Many older people, by choice or perforce, have no contact with children at all
Though the author may pretend otherwise, the author's point of view is larger than the character's and includes knowledge the character lacks. This means that the character, existing only in the author's knowledge, may be known as we cannot ever know any actual person; and such insight may reveal i…
his imagination has no ethical ballast at all
Fiction, like all art, takes place in a space that is the maker's loving difference from the thing made. Without that space there can be no consistent truthfulness and no true respect for the human beings the story is about.
Consider the story as a dance, the reader and writer as partners. The writer leads, yes; but leading isn't pushing; it's setting up a field of mutuality where two people can move in cooperation with grace. It takes two to tango.
