Lesson 3: Casting Your Book.
In this lesson, we'll be talking about characters, and focussing on Junior Chapter Books.
About the Cast of Your Book.
More about the Cast of Your Book
Putting Depth in Characters.
Specific Level - Junior Chapter Books.
Supplement - Anatomy of a Specific JCB.
W.I.P. Section. Creating your Cast.
Exercises and Bibliography
About the Cast of Your Book.
Protagonists in children’s books are usually children or teenagers. Many readers resist books about children much younger than they are, so a rule of thumb often used is that the protagonist of a book should be one or two years older than the expected readership. Therefore, if you were writing a book for readers of 8-10, you would write about a character of 9-11 or so. If writing for younger teenagers of 13 or 14, you might make your major characters 15-16.
You can always fill out the cast with younger or older friends, siblings or neighbours. If you are writing about a group of protagonists the age range can be spread out more.
Adult Protagonists in Children’s Books.
JCBs and PBs sometimes use protagonists who are adults. There’s a well-established precedent for this, as characters in fairytales and folktales are usually teenagers or adults. Children of eight or so who enjoy stories about Robin Hood, Superman and Snow White aren’t going to object that the protagonists are all too old to be interesting. However, it can be dangerous to make assumptions on the grounds that traditional stories set a precedent, just as it is dangerous to assume that writing like your favourite childhood authors is the way to get into print today.
Adult protagonists in modern children’s books are often eccentric or unusual. They might be very elderly or childlike. Some picture books with elderly protagonists deal with themes of loss, lack of independence, or friendship, or pets, which are all matters that can also concern children. A retired adult, like a child, might have few social responsibilities, but instead of parents saying “you can’t have a pet” or “come down off that, you’ll fall!”, you might find adult children or Society itself.
Animal Protagonists
Animal protagonists are common, and can be very interesting. There are several ways of using them.
(1) A natural animal, which acts just as a real one would.
(2) A natural animal, but one that understands human speech.
(3) A natural animal that talks to one or more humans. This will bring you into the realm of fantasy.
(4) A humanised animal, that wears clothes, goes to school, rides a bike etc. If taking this option, stop to ask yourself why the character should be an animal if it’s going to act just like a human!
Of course, an animal can be a major character in a book even if it isn’t the protagonist. Many animals play the roles of friends to book characters, and many others provide “conversation characters” (someone for the human protagonist to talk with to break up long stretches of narrative) or goals. For example, a story in which child character longs for/rescues/seeks a dog/cat/pony is one in which the animal character is important. The animal can be a natural animal, or one that only the protagonist realises is “special”.
If you are writing about a natural animal as a protagonist or major character, you should make sure you know about such an animal’s habits and capabilities.
Supernatural or Fantasy Protagonists
Some children’s books have protagonists or main characters that are supernatural. This isn’t difficult to handle if you follow the lead of writers such as Annie Dalton. Her “Angels Unlimited” series (beginning with “Winging It”) shows how Melanie Beebe, a very new angel, learns the ropes and rules of her new existence. Mel might be an angel but she’s still, in essence, a modern thirteen-year-old girl and she talks and acts like one. She loves shopping, gets crushes and clashes with her teachers now and again.
Similarly, J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter is a wizard, but he is also a boy. He remains essentially human in attitudes and behaviour.
If your protagonist is a supernatural being that has never been, or considered itself, human, you need to do a lot of hard thinking about how this character is. If it lives in our reality, how does it interact with humans? Does it fear them? Despise them? Avoid them? Envy them? Does it seek to blend in? If it doesn’t live in our reality, then you need to build an entire worldview for your character(s) to inhabit.
