Another Book Question

[kriadydragon]

I have an original story idea at the top of my writing list, but a part of me is hesitant because it features a child (around eleven years old) befriending a male adult who's around thirty, and I'm a little worried that some might perceive that as creepy.

Has anyone read stories about a little kid befriending an adult? And I don't mean the usual little kid and his/her elderly mentor/teacher/whatever. I mean male adults between the age of twenty-five and thirty-five.

For the record, what I have in mind I feel will work but I think it will help knowing that other authors have ventured into such territory and made it work as well. In other words, I need something that will shut my paranoia up.

Comments

[ga-unicorn.livejournal.com]

The Big Brothers and Sisters organization makes this not as unusual as you would think. My youngest brother had a Big Brother. They were "together" for a year before Kyle (the BB, who was a lawyer) had to move to another state, but they still wrote and talked to each other on the phone constantly.

[kriadydragon.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm. Very true. And my aim in the story is for the friendship to develop into something brotheryly/sisterly. But people do get weird about this stuff and I want to be prepared to defend my position should anyone try to talk me out of it.

[ga-unicorn.livejournal.com]

Personally, I think that if you just write it as friendship then those who don't look to slash every male relationship they read or watch will just see it as friendship. The determined slasher will always see that potential. I once had a long (2 hour wait in queue at a convention) discussion with a slash fan who insisted that she couldn't "see" any close, intimate male relationships that didn't involve homosexuality. I couldn't get her to budge from that position, no matter what argument I came up with.

[kriadydragon.livejournal.com]

The child in my story is actually a girl. Though it is the people who see any kind of friendship as something that will turn romantic that worries me. I can see people jumping to conclusions with my story and crying foul because of it.

I feel bad for people who can't view friendship as anything more than a precursor to romance. It makes me wonder what their RL friendships are like :P

[parisindy.livejournal.com]

there is a movie called 'about a boy'

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0276751/

[kriadydragon.livejournal.com]

Thanks :D

[parisindy.livejournal.com]

welcome

[sholio]

Unfortunately the first examples I came up with -- like Diana Wynne Jones' "Fire and Hemlock" or the "Blade of the Immortal" manga -- end up with a romance eventually developing between the kid and the adult, when the kid is older. Not really what you're going for. *g*

I agree with ga_unicorn, though, that there's nothing inherently inappropriate about it, and lots of real-world examples of adult mentors or close (and healthy!) relationships between kids and their parents' friends.

There's Harry and Molly in Dresden Files. Or Harry and any of Michael's kids, really.

Several of Stephen King's novels are about little boys becoming close friends with adult men -- "Hearts in Atlantis" had a good example of a relationship of this kind, between the little boy protagonist and his elderly neighbor, and there's also Jake and Roland in the Dark Tower series.

"Fly by Night" by Frances Hardinge is a pretty nifty fantasy novel in which an orphan girl of about 11 leaves her village and travels with an adult male con artist, and becomes friends with him.

In Ted Naifeh's "Courtney Crumrin" series, the central relationship is between the little girl protagonist and her uncle (though it might not totally count because they're related?).

One of my favorite novels from my teens, "Rusalka" by CJ Cherryh, is about a twenty-something rascal (rapscallion? skalawag? I can't come up with a term that doesn't sound like it's being used by an elderly schoolteacher *g*) who gets in serious trouble and ends up running away into the wilderness with a teenage orphan boy with magic powers. Adventures ensue, and the two become close friends.

And there's Harry Potter and Sirius Black ...

[kriadydragon.livejournal.com]

Thanks for this :D I knew there were stories out there but the only ones I could think of were the usual kid with elderly mentor/teacher. And knowing they're out there makes me feel a lot more comfortable with my story idea.

[a-pilgrim-soul.livejournal.com]

I don't think you need to worry about this at all, if you write their friendship as an innocent one then that's exactly what it is. If anyone interprets it differently then its their own messed up psyche and not your problem.

[kriadydragon.livejournal.com]

Very true.

[obsessed1o1.livejournal.com]

I'm currently writing a book about an adult that befriends a young boy and i have to say that i had the same reservations about whether it crosses a line or feels "creepy" but the circumstances of their friendship means that it makes sense and there is no "romantic" element to it. It's simply a tale of a boy who becomes friends with his neighbour, seeing him as a "father figure" rather than anything else.

I think unfortunately, with the way that the word is today and the types of people out there that do take advantage of young children, it's very difficult to write male adults being friends with children (especially girls), when we wouldn't think any differently about a female adult becoming friends with a child.

[kriadydragon.livejournal.com]

I think unfortunately, with the way that the word is today and the types of people out there that do take advantage of young children, it's very difficult to write male adults being friends with children (especially girls), when we wouldn't think any differently about a female adult becoming friends with a child.

This is exactly what's been holding me back. Were the adult character a woman I probably wouldn't think anything of it. But because he's male it's made me dither a bit, first over how to handle the friendship between man and girl (which I have since figured out and feel confident about) then over how others might view it and whether or not some might try to talk me out of the idea (it wouldn't be the first time). Knowing that such friendships have been done and do work has helped my confidence to write this story quite a bit.

[obsessed1o1.livejournal.com]

I think you have to give the readers credit too and assume that they will read it as friendship. The way i got around it in my story was to have the kid pursuing the adult rather than the other way around and kept their friendship out in the open. Eg, I felt uncomfortable writing the man and the boy alone in his house until i had established that it was purely friendship.

Sad times when you can't just sit down and write and you have to worry about peoples warped perceptions. Oh well, it's a challenge but a fun one.

Good luck with the writing! ((hugs)) And i'm glad this has given you confidence to write it! I'm sure it will, as always, be excellent :o)

buddies

[(Anonymous)]

I think it totally depends on how you write the relationship. I think there are wonderful stories written about a man and a young boy becoming friends. It could be seen or written as a friendship bond, a brother bond, a father-son type bond or uncle-type bond. Either way, it can be a very positive thing. Young boys do need positive male role models and usually do look up to someone older. -Diane

Re: buddies

[kriadydragon.livejournal.com]

The child character in my story is actually a girl. But either way, you hear so much about child molestations and other such atrocities that my biggest concern is that some might go into the story with a tainted mind-set. i.e. Thinking that children and adults are a bad mix and that such friendships will only lead to something horrible... or something. But knowing that it does work, not only in stories but in real life, helps a lot :D

Re: buddies

[obsessed1o1.livejournal.com]

Men being friends with young girls is tricky for obvious reasons (which is a shame), but handled correctly i think most people would go into it thinking of it as friendship and nothing more.

You'd have to be looking for something sinnister in the first place to read it as such and as said above anyone desperate enough will find a way to pervert it.

It is a delicate subject. It's something i think you have to build on slowly. You almost have to spell out their relationship from the very start and keep it out in the open (behind closed doors might be weird to start) and develop it so that later on physical contact (eg. A friendly hug o handhold) is read as friendship and nothing more. If you write it as fatherly figure to young girl i think most people will read it that way.