  Action/Adventure
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Then there is the simple, linear story of a boy going down the river to great adventure, manhood, the future... and he does so with courage and grace.
~~ Best selling author Stephen Paul Coonts, commenting about Mark Twain’s novel Huckelberry Finn
http://www.shortstorygroup.com/stephen_coonts.htm
In this edition of the Action/Adventure Newsletter, we will discuss writing about children and youth.
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When writing about children or youth, it is important to realize that we are dealing with imagination and curiosity. In this newsletter, I will discuss writing ‘about’ children and youth, more than writing ‘for’ them. A good example for this would be the writings of American novelist Mark Twain. He wrote frequently about young boys and their escapades, especially on the river, but his stories were not geared specifically for a young audience. Most of his novels and short stories would not fit into the children’s genre, but they are about children or youthful boys.
Children have vivid imaginations and love adventure. For instance, when I was a boy growing up in Texas, I dreamed of being a cowboy. My bicycle was my horse and together we had many great adventures. The next-door-neighbor's shed was a fort and my grandfather's garage was a jail that held many desperados over the course of a summer. When writing about children and youth, we need to keep this in mind; it will bring our characters to life.
Famed professional baseball player Lou Brock once said:
When I was a kid, I used to imagine animals running under my bed. I told my dad, and he solved the problem quickly. He cut the legs off the bed.
When writing a story about an adventuresome young person, don’t cut the legs off the bed. Show the child as the character he believes he is and believe in the things he sees ~~ this is the essence of adventure in a child. His imagination can carry him to unbelievable places and on exciting journeys. To write about children, we need to learn to think like children again.
Walt Disney once said, It's kind of fun to do the impossible. Children believe they can do the impossible. Walt Disney was a successful man because he learned how to live in the imaginative world of a child.
"There was a child went forth every day,
And the first object he look'd upon, that object he became,
And that object became part of him for the day or a certain part of the day,
Or for many years or stretching eyeless years,
The early lilacs became part of the child,
And grass and white and red morning-glories and white and red clover, and the song of the phoebe-bird..."
~~~Walt Whitman
Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.
~~Pablo Picasso
This is our challenge when writing about children and youth – recovering that artist within and revealing it in our characters. We use our imaginations when we write stories about adults, but I think we must go a step further when we write about children, for a child believes the impossible. As adults, we have become apprehensive in many ways and, if we are not careful, negative. When writing about children, we are writing about boys who believe they can fly or girls who believe they can raise a flock of geese and teach them to fly. When my grandson dresses up like Spiderman, he is not playing like he is this super-hero, he is Spiderman. In a creative story featured in this newsletter, "Super Hero Convention" , the last cicada   brings the imaginations of children to life at a super-hero convention.
When writing about children, we need to consider their concept of words. For instance, yesterday my wife and I told my granddaughter we were going to get our dog ‘fixed.’ She wanted to know if the dog was broken. (Of course, her mother told us not to go there.) Children form an awareness of their world by the definition they apply to words. A dog getting fixed must surely have a broken part. In "Gone to the Dogs" , one of the stories featured in the this newsletter, SueVN  uses a child's concept of the phrase "gone to the dogs" to create a good story about two children.
People, for the most part, love to read stories about children. Magazines like Readers Digest are proof of this. When we write about children, we must become as children. When Mark Twain wrote about Huckleberry Finn, he was Huckleberry Finn. He took on Huckleberry Finn’s imagination and desire for adventure, because Mark Twain remembered his childhood and his days on the river. In "Invalid Item" , another of the featured stories, bmorgan takes us on an adventure in the imagination of a child attempting to solve a crime.
Children! What a fun topic for creative writing, especially in the Action/Adventure genre, for adventure is wrapped in the heart of a child. It is up to us as authors to find that child-like faith and imagination that exists in places like Never-Never Land. You won’t find it on a map; you have to look into the heart of child – it is there.
Read the "Ask and Answer" section for a new contest designed for the Action/Adventure Newsletter.
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Here are some stories from around Writing.com.
Some are about children and others about teenagers.
Each one is an enjoyable story.
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The following story is not about children, but it is
a good, fun story and I wanted to include it in the newsletter.
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Have an opinion on what you've read here today? Then send the Editor feedback! Find an item that you think would be perfect for showcasing here? Submit it for consideration in the newsletter!
https://www.Writing.Com/go/nl_form
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INTRODUCING...
Tread Barefooted Contest
A short story only contest for the Action/Adventure Newsletter
This week, instead of reader feedback, I want to present an opportunity to write a short story about children or youth. Use your imagination and be creative in this story. I have created a contest forum for posting these stories. Please keep the short story at a minimum 1,000 words and a maximum of 2,500 words and include a word count at the end of the story. Please include one of the genres for your story as Action/Adventure. Prizes will be offered for first, second and third place. If successful, this will be an ongoing short-story contest.
Post entries here: "Invalid Item"
Short stories only!
Word count within 1,000 to 2500 words.
Deadline for entries: Sunday, October 21.
Thank you
kansaspoet
Larry
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Action/Adventure: September 26, 2007 Issue [#1973]
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