Random Questions Thread

Boo. Addressing this to ~Ultimate Lazer, then.

Hmmm... What about when the youngsters in question have actual superpowers? Like, kid Superman? And characters in higher/lower powerlevels too. Superman might not be a good example.

I think that falls into the wider category of "the adults don't really have a choice", which also applies to chosen ones or younger characters forced into dangerous circunstancies

There's also the option of treating the kid like a package. They don't have any actual authority, but they're needed for whatever reason (special skills, special powers, relative to a VIP, whatever), and the soldiers focus on protecting them. Basically an Escort Mission. In this way, it's not much different from escorting a noncombatant scientist or whatever, though the soldiers will probably complain more.

Sorry for interrupting this conversation, but I have one question. How would a pair of ten year old kids, one girl and one boy, wearing swimsuits, try to escape from being trapped in mudflats against the rising tide. Is it cliffhanger or peril?

@Discar: Well, if the kid is resilient and strong like Superman, I don't see why would the soldiers complain. Unless the child is being uncooperative, of course.

@Huthman: How much do they know about escaping the rising tide? How much do they know the area?

For you, Victin, the kids saw the tide was coming in and they though the large and vast mudflats was safe to walk on.

Victin: Children can be a pretty big hassle just getting taken to the grocery store by their parents. Gifted, rich, and otherwise "special" children can easily be a REALLY big hassle for soldiers, since they know they're important, but don't comprehend that the world is dangerous and many people Would Hurt a Child precisely because they're important.

edited 21st Oct '16 7:55:27 PM by Sharysa

Damn, I really sparked a debate here. I was just asking because while my story is dark, it's also expansive and filled with all sorts of unique characters. There are people who are gifted, unrealistically so (which was my intention, because I'm not completely grounded to real life when writing it), and during the main plot where the main governments get corrupted by a Nebulous Evil Organization, the heroes are forced to form their own organization that recruits as many as they can. Basically, it involves the good guys forming a good version of the N.G.O. Superpower, though there's quite a bit of anti-heroism involved here. So to put it one way, they must recruit people from all over the world, regardless of age, gender, race, and ethnicity, who can contribute in any sort of way they can. That's the reason why a 12-year-old super prodigy gets involved, because they need all the help they can get.

But yeah, I can definitely see where all of this is coming from. I'm actually quite scared of trying to do this, and I might not even do it in the end (I have plenty of time before I get there), but it was just something I've been considering. The main point is that he'd serve as the sort of optimistic kid who's intentions are pure in the midst of a bunch of cynical adult anti-heroes with an increasingly grey morality, giving him that sort of contrast if you know what I mean. I know that kid characters tend to be magnets to attract hatred by audiences for getting in the way of the older characters, but I want to see if I can avoid that here if possible. Though comparatively rare, if done well, a kid character involved in a darker and mature story can do well to attract sympathy and praise from audiences.

So put him in the 17-25 age bracket. Boom, problem solved.

Anyone older is still going to see someone at that age as a kid. They'll still have youthful drive and optimism, coupled with just enough years to make precocious talent plausible. You've got a workable general idea, it's just that you're about six years off from plausibility.

Yeah, being in the 17 to 25 bracket will still give you exactly the dynamic you're looking for.

12 is just too young to be believable in a serious work.

What's the best way to describe this sound in text? I want to say something like "cymbals clashing."

A kid with superpowers strikes me as just right. Just no leadership position and the like, that one takes too much experience and you need to not run too many risks. Sharysa's assertion seems like an overgeneralization, anyhow. Also, remember the other issues I mentioned about ethics and how one would find such a kid.

Also, since most commentary here is about the problems of such a scenario, I'll offer some arguments in favour:

1. A kid is less likely to arouse suspicion than an adult.
2. It is easier to check someone's history in a kid than an adult.
3. Kids are easier to indoctrinate than adults.

@Yomegami: It might depend a little on the specifics—such as any emotions or reactions that you want to convey—and on how much detail you want to include. A simple description might be "a metallic clash" (or "a series of metallic clashes").

Sure, I'm overgeneralizing, but Reality Is Unrealistic. Regardless of the many well-behaved children in real life, people would find it too convenient that a kid with superpowers/super-intelligence/super-strength is ALSO well-behaved and doesn't cause any problems.

I wouldn't find it weird, really. Unless there are too many of those around. Even then, genre conventions or simply willing suspension of disbelief can work to make someone just accept a superpowered kid who isn't problematic. Or many of those, really. I mean, I'm using kid as a broad brush from, uh... 4-year-old-ish to 15-year-old-ish. That's a very large gap.

I'm suddenly reminded of a character from a very cool yet rarely seen team. Capcom's... Baby Commando.

I have a random question, I have story where this guy and his forest friends (an elf and a faun) protect this great tree and I was thinking, how can I make sure it doesn't end up like a cilched save the trees story

Well. You could have the tree eat its enemies alive

@_@ What kind of story are you trying to tell? You could play up the weird and inhuman side of the fair folk if your main character's "tree friends". You could give some focus to the mind of whoever is attacking the tree.

If you just don't want to make it look like an anvilicious "but we must save the trees" story... I guess just don't repeatedly talk about saving trees. I suppose talking about the actions the characters are taking, without stopping every other comma to add "because treeeeeeeees" (instead of something like "because then stuff happens and the plan works"), should work. Maybe. I don't really know >_<

Lol. Lemme elaborate, basically, this wild guy wants to become the new guardian of the forest after the old one was too lazy to do his job. However, the old one says he's not fit for the job and just screw off but the wild guy proves him otherwise. Now the wild guy has deal with his archnemsis, a young businessman from turning all the animals into mutants.

@Sharysa: I don't think such a kid needs to be well-behaved at all. Avoiding a Leeroy Jenkins impression and not being an immature jerk is probably all what is needed.

What about lstening to the more experienced members of the group, knowing one's own limitations or being able to focus on the mission, or not playing pranks on other team members? Plus, not being a Leeroy Jenkins or a jerk is a big part of being well behaved.

Altough I believe that older teenagers and young adults are much more plausible, as long as they are the kind that can coltrol their emotions well enough to be effective (something more common than Sharysa assumed in her post, I think) and have the company of more experienced people.

My characters in my story are adults between young and old ones, but the young tend to be well behaved to some certain extent, especially the Alien girl.

Say, do you have an Alien character as well who is initially fearful of Humans?

not sure if i had heard of it. hey , i just found this lovely site based on cherokee mythology.

So I've got a question about webserials and publishing in general. I'm writing a book for Na No Wri Mo, and I'm wondering if I could publish it at some point (after getting it properly polished up and refined of course,) while at the same time putting it up online as a web-serial as I work on it. I wouldn't mind posting it as a web-serial, but what I'm concerned about is if I'll be able to publish it later if I go down that route. I read something somewhere about how once something is published online, there's no guarantee it will be picked up for publishing because it's already available in a format that people can read for free. Of course, with all of the later updates and revisions bound to come with a speculative published version, it might not technically count as the same work found in the web serial version anyway, but I still figured I should ask, just in case.