Writing What You Don't Know: The Assistants

Thank you all! Cheese and nuts were two foodstuff that I, like, completely forgot existed and the info helped a lot

 

@Chiomi thank you very much! Very good into :3

 

Bringing this back because I never got an answer before and would like to hear anybody's ideas about how to save this poor child from 19-year-old me's smug conviction that I knew what I was doing when I did not.

 

I am writing something and have need of advice on how someone who knows how to handle kids would treat a terrified ten-year-old who doesn't trust them and they're trying to put at ease. Someone who knows more about kids than me willing to offer suggestions?

 

Uh. Basically, you start by understanding what's scaring them and taking the pressure off, separate them from the frightening situation or person or thing. Offer them comforting stimuli, and if they don't trust you a lot, also offer them plenty of personal space while still making it clear that you're concerned and trying to help. In the longer term, after the immediate panic is over, it can help to give them some kind of feeling of control over whatever was scaring them - basically, face it with them and show them it's not so bad. But this step definitely needs the kid's consent; forcing them to face the thing that terrified them will just make things worse.

It's hard to offer exact methods when I don't know the exact situation... have I answered your question? If not I might do better with more details.

 

In this case, the kid wakes up in an unfamiliar place surrounded by people he doesn't know and immediately assumes he's been kidnapped. He pretends to cooperate at first, and then bolts. He comes back later when he realizes he doesn't have anywhere else to go; I'm trying to figure out how they'd try to convince him that they're not going to start mailing his family his body parts and he shouldn't change his mind and decide to go sleep in a scummy alley in December.

 

... if I was that kid, I would want a really good explanation of how I got there and why I can't just call my parents and go home, with no bullshit and no because-I-said-so. And if I decided to bolt, I'd ask for help from some random mom or cop before I went back to the people I still think kidnapped me.

Like, this isn't fundamentally a fear issue (though the kid would absolutely be afraid), this is an understanding issue - he'd need a reason to think he isn't being kidnapped. Without that, why should he calm down? If the strangers can convince him of that, they've accomplished the "take the pressure off" step and can continue from there. If not... I dunno, induce Stockholm Syndrome? Wait until all his escape attempts fail and he gives up?

 

The character in question is royalty, and he wakes up in a foreign country. He has excellent reasons for thinking he's been kidnapped. I don't want to get into the full details of why he goes back because that's a big chunk of the story- I'm just wondering if there's anything obvious I should include from the main adult involved besides "get the people who he's the most intimidated by out of the room, sit down so you're not towering over him, be calm, give him an explanation for why he's there, and try to make it clear that you're offering him more options than just 'do exactly what I say for an indefinite amount of time.'"

 

That needs lots more of the helper's point of view to work with. Is they a compassionate person, or acting out of motivations we don't know yet? Someone saving the kid because it furthers their own agenda will have a different way of speaking than someone who is just trying to save the kid because they don't want the kid to be hurt.

 

A helper who is helping only to further their own interests is more likely to be "do what I say because I am helping you and you need to just accept it and shut up." while giving minimal reassurance that they are actually trying to help. It won't occur to them to worry about the kid's point of view.

 

A helper that is helping because they actually want to help the kid is more likely to go into long detailed explanations of why they should be trusted. Details of what the dangers the kid faces are and why the helper can help them.

 

"Your uncle Ralph (the one that pretends not to see you and knocks you over every time he walks by) is trying to usurp the throne. Since you is next in line from your Dad, Ralph has planned for you to have a fatal accident. Here is some evidence to support it. If you croak, then your Dad croaks, Ralph becomes king."
(hopefully much better words :) )

 

Does anyone here speak Russian? There's a fandom I am very likely to write fic for, and two Russian siblings and their parents feature fairly prominently. However, the siblings do not have traditional Russian names, and I'm pretty sure that their surnames don't follow the same pattern either. So I need to figure out what diminutives would likely be used for them, and what their surnames/patronyms would be.

 

oh yes I know, it's just that in this particular work the siblings have different surnames, so it gets confusing. I think that since their dad's name is Ipati they'd both have the patronym Ipativich, unless the fact that he's technically not their dad by blood impacts things?

(for reference: the family is Varvara Dugina and Ipati Dugin as the parents, Kortni Duginovna and Kara Starikov as the daughters. Kara is technically adopted into the family (having Superman's backstory and all) but she was pretty much raised by them and considers them all her family, so. I guess they'd have Ipativich as their patronym? Don't know what's going on with Kara's surname though.)

 

OK so, Ipati is technically not related to them by blood. However, he married Varvara while she was still pregnant with Kortni, and Kara was adopted as an infant a few... months? after the marriage, and no one knew who her original parents were. Varvara was also originally not married to Kortni's father (and he wasn't even Russian - this got her pretty much disowned by her family) and they did NOT separate on super great terms, as far as I remember.

 

yep, they're both girls. However, Kara wasn't from an orphanage or anything - they found her in the woods. She's got Superman's backstory in this universe, pretty much. I kind of figured Starikov was her parents punning on her literally being found in a crashed spaceship.