A Change in Perspective: Writing for Adults, After a Career Spent Writing for Children ‹ CrimeReads

The first thought that sometimes comes to some people's minds might be, ‘Wow now you can write about characters who can drink and have sex and swear." True but there is a lot more that makes it very different. The fundamental difference is the perspective and that is what I find most fascinating. When I'm writing children's books and I am in the mind of say a middle grade kid, I have this sort of inner eleven year old that I am filtering things through, or if it's a YA book an inner teenager. In either case, the perspective is always looking forward to what the possibilities of the years, the life ahead might be. It's a soft yearning for the future, for power, for independence that subtly colors all. Such is not the case when I'm writing an adult mystery the protagonist is all grown up.