User blog comment:Only A Lemon/Child's Point of View Writing Tips/@comment-26030957-20150225035515

I've written from the perspective of children before and it can be tricky. You may want to consider writing in the third person, not the first. This can make it much easier and also more effective, because, as you say you don't want it to sound as if it is written by a child and also your vocabulary range isn't affected, as you also noted.

The first thing you want to emphasize is naivety and innocence, but not any type of stupidity at all. Kids are smart, I spend a lot of time with them. But they are innocent and naive but in a very intelligent and earnest manner. They just don't know the world, they haven't experience it yet. They can also be very tender and sweet, to the point where it will break your heart, and then they will turn around and do something cruel. They are funny little creatures. They are us, but before we became who we are from this world.

Okay, if you want to charm your readers with a child, first step is have them misunderstand some word and cleverly re-interpert it. Kids do this all the time, their brains are figuring everything out and often they get confused in interesting and clever ways. Ever read The World According To Garp by John Irving? He has some great examples. When the youngest child (his name escapes me at the moment) hears about the undertow in the ocean and how dangerous it is, he hears "under toad" and thinks of a giant toad on the ocean floor eating people. It sounds creepy, but in the book it is hillarious. He also calls the graduate students gradual students, which cracks his teacher parents up to no end.

Stephen King often writes from a child's perspective, and does it really well. Danny in the Shining (Funny enough I have a Shining blog up right now) is a great character.

Anyway, good luck,  If you can use a child effectively it will really elevate your pasta, but if you do it wrong it can seem to be pandering to a barbaric kind of cruelty that is offensive. I try to walk the line, but I've probably crossed it a few times. When you are done leave a message on my talk page and I'll check it out!