot of behavioral cues to take note of as well as dialogue. Also bit of your mileage will vary based on person, but what I notice is there's tons of physical energy to burn.

For a child, it isn't just enough to talk or watch something. a child tends to want you to be physically engaged with their world, their conversation, their imaginative play. They want to be immersed in it and they want you to be too. This translates into wanting to get your attention. This is expressed by asking, crying out, begging, tugging, poking, to shoving things into your face. (the level of how far this goes depends on how desperate the child is at the moment and if they feel you are ignoring them.) To be ignored feels like a great insult and a great hurt to a child. (speaking this also from how I felt at age 6)

Also the level of how engaged they want you to be may also vary on personality. I suspect my niece is an extrovert. She wants to share her experience with you and you to play along with her.

Me at age 6: Introvert: I preferred it when I had an adult to play along, but if not, then I would go play on my own. This translated into running off and disappearing to getting into trouble (by trying to do stuff on my own without fully understanding all the cause/ effect related.)

Taking this into your story, along with the advice mentioned in other answers, consider the personality of your character. If extraverted, you can play off of the physical actions of them trying to draw the adult characters attention. In a conversation this may translate to them getting into the characters faces and acting out as an attempt to distract the adults. The child may want to show them stuff. (you can have this as either inconsequential or something significant to the plot. Your choice.)

An introvert 6 year old child: May notice the adult characters, try to engage them, but give up and run off, disappear. They may try to go on their own separate adventure and either come back to engage the adult characters or get stuck or lost or get into trouble. Or just come back with whatever they found, not causing trouble. (ie: come back with a handful of flowers or a jar full of captured bugs.)

Hopefully this helps a little with working on your story. I too have the issue of having to stop and think like a child with my younger characters too. Also, speaking from memory and my own introspections made around that age, a child narrating will think like an adult, at least in their mind, but flawed with their reasoning. Externally their words will come out childish, but the internal voice will seem mature and grown up. At least that was how I felt. My internal "narrator" seemed mature, used full sentences and insight. Conversation wise, there was a bit of a gap, loss of words, and things not coming out as they meant. That would be a source of frustration and one I felt too.

(0)

Login to post a comment!