30 Days of Writing: The Kids are All Right

21. Do any of your characters have children? How well do you write them?

Most of the characters I write about regularly don't have children, by happenstance and by design. I'm not opposed to kidfic; it's just not usually what I'm drawn to write about. I have given the characters children a few times: Paine and Nooj in "Promises", as discussed in my answer an earlier question, and Auron in AGL. Auron's daughter, Liss, is one of my most fully-realized original characters -- she had to be, since she was essentially the co-protagonist of her story -- and I felt the delicate balancing act of making her similar to her father while still her own person.

As for writing them well, I think I do a pretty decent job. On the other hand, they're all my OCs, so of course at least I have a decent handle on them. As to whether the young ones are realistic as children, I am less certain of that -- especially in the case of the Paine/Nooj brood, I had the nagging feeling that I wrote Jarl a little too mature, and the four-year-old twins as a little too immature, but no one complained, so it must have been at least close.

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