Hi, quick question that's not... directly related to anything I'm currently working on, but something that I've just been wondering about as tangentially relevant. Do you think it's possible to write an adventure-type story centred on child protagonists, without falling into the common Missing Parents / Free-Range Children / Adults Are Useless tropes?
I know that having adults present and involved would avoid those tropes by default; but I feel it then becomes difficult to justify the child protagonist(s) being part of the action at all when the adults would, quite naturally, want to keep them out of such danger. Do you have any thoughts on ways that could make a child-protagonist-centred story work, without those tropes being brought into play?
Missing Parents/Adults Tropes
YOU DO NOT NEED TO AVOID TROPES!!! :)
Tropes are an inherent and organic part of literature. They are an essential part of storytelling that help readers understand the plot.
What you need to avoid are clichés, which are tropes that are used in nonsensical ways or are used the same way over and over again.
There are three main reasons missing parents tropes become cliché:
1) There's no logical reason to explain the absence of adults/parents.
2) There are situations where it's unrealistic to believe no adults would be involved or at least present.
3) Adults seem to not be part of young characters' lives.
Explaining the Missing Adults/Parents/Guardians
Adults aren't usually present for every second of a child's life, and the degree of absence rises depending on age and situation. I grew up in the 70s and 80s when it was still pretty common for kids to walk out the door at sunrise on a summer's day and not return until after dark. Since we were playing in the woods, in yards, and in our walk out basements, we could reasonably go hours and hours without interacting with an adult. Of course, we rarely did because we wouldn't go more than a few hours before begging one of our moms for snacks and Kool-Aid... The point is, it's really not that unreasonable for kids and teens to have experiences without adults involved, but you have to think really hard about where the parents/adults are and why it makes sense that these kids/teens are having no contact with them during this time. If you can think of a logical explanation (maybe everyone lies and says they're at one person's house...) then you're fine. Alternatively, maybe you're writing a fantasy wherein a group of young adults sets off on a cross-kingdom journey with no adults present. However, if they're encountering people, you have to bear in mind that all of those people won't also be kids or teens...
Sometimes Adults Just Have to Be There
Unless you're writing a story where there's a specific reason why adults aren't present (like Lord of the Flies or the Sky Crew kids' first days on Earth in The 100), you need to remember that adults exist in the world and there are a lot of roles they have to fill. If your group of characters sneak into a speakeasy to get information about one of the villains, there have to be adults present as both guests and workers. This isn't Bugsy Malone, after all...
Or, let's say you're writing a sci-fi story set on another planet, and your 16-year-old character has just joined the military, which they're old enough to do in that world. Unless this is a planet colonized by teenagers, it's completely unrealistic for there to be no adult officers present anywhere on the military base. If people aren't joining up until they're at least 16, you can't have a bunch of 19-year-old majors and colonels walking around.
So, even if parents/guardians/adults aren't directly involved in your younger characters' adventures, make sure adults aren't absent from necessarily adult roles.
Adults Are Part of Young Characters' Lives
Even in a story like The Lord of the Flies or the first days on Earth in The 100, adults were never far from the minds of the young characters in the story. They were thinking about their parents or other adults in their lives. They missed them, worried about them, shared memories about them, wondered what they might do in one situation or another. By making sure to acknowledge the adults who have played or still do play critical roles in your young characters' lives, you can keep adults as part of the story even if they're notably (and logically) absent during much of the action.
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