Young Writers Society

There is a small forest town near the border that holds a tavern which bids a welcome to travellers who enter the kingdom. Under the darkness of the new moon the town is raided and burnt down by 12 soldiers send by a rival king. All residents but 1 find their death, along with several of the king's soldiers. Their reasons for battle are still unknown. Were the soldiers ordered to destroy the town and it's residents, or were they ordered to seek a valued object and did the residents find their death because they retaliated?

Either way, the only survivor is a 4 or 5 year old boy who hid in a stack of hay on his parent's farm. As the morning sun sheds a light on the towns remains, the boy wanders through the rubble and dead bodies of his loved ones without saying a word.

Lé problème:
Can a child of young age be submitted to such a horrific scene, being confronted with the dead bodies of perhaps his parents and other residents he knew? The destruction of the town will play a big part in the story since the boy is (presumed) to be the only survivor, and it sparks a war between the kingdoms. I don't recall any movies or books that portray a similar scene.

I recall several stories but can't really think of their names, however I can think of a game, Fable does it the whole a entire town being murdered resulting in on tiny survivor who walks numbly through the wreckage. Not sure about the kingdoms at war thing because a small town is a small town, in a kingdom war does not start up until you have hit two or three. One small settlement is not enough to start a war over, or at least it was not back in old Europe.


Not sure what is the problem.

Zolen wrote:a small town is a small town, in a kingdom war does not start up until you have hit two or three. One small settlement is not enough to start a war over, or at least it was not back in old Europe.

Perhaps this small town is the second or third or who knows which that's been destroyed - or this world isn't old Europe, or the king/queen of the kingdom knows that the other king's soldiers were actually after something else, or the little town is close enough to the castle or some bigger and more important town to make the people and the royals panic, or there was someone/something in that town that triggered the king/queen on a more personal level . . .

But that aside. OrionX, how far away is this farm from the town? If it's far away enough that the kid can hide in hay while everything's on fire, then is there any reason why his father/mother/any other family member isn't there as well? Why would they leave a little boy home alone? I think not even in those times did people do that - if nothing else, then out of fear of the kid doing something stupid, like accidentally burning down the barn or feeding the animals a wrong thing or eating a wrong thing himself.

Four or five-year old is a very young child, and it's possible he could repress those memories - but also it's age which humans remember later already, so it's as possible that those sights would stay in his mind and trouble him for a long long time, in various possible ways.
A nitpick, though, if they mostly died by fire or everything was set on fire after they were already lying there, he might not be particularly able to tell which body is which person :p Also, who put down the fire? Or did it pass long enough for the fire to be out by the time the boy got to the streets?

I'm not quite sure what you're asking either. Can he be submitted to it? Sure he can, anyone can be submitted to anything. It will affect him in one way or another, but there's nothing preventing you from submitting him to it *shrug*

Can a child of young age be submitted to such a horrific scene, being confronted with the dead bodies of perhaps his parents and other residents he knew?

Most children that age don't have very long memories. I, at least, don't remember anything that happened when I was four or five. A horrific scene like that, I think, a child would have even more trouble remembering. Our bodies and minds have a way of protecting ourselves. I think the kid would repress the memories so that they can't[ remember them. As they get older, there's a possibility that the memories could come back-- if they're triggered by something. Such as seeing a battle again, smelling hay, seeing graves. They wouldn't come back all at once, but in pieces.

If it's far away enough that the kid can hide in hay while everything's on fire, then is there any reason why his father/mother/any other family member isn't there as well? Why would they leave a little boy home alone? I think not even in those times did people do that - if nothing else, then out of fear of the kid doing something stupid, like accidentally burning down the barn or feeding the animals a wrong thing or eating a wrong thing himself.

I'm just going to reiterate this.

Farms were actually the first things destroyed in Medieval times, because that would devastate an area for far longer, and make retaliation that much more difficult. Farms, after all, contained food. In primarily farming areas, property damage often far outweighed murder in terms of number of crimes committed. (Ie- you'd be more likely to destroy their property than kill them). The reason? Property damage hurt more than death, because property damage on a farm means you could potentially lose your food source for the next full calendar year.

Medieval Europe was very much a farm based economy. Most people were farmers, and the lords took tax in the form of food. Lords were then taxed themselves, either in the form of goods or money, and some of this food would eventually reach the overreaching ruler (basically, each lord would take what he needed to supply his household, and the surplus would make it to the king).

Therefore, if you want to do damage to another kingdom, and quite a lot of damage at that, you destroy their food supply and what they can use to help an army. Armies include horses. Horses need hay. Burn down all hay barns, and you have effectively forced the army to go on foot or forced them to carry tons of food with them, both of which make the army slower and more vulnerable to attack.

Destroying the food supply/farms also makes it that the lords have less, which means the lords in higher ranking have less, which means the king has less. Seeing as lords tended to have pretty set amounts of tax (it was often the people who starved for a season, in lean times, because the lords didn't always lighten the burden even when production went down), burning a few villages means others can be completely wiped out trying to meet the tax.

Burning farms= far more effective damage than burning towns.

The thing I'm wondering about is if a child of young age should be confronted by the death of an entire town. The reaction he should have is very calm, or perhaps restrained is a better word. I'm wondering if it could be a possible scenario.

Reading your comments about the other stuff, like the town layout and how it's destroyed, is a good wake-up call for me. I never took any of those facts into account but I'll use your suggestions to my advantage. So thank you for that.

Hey Orion, so I learnt recently that our understanding of death as a concept isn't really complete until about the age of twelve and a five year old often doesn't understand the permanence or concreteness of it - they may cry because they miss their mother for instance, but they won't cry because their mother's never coming back. Here is a sort of reference to how kids of different ages handle death, maybe that'll help you!

The thing is, it will almost definitely affect them in later life, perhaps in the form of PTSD or another similar disorder. The same way a child can experience abuse and not understand it and perhaps even repress the memory, it can still come back in later life. Whether the memory is repressed or not is dependent on the child in question, I guess!

When it comes to reactions, it honestly depends on the kid! Now, this is unusual, but if there was a lack of attachment or the kid's emotional reactions were already skewed because of a previous trauma, then they're more likely to be calm.

However, this lack of reaction will likely be a tip off that something isn't quite right about the kid. I'm not sure you can avoid that, going with an atypical reaction. Especially considering they're one of the most common types of foreshadowing.

Also, a note on PTSD- Children experience it differently than teenagers and adults. They're more likely to act out trauma in repetitive play, in comparison to the nightmares and flashbacks better associated with adult PTSD.

Check out the DSM IV diagnostic criteria to see the very wide variety of symptoms associated with PTSD. It's very much a jigsaw puzzle for symptoms.

Tenyo's Two Cents

Perception of death-

Everybody is different I guess. The first time I vaguely understood what death was, I was about three years old. I loved watching my mum roll up an old receipt, set fire to it on the cooker and then use it to light the oven.

There was a news report about a baby burned in a fire, and I remember screaming sooo hard. My dad panicked because he thought I'd hurt myself on my toy, and had no idea I was even aware of what was on tv.

Up until then death was when my fish went bye bye and I got lots of cuddles. Then suddenly I was faced with the fact that paper wasn't the only thing that burned. People could burn, and burn hurts. People could burn so much they disappear like the paper, and this could happen to the one thing I knew of that was more fragile than me.

I understood that death was the end of a living thing, even though I was young. Maybe I only understood the permanence of it because paper doesn't turn back to paper. However up until the age of seven or eight I had the idea in my head that when things died (even if not through fire) they just turned to ash, like in a vampire movie XD

When our cat caught a bird in the garden my dad thought I was confused about what death was. I knew, I just had to readjust to the idea of what a corpse was.


Starting a war-

You can totes start a war by destroying one tiny village, so long as there's someone to kick up a fuss about it. If two countries are on the brink of war then the simple act of one sending soldiers onto another would be cause enough.


Emotionally restrained children-

The great thing about children is that they are remarkably resilient, but they're also easily frightened. Even if the reality of the situation doesn't set in, being surrounded by screaming and fire will set them crying.

But that would make this kid more real, and inspire a greater sense of attachment and sympathy in your reader, right? Cold, calm characters aren't too much fun.


Other places to look-

I watched 'Children on the Front Line,' a documentary about kids in Syria. One of the families it followed was of three young girls who would take a gun for protection and then go around tidying the houses of people who had left the area in case they came back.

Some of the kids had seen more than their share of trauma and bombs, but the ones who were guided and found a purpose for themselves were the ones who came out stronger.

Then there's also the studies of child soldiers, some of whom saw their parents shot in front of them and were too afraid to cry. It doesn't take long to turn them into killers themselves.


Alternately-

You could just scrap the realism and go with what looks cool =p

Thank you for the replies. I've been thinking about this a lot and might have an alternate scenario, aside from the murderous plot.

Let's say that we're talking about a mining town in the outskirts of a kingdom. The inhabitants collect ores at the mine and sell these to the kingdom for profit. That's basically their way of life (in short). On a certain day the town, along with several other mining towns in the area, is raided by the army of a mighty emperor whom are ordered to kidnap everyone. All the people are enslaved and forced to mine gems for the emperor, which are the source of magic in that area. Having the largest supply of gems no one dares to speak up against the emperor, although many dislike him.

The king's soldiers arrives too late and only finds empty towns. Having no idea at first what happened they think everyone either died or magically disappeared. No one suspects a kidnapping nor that the emperor is behind it. Before the soldiers arrive the boy is found by a hooded figure who introduces him to a secret resistance movement that seeks the downfall of the empire. In the process the boy learns that his family is still alive and makes it his goal to free them.

You're getting pretty heavily into the 'mysterious chosen one orphan' plot, there, which I'd avoid personally. Mysterious hooded figures tend to be nothing more than plot moving devices, and are a bit overused when it comes to moving the plot along.

I'd try to develop the mysterious figure as a more in depth character, because that's where you'll get away from stereotypes and people as plot devices.