How can I write a tragedy for children?

Question

In direction of one of the most famous stories of Hans Christian Andersen "The Little Match Girl", I want to write a tragedy for children; a story dealing with children who are suffering and who may not even have hope for the future. I want to acknowledge such children, who are rarely mentioned in mainstream children's fiction. But I don't know what kind of endings I can write which will be interesting and less horrific. Some of my professional writer friends who read one of my drafts said that the atmosphere of my work is too dark for a child. One of them said: "It is dangerous for a child to read this because its ending is too interesting and dark for a child, and there is a fear that he/she lose his/her way of life in this darkness!"

How can I tell, by myself, the difference between a tragedy for children and a tragedy for adults? What differences are appropriate, in endings or other parts of the story? What kind of usual tragic endings are adequate for children?

I would like very much to see examples from famous tragic books for children (as appropriate endings) and quotes from drama theoreticians or other professionals (for inappropriate endings).

Answer 1

Many of the original Grimm and Andersen fairytales had tragic elements in their endings. The Little Mermaid got legs, but every step felt like walking on broken glass, and she doesn't win the prince; she dissolves into seafoam and bubbles without ever getting her voice back. Cinderella's stepsisters cut off parts of their feet to fit the glass slipper, and her stepmother had to dance in red-hot iron shoes until she dropped dead. Sleeping Beauty was raped in her bespelled sleep, and only awoke when one of the twins she bore sucked on her finger and pulled out the poisoned bit of wood. These were stories for children.

I guess the difference between tragedy for children and for adults is mostly in degree, not in kind. The Grimms don't talk about how the knife feels cutting through the foot, or how the blood fills the toe of the slipper and spills out onto the floor which Cinderella (originally Ashputtel) spent so many hours on her knees scrubbing. You get the idea.

Answer 2

I don't think you will find any tragedy for children found acceptable in these times. Grimm and Andersen got "grandfathered in" for being classics, even though they were rewritten in more "acceptable" forms for wide public. Currently though, when Uncle Tom's Cabin is found racist for using real language of times it describes, when Harry Potter is bashed for promoting occult practices, when you hear angry voices of angry moms whenever a cartoon displays anything but sweet cheerful imagery, the market for tragedy for children is pretty much dead.

There's a hundred good ways to do this, but you can be sure there will be people outraged at the very idea, and unable to accept even the most gentle of them.

Some examples:

• Extend the story past death. The soul finds peace.
• Reunion when it's too late. Finding peace while mortally ill, on deathbed.
• Ride into the setting sun - abandon hopes that were ruined, give up in a vain struggle.
• ...and on moonless nights you can see a ghost picking flowers, where...
• The life was such a struggle, that a peaceful death is a welcome respite.
• Sentenced to an eternal duty, never able to get the deserved rest. The ultimate fate is bad, but isn't the worst.

Try to make the ending bittersweet, not just bitter. Give the reader a small candy.

I can give you one modern example: Spielberg's A.I.. It would be a story of futile search sentenced to ultimate failure, but it's given an extra ending, where the protagonist is given one day of his wish.

Answer 3

I read aloud to my children regularly, and, knowing nothing about the book other than it had won a Newbery Medal, I naively picked up Bridge to Terabithia for our nightly read-alouds. If you're not familiar with the book, it has, shall we say, a very tragic plot twist.

Years later, when a movie based on the book was released, I remember reading a lot of consternated letters from irate parents. Apparently, many parents were caught off-guard in a similar manner, going to the theater with excited smiles, and driving home wiping tears from their cheeks.

Assuming it's very well-written, if you end up authoring a book that doesn't have the usual storybook happy ending, be prepared to face both high praise and sharp criticism. Terabithia has received plenty of both in its day. Some give high praise for the way the author handles its delicate and mature subject matter, some express ire at giving children so much to grieve over.

Bottom line? Remember your audience. Find some way to let the kids down easy after you've punched them in the gut and knocked the wind out of them. Do not be graphic about a beloved character's demise.

I read nightly to my kids for about 20 years. We went through some very memorable books, but no book ever hit me harder than Terabithia. That said, if I had a chance to go back in time and make a more informed decision, I would take the book home again without hesitation. Sure, it was a rough read, but we had more than enough fairytale endings in other books to make up for it.

As an epilogue, all my children seem very well-adjusted to this day.

Answer 4

A classic one can be for example the Spanish "Lazarillo de Tormes", I am not really sure if it is adapted, but it is really important in my country: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lazarillo_de_Tormes

Then a modern one can be "The boy in the striped pyjamas", the main idea of the plot is different, but you can feel how the boy suffers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boy_in_the_Striped_Pyjamas

Edit: both are tragedy about children, but not for children.

Answer 5

God save the next generation from adults who don’t want children to feel sad, ever, for any reason (except perhaps for failing to follow the advice of their elders). If I ever write a story that makes children cry the way that Bridge to Terabithia made me cry, I will feel like I’ve accomplished something.

There is a series of DVDs on paleontology (dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals) that my kids just love. Each episode tells the story of some plucky little animal, emblematic of its era, and in most of the episodes, the hero is tragically eaten, or starves to death, or chokes on dust kicked up from a meteor strike, or some such.

Of course, this show was produced by the BBC. If an American company had made it, all the stories would have happy endings.

Answer 6

There are actually quite a lot of popular and critically acclaimed children's books with tragic elements. Many kids dislike these, of course: I remember despising Bridge to Terebithia as a child, and Gordon Korman even wrote a book called No More Dead Dogs mocking the prevalence of the dead pet subgenre of children's books. However, they are popular among parents and teachers, and even some children love them.

However, unlike adults, who have some experience of both life and literature to fall back on, children are new to the world, and things can accordingly have a much more powerful impact on them. They may take what they read as a model to follow, or a foreshadowing of what life will actually be like for them. For that reason, I'd suggest either writing a positive, life-affirming book with tragic elements (Charlotte's Web) or a bleak, dark book with a happy ending (The Wolves of Willougby Chase) because where an adult might find a bleak book followed by a bleak ending cathartic and even perhaps pleasurable, a child is likely to just find it horribly depressing.

You might ask yourself why you want to write this book for children. There are a number of tragic books about children but for adults, is it possible you want to write one of those? Typically most serious children's book have some aspect of teaching, what do you want your reader to learn? Most tragic children's books have the theme that death is a part of life, but life is still worth living. If you're contradicting that lesson, you'll get a lot of resistance (and perhaps rightfully so).