Forums » Writing Workshop » Read Thread

I couldn't find any articles in the site with the precise guidelines and the stories in the family friendly section vary quite a lot in tone, subject matter and overall maturity. So I was pondering about it a while back. This kind of subject can probably be broken up into little pieces. 

I once read that you can use any theme or message for a children's story as long as you write it in a way that children can understand. Well yeah, of course, but there are still a few limits how much violence, death and sexuality can be shown in such stories. And that is kind of the question I want to ask you guys. (Look, I also tried to search the PG and G ratings guidelines and they are pretty much a mess in that regard with no very clear answers. How is Batman even PG13?.)

We already had a talk about the overall site guidelines, but I don't remember that there was much discussion about the family friendly section.

Tldr: what are the guidelines for the family friendly section?

Violence

Is any kind of violence allowed? Is only cartoon violence allowed? (Like Mario squashing gumbas level) What about depictions of blood, bruises, injuries (bleeding wounds, burns, broken limbs, amputated limbs)? Violence against animals, violence against fantasy creatures? 

Perhaps more of a double standard where only villains are allowed to be injured and the heroes of the story not?

How much violence can be outright shown (such as a full description of a fistfight or a swordfight). What if the fight only happens off screen?

Death

Can you explicitly show a character dying? Are only deaths of villains allowed? Death of children? 

How bloody may their deaths be? So perhaps a character dying of a sword through his back? Executions through guillotine or hangings? How about a character turning into dusts or sparkles? Tumbling off a cliff? 

Is suicide allowed? 

Can you depict someone's corpse? 

Or are only deaths that are off screen allowed?

Sexuality

Probably the easiest one to answer. In my opinion probably no sexual violence, assault or even depictions of consensual acts. If there are any, they should only be very very subtly implied and never shown on screen. (Like I dunno, parents wanting a child or something like that.).

Handholding, depicting relationships and (boyfriends, girlfriends, married people), a Disney-like kiss is probably fine. 

Endings

This is only because I once read an interview of Del Toro who said that you can make a children's story pretty dark as long as the ending is relatively happy.

Ehh... So I got curious.

How sad of an ending can you make a children's story without it being inappropriate?

- is it allowed for a hero to never accomplish his goals/to fall into despair?

- the death of the main character?

- what if the world still remains quite shitty even after the end of the story? (Such as bad dystopia stays bad dystopia. No revolution or something)

- the main character never getting to see their loved ones again?

 

Generally the early 80s era US movie PG rating works around here for family friendly.

I'm not sure if movie ratings are a good comparison, there's so much of that hinging on the fact that it's visual. While children's books frequently do cover pretty heavy material.

I don't really consider this a thing anybody can establish hard rules on since it's as much about tone as content. Like, obviously there's a shit ton of death in books meant for younger readers that would come across differently if portrayed directly or in detail on a screen.

I said early 80s, this means they were showing tits and decapitations, along with saying racial slurs on screen for PG

If it helps with a concrete examples Red Dawn (1984) was the first PG-13 movie, so if your story is less than that, you should be golden.

It is also worth pointing out that Ghostbusters (1984) was rated PG, but included oral sex, and lots of direct sexual lines.

Howard the Duck (1986) had fully exposed duck boobs and a fair amount of violence and even some exploding monsters.

Technically Poltergeist (1982) was originally rated R, but protests from the producers and studio got it adjusted to PG and there are some very scary/violent things that happen in that.

Howard the Duck practically had bestiality given the relationship between Howard and Lea Thompson.

This isn't even counting the guys attempting to rape her in the beginning and their reference to doing too much drugs when they first see Howard.

Then there's the whole scene where Howard's working in a porn palace and people are having sex in jacuzzis.

https://www.looper.com/1177/inappropriate-pg-movies-time/

Or, the short answer:

Write what you want and put it in the category that makes sense to you. Few people look at categories. The idea that some child will wander in and accidentally read a family-friendly story and be traumatized for life is beyond silly. It's the damn internet. It's 100% full of filth and degeneracy. Anyone who gets on the internet, child or not, knows that. If they don't, they find out within seconds.

If you think it's a story that small children will enjoy, put it in that category. If you don't, then put it in some other category.

Just pointing out as well that "family friendly" has never required that the stories have to be geared for small children. In fact that's literally why the category was changed to be called what it is now, to drop that implication.

As a small child, I will and would read anything and everything especially if it said that it was inappropriate for small children, so it doesn't matter anyway. I remember being eight and asking my mom why she had some books in her room that weren't on the living room shelfs. She said that they were too scary for little kids and that I wouldn't understand most of it anyway. Of course, that night I snuck in while she was at work and stole one. I surprised her when she came home by asking her what the word erection meant, lol. 

Honestly I'm still just finding it funny that Darius "Never seen a CYOA book" Conwright has to ask whether death endings are allowed. The fact that the entire series is made up of children's books killing you over and over isn't a hint?

He should look up the death endings of Be an Interplanetary Spy. You got death endings galore in all their visual glory.

They weren't really a thing back when I was a kid and the ones that I read weren't very violent. I guess there was that one tween novel where you ended up as a sex trafficking victim with some pimp if you picked the wrong choice.

Ehh, but I want to try to be on the safe side, hence the reason I asked. Plus it's good to have some guidelines in place in case someone also was curious about them.

Do the opposite of all the gay shit you usually write and you should be fine.

Even I, a zoomer, had CYOA novels as a kid. I guess R.L. Stine was a little too evocative for the imaginations of Dutch children.

Dunno, half of his goosebumps books and most of fear Street weren't even translated in Dutch? And we already have children's horror authors like Paul van Loon. 

Just write whatever you want to and if it ends up better suited for a different category, it can always be moved later on anyway. The other posts pretty much covered it all, but I'll also add that you don't necessarily need to simplify words or stick with typical good vs evil archetypes, children tend to be quite smart (at least, those who enjoy reading stories on CYS). 

For violence, there's probably a slightly lower threshold than normal stories on the site, but just use common sense and you'll be alright. Personally, I'll just use the test of whether a scene would scare my younger sister when she was in middle school. Not my brother, though. After writing Dreamtruder, I showed it to him but he was scared to read it because the first page was titled 'The Nightmare'. Easily frightened kids would avoid even slightly scary stories from the description alone.

Death scenes are fine. It's a storygame, and part of this means dying if you choose the wrong choice. In fact, I'd argue that all those things you mentioned are okay - just be careful with how descriptive you are during those scenes. And I find it rather funny that after traumatizing people with some of your storygames, you did a 180 degrees turn and are now overcorrecting by worrying about kids reading about death and kissing lol. 

Sad endings aren't really a problem given they can just find a better one if they're invested. I guess it's possible to have a storygame with only sad endings (e.g. if there's a villain protagonist/ a corruption arc) that is still family friendly if it's written in a more lighthearted/ comedic tone and you've gotten readers to hate the main character. Regarding likable protagonists, I've seen writing advice that says their gain should be greater than their loss. A lot of it hinges on their values and priorities too. So if they're a family-oriented person, an ending where the world remains dystopian but they save a family member would be satisfying to readers. Yet, if the protag's main focus is on defeating a villain, you can add in deaths of close friends and family as long as they achieve this goal. Lastly, I usually use the non-fulfillment of goals ending when a character's goal is based on a misbelief as opposed to their true desire, and the reason they don't accomplish them is because they're forced to see why this goal is actually bad for them. (Extra tip: it's proven that the brain prefers happy endings, so unless you're trying to convey an ugly truth about the world through an impactful, depressing ending, a happier one might help with getting higher ratings on the site). 

I'm not sure how this became a rant about writing endings, but I hope this helps. Best of luck with your storygame! 

P.S. It's just a suspicion I have, but are you using the tactic of writing a story then entering the contest?

Wow, this is actually a great answer. Many thanks, especially for the advice on the endings! That was actually the part where I was pondering the most about. 

Come to think of it, me asking this stuff does sound a little bit ironic haha, but it's the first time I've tackled this stuff. So I'm a bit out of my depth.