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/lit/ - Literature

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11161687 No.11161687 [Reply] [Original]

How intelligent is too intelligent when writing a twelve or thirteen year old?

>> No.11161728

well, in your case it concerns you not to dwell too much on how you write for a twelve or thirteen year old, since the quality of your work resembles their efforts.

>> No.11161741

>>11161728
That's greatly reassuring, thanks.

>> No.11161755

>>11161741
kidding, i am. i would suggest this: try, but not too hard. empathize with what a twelve-year old feels, with what you felt at twelve, and the words, naturally, will flow like the nile in egypt. what confounds and confuses a twelve-year-old? i remember it as sixth grade, throwing up welch's grape juice on the last day of elementary; of crying after being bullied by a squad of perceived vicious yet really not so bad group of girls who had to write apology letters to me as punishment; as first opening up my heart, at first feeling the kind of crush that would inform me of later lust and desire in my teenaged years for a brunette smart girl; all of these things, and yet distill it down with baser words and thoughts; the roots of angst, the beginnings of love; the presagings and outset of puberty

>> No.11161776

>>11161687
Any of the loli helpers from Gene Wolfe's novels.

>> No.11161782

I was fully developed at 14.

>> No.11161787

Watch a shitload of videos of 12 year old kids on youtube and figure it out yourself

>> No.11161828
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11161828

>>11161787

don't do this op.

>> No.11161840

>>11161687
If you had social media back then, look at your chat conversations and posts.

Yeah.

>> No.11161845
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11161845

>>11161787
>searching barefoot videos on youtube
>kids come up

>> No.11161848

>>11161845
i-it's for research, right, anon?

>> No.11161864

Just avoid it being labeled as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Sue

>> No.11161876

Thanks for the input. The character in question is well-read (for a twelve year old), but comes from an unstable/abusive home and has difficulty making friends or connections. It results in a very hostile and sarcastic attitude towards others, and it can be hard finding the right balance between too clever for someone that young and not clever enough to represent their personality well.

>> No.11161918

>>11161687
You can write them quite intelligent. If they are supposed to be. It's just naivety and thinking they've got shit figured out when they don't that betrays them

>> No.11162071

>>11161687
When they start to realise how much of an idiot they are. That never comes at that age.

>> No.11162077

>>11161755
The way you use punctuation makes me want to bash your fingers with a hammer.

>> No.11162092

There is no " too intellegent" destroy that brainlet.

>> No.11162150

>>11161687

Intelligence is (more or less) a constant quality throughout a person's life, so someone at twelve is no less intelligent than at twenty. He's less knowledgeable, less wise, less emotionally mature. He hasn't completely filled his mental problem-solving toolbox; he's in the process of filling it. Sometimes he'll have strange, "ad hoc", or home-made tools which will need to be upgraded later. He'll tend to be egocentric. If he's intelligent he will, in most situations, be arrogant because he will not yet have met anyone as intelligent as himself. He'll be very curious and often rude or offensive without really meaning to be.

If you're trying to write an intelligent twelve-year-old, try talking to some intelligent twelve-year-old about things they're interested in.

If you can't do that and want to read how other people have written them here's a few suggestions:

>J.D.Salinger
is the man for intelligent children. Try in particular the short story 'Teddy', the last in 'Nine Stories' (sometimes called 'For Esmé With Love And Squalor'.)

>Joseph Heller, 'Something Happened'
Read the conversations the author has with his children in the chapters 'My Little Boy Is Having Difficulties' and 'My Daughter Is Unhappy'. (I think his son is a bit younger than twelve and his daughter is older but it still gives you a good feel for how children are like adults and how they aren't.)

>Rudyard Kipling, 'Kim'

>> No.11162225

>>11161687
Are you writing a child genius? Give them strong emotions and have them be intentionally wrong about something banal and/or crucial, and do it in an infuriating way. If they are 'smart', make them annoying besserwissers and nitpickers.

>> No.11162243

>>11161687
It depends on whether it's a boy or a girl, because girls are more developed at that age. A 12 or 13 year old girl is basically a miniature woman with poor emotional regulation, while a 12 or 13 year old boy "king among children" so to speak.

>> No.11162278

>>11162243
The difference isn’t enough to effect the reading level of male and female students. That’s more of an “emotional maturity” statistic anyway.

>> No.11162286

>>11162278
Right, because females are more developed than males of the same age which offsets the minor IQ deficit between male and female IQ.

>> No.11162303

>>11162286
The IQ deficit depends on the ethnic group. Black women are on average more intelligent than black men, it’s the reverse for white females and white males.

But that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m saying that books written for little girls and books written for little boys of the same age a basically interchangeable.

>> No.11162316

>>11162225
>just make your characters insufferable, bro

>> No.11162322

>>11162303
Black women are more intelligent than Black men? Fascinating. I have actually never heard that before. I'm not saying you're wrong, but can I get a source on that? Or at least where you heard it.

>> No.11162333

>>11162316
Drama attracts customers and character flaws can give way for growth.

>> No.11162349

>>11161687
An aside.
This is why I truly believe Helen Keller to be a fraud. I am a neuroscience PhD candidate, and we now know the brain physically atrophies with sensory loss.
The story just does not line up. It's a nice thing to tell to kids so they can handle anything but it isn't true. It should be fiction. It's strongly suspect that a blind deaf and mute child was a prolific writer. Instead, it is probable her assistant wrote everything and Keller was an invalid, or the extent of her sensory loss was a fabrication.

I invite anyone to read the so called works of hers that she produced as a child and ask yourself, could someone learn and convey all of this through tactile feedback? She would be lucky to communicate like Grug.

The whole thing smells like a rotten fish.
People don't question it because they learn about her early on. It's like Harriet Tubman or George Washington never telling a lie.

>> No.11162393
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11162393

>>11162322
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/tippling/2017/02/25/iq-using-race-divisively/
It’s a pretty biased source, but I’ve heard it repeatedly in schoolteacher circles.

>> No.11162402

>>11162349
You probably posted this in the wrong thread, but it’s fascinating. Can you elaborate on Harriet Tubman

>> No.11162432

>>11161687
That depends how unusual you're claiming they are. The Elegance of the Hedgehog and The Last Samurai are about as far as you can push it.