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Topic : Re: How to get my characters' emotions out of the way so I can get on with the plot? Setup: 18 kids (ages 2-14) from 1995 America time travel to Ancient Egypt just before the Exodus. The MC - selfpublishingguru.com

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It's your story, so you make the rules.

The actions of your characters can be based on whatever the group manages to 'agree on' or whatever they dare do on their own.
I'm not sure what kind of story you are trying to write, and what we are supposed to experience along with your characters.

In a scenario like this, I would probably establish a certain dominance by the eldest. It's quite realistic, given that they are the 'wisest' people that remain from 'their own time and culture'. I believe that the younger would automatically seek their comfort, advice, etc. unless they had reasons not to.

In that case, the eldest could gather the entire group and set some ground rules, in order to keep everyone out of harm's way. The rules could be:

No crying or otherwise uttering your emotions since no-one from 'this time' can help you.
If someone older than you tells you something, you listen. If they order you to do something, you do it.

The list can go on...

If the first rule is established, and you are not writing from a first-person perspective of the younger ones, you can merely show, once in a while, a tear gathering in the corner of their eyes, when they stand silent and try to accept 'the next move' decided by the elders of the group.
If we follow their thoughts, you can have them repeat (either to themselves or in their heads) something like "No crying, no whining, we will soon be home." or whatever makes sense for your story and characters.

A cool dynamic and potential development could be to have the rules make good sense early on, with an example of near-critical consequences, avoided because they followed the rules - or something 'bad' that shows why they should follow the rules from that point on. Then at a later point, the younger ones could grow increasingly frustrated from a lack of belief in the promises made by the elders -> conflict.

In the meantime, when the kids go on 'adventures', it would make sense that they are often occupied by the thrill most of the time, but that a lot of situations involving families (when they're around people) will remind them of their own families. If you establish close relations between the characters, you can have them understand and notice the clues when someone is feeling 'the symptoms you mention', and quickly help them focus on something else. This could be a back-and-forth dynamic, in which they take turns being 'the strong one', even though it would be useful (and natural) to have one of the characters be naturally 'stronger' mentally than the others.

A good trick:

As far as I'm aware, a lot of writers use a 'trick' that involves going in-depth with something once (in this case their emotions) and then throughout the rest of the story, only showing 'reminders' of the emotions that we once were shown in-depth. This way, we know what we're supposed to remember (the kids are still not alright) and we can focus on the main story-events. Then, if something important happens based on their emotions, you can show how this is different if it is relevant to the story.

In short: Give them a reason not to focus on it

If you do not want their emotions to take up too much of the story, you have to establish something that makes us and/or them focus on different things, be it in-group rules, exciting events, survival or something else.
It certainly makes sense to let their emotions show since it is reasonable for them to experience the emotions you mention.


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