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We’ve all heard of “dumbing it down,” right? Well just in case, you can educate yourself on the idiom here. This is the classic creative conundrum of, say, me not using a lot of the words I just used on account of the danger that people might not understand them. Oftentimes it’s at the behest of an editor or executive who believes that not treating the audience as if they were mentally deficient or short of attention span or both will lessen the appeal of the product (and thus the amount of cashola it might generate). Product that is aimed at or seen to be as “for kids” is especially vulnerable to this as I’ve noticed throughout my whole life that there is a disturbing tendency among a lot of people to equate lack of age with lack of intelligence.
Myself, I believe that lack of intelligence and lack of experience are two very different things. Children and teens might lack perspective (and to be fair, there are plenty of adults who do as well) but they can get their brains around a lot of things conventional wisdom wouldn’t expect if you give them the chance. In fact, doing so just might broaden that perspective they lack, as well as potentially helping their self-esteem.
For example, when I was a youngster in the mid-1980s, much of Saturday morning cartoon fare was rather mindless by design. Certainly episodic, as it was considered that kids couldn’t and wouldn’t handle any long-term storytelling. Then The Real Ghostbusters premiered and, while still mostly episodic and bearing some cutesy elements like Slimer being the odious comic relief mascot, had a surprising amount of depth at times digging into both historical and fictional folklore. Most mind-blowingly (pun intended) of all was an episode titled “The Collect Call of Cthulhu” and yep, there were the Ghostbusters confronting the horrors of the Lovecraftian Mythos including a finale showdown with Big C himself. Unfortunately the powers that be eventually got wind of all this smartening up and dumbed it back down in later Seasons, but while it lasted it opened up a whole new ideal to me of the idea that, hey, not all this stuff needed to be written like it was teletubbies. What’s more, it felt like some adult or adults out there were reaching out to me and saying, “you’ve got a brain and you can handle this.” That felt good.
Later I would learn one of those adults was J. Michael Stracynzski and that totally tracked. I also remember the one guy at my local geeky gaming store who treated us kids well and even ran campaigns for us when the other adults there were barely tolerant of our presence. So anyhow, at WonderCon I got a chance to pay that forward, taking a break from our booth with Dawn’s generous permission to try out an introductory game of the Starfinder RPG. Somehow I ended up the Captain of the ship at a table full of strangers including two teenage kids, one of whom seemed shy and another who was definitely not shy but who managed to create his own character while all the rest of us just grabbed pre-gens. From what I could tell of all the options involved, this was no simple feat. Kid knew their stuff, certainly more than I did for all that I probably could passably claim to be his grandfather.
It probably helped no small amount that I had the Captain role and the starship combat in Starfinder (and as presented by the GM) seems heavily focused on the crew in various assigned roles checking in with the Captain for guidance. I may not have known the system inside and out but I like to think I can latch onto potentials and run a decent game plan on short notice. And more than that I just tried to make sure everyone felt respected and was having a good time, especially the kids. I believe the children are the future, or something like that. The sheer gleam in the one kid’s eye when they (as ship’s Engineer) suggested re-routing power in a certain way and I told them “Good idea, let’s do it!” — that was wonderful and I hope they carry the memory of a greying-haired adult (and ostensible authority figure) being earnestly supportive and immersed in the game they so obviously loved.
Anyhow I reckon I’ve strayed a parsec or so off of my topic at this point, so let me just attempt to bring it back around and say much prefer enjoying a creative property that treats its audience as smart people than the all-too-common opposite, regardless of genre. And that goes for writing one, too.