Writing A Children's Book, Teenager or... Kid's Story!
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Writing a children’s book or a short story for kids can be both challenging and rewarding. When discussing children’s books and kid’s stories, most authorities are referring to literature that is geared to an audience between the ages of zero to twelve. Over twelve is generally considered teenage literature sometimes referred to as young adult reading materials. (Writing for teenagers/young adults presents its own special challenges and thus, will be addressed in another article.) Young children and Kids, ages 0-12, represent a huge percentage of creative writing purchases. Add what the kids and their parents buy, all the purchases made by schools, libraries and many other organizations; day cares, youth clubs, all who have a stake in keeping their stock of reading material upbeat and current and one begins to get the picture of how extremely large the children’s literature market really is.
“Sounds great!” The creative writer marvels, wondering. ” So, how do I start tapping into this highly lucrative children’s literature market?”
When deciding to write for children, the first consideration must be, to decide on the age category of the children you wish to write for. Remember, frequently your choice of age group will dictate the styles of writing, length of the pieces and sophistication of your prose, especially concerning the difficulty level of the vocabulary you can use. The publishing industry has established clear guidelines for creative writers stepping up to the challenge of writing for the very young, beginning reader ages; board books, picture books, pop ups, hand held (a tiny book designed small enough for a child to hold in their small hand.) number books, to name a few. There are even fun books constructed almost like toys, with thick durable covers and strong interior pages for young kids to play with, look at the pictures and pretend to be reading.
Each type of children’s story book has its peculiarities. When writing picture books, for instance, one has the difficulty of always matching the text to the picture. The words you weave must work with the pictures, each enhancing the other. The picture and words in quality picture books don’t just mirror one another. Each should add something of its own to move the plot along. Neither should be capable of telling the whole tale without the others assistance. But they must jell, in such good sync that the procession moves along fluidly, naturally and smoothly. The skill is in keeping it balanced, never allowing either the illustrations or the text to dominate and become more important to than the other.
Once you’ve picked the age range of your child audience, choose a genre; mystery, a family story, an action based tale, a historic lesson, sci-fi, fantasy; fairy tales, folk lore, myths. Very popular, especially when adults are choosing the reading material, are stories that teach a life’s lesson, such as the fables of old where frequently animals and inanimate objects took on human characteristics in order to tell tales that were always designed to have a, “And so, the moral of this story is…” type of ending.
Naturally, your choices of story category, genre and the style you pick to use to tell your story with, will dictate a lot of the parables for you once you start to compile your list of characters. Character sketches will obviously have to be designed to fit the type of story chosen to be written. It’s easiest to decide on the basics first, such as the ages of each character, their physical attributes; fat, tall, strong, slight, physically impaired, hair color, bearded, big nosed. Next develop your characters a little more deciding on their personal likes and dislikes. Give each character a few strengths and some weaknesses. Now you should start to get a little better idea of the role each character is going to play in your story. Decide on a main character. Narrow down who the villain is. Start to document what the different relationships are between each character. This, will aide you later in how each character will act when in the presence of certain other characters. A lot of the main body of your story including plot and theme will develop naturally out of the way you perceive your characters interacting with one another. Likewise the more your characters interact, the more they develop closer and closer into becoming whole characters themselves, slowly but surely revealing more and more dynamics of their personalities, quirks, psychosis and even their subconscious to your readers.
The bulky middle of your story focuses on the challenges you create for your characters to face and the choices they make as they deal with their challenges. There will be consequences and rewards based on how they choose to react to the situations that they find themselves in. Decide who will grew from their experiences and who will be consumed by their character flaws. Now, themes, naturally begin to poke their heads out of hiding. Choose the ones you’d like to develop more. Now that you have written some volume of material and have established a much more rounded picture of your whole story, it is time to work on the beginning (opening) of the tale.
Choosing at what precise point in your main character’s life is best to jump into and start documenting is never easy. The start of your story must be engaging, entertaining, exciting and grasping enough to hook your reader into making a commitment to read the whole works. The beginning has universally been deemed the most important part of writing any story or book by both contemporaries of the craft of writing as well as their audiences, the readers. The beginning should introduce your characters and give some insight into the plot of the story. Themes are developed later as the story progresses.
Stories written for the very young usually do best when there is a happy ending. Very young children don’t like when bad things happen to their favorite characters. As you move into writing for an older child then you can consider inching into unhappy endings which are designed to help the young kids familiarize themselves with some of life’s hardships preparing them to be able to cope if and when unhappiness confronts them in their own life.
“Try to see things from a child’s perspective.” Advises Vivian Tule’ published creative writer, story writer and children’s lyricist. “Kids are curious, devious, fearless little monsters sometimes. So, keep in mind that is who you are writing for. Ultimately to entertain the little buggers and keep them coming back for more, you’re going to have to give them the things they crave. Get inside their heads and really think about what eight year old children find to be funny. What truly fascinates ten year olds? What’s exciting to six year old kids?”
The most common mistake new children story writers make is trying to tone the sophistication of their writing down to the targeted age groups level of their perceived audience. “The one thing that makes kids loose interest fast.” Explains story book writer, photographer and illustrator Arron Smitters. “Is when kids realize they are being talked down to and treated as children. Remember kids, at any age and any level of development, are always very interested in the stuff that people older than themselves are doing. Just as teenagers are always trying to be accepted as adults, smaller children, six and seven year olds are ever interested in what eight, nine and ten year olds are up to.”
One thing to remember when writing for children is, adults generally have to approve the purchases of most kids’ books. For really young kids it will be an adult who is probably reading the story to the child or at least, helping the child to enjoy the book. Parents, teachers and guardians place a lot of value on proper grammar and the correct use of language. For this reason, limiting or abolishing the use of slang is a good idea. Adults want their charges to experience literature that is not only entertaining but of some learning value. Adults are also interested in supplying reading material of the very best quality of writing that will help them with their job of molding and shaping their young children into becoming proper adults someday. But, the thing that’s mostly, on almost every adults mind when they’re deciding whether to purchase a child book is whether or not the book will encourage the young reader to read more. That is the real key to becoming a bestselling children’s book author.
“Sounds great!” The creative writer marvels, wondering. ” So, how do I start tapping into this highly lucrative children’s literature market?”
When deciding to write for children, the first consideration must be, to decide on the age category of the children you wish to write for. Remember, frequently your choice of age group will dictate the styles of writing, length of the pieces and sophistication of your prose, especially concerning the difficulty level of the vocabulary you can use. The publishing industry has established clear guidelines for creative writers stepping up to the challenge of writing for the very young, beginning reader ages; board books, picture books, pop ups, hand held (a tiny book designed small enough for a child to hold in their small hand.) number books, to name a few. There are even fun books constructed almost like toys, with thick durable covers and strong interior pages for young kids to play with, look at the pictures and pretend to be reading.
Each type of children’s story book has its peculiarities. When writing picture books, for instance, one has the difficulty of always matching the text to the picture. The words you weave must work with the pictures, each enhancing the other. The picture and words in quality picture books don’t just mirror one another. Each should add something of its own to move the plot along. Neither should be capable of telling the whole tale without the others assistance. But they must jell, in such good sync that the procession moves along fluidly, naturally and smoothly. The skill is in keeping it balanced, never allowing either the illustrations or the text to dominate and become more important to than the other.
Once you’ve picked the age range of your child audience, choose a genre; mystery, a family story, an action based tale, a historic lesson, sci-fi, fantasy; fairy tales, folk lore, myths. Very popular, especially when adults are choosing the reading material, are stories that teach a life’s lesson, such as the fables of old where frequently animals and inanimate objects took on human characteristics in order to tell tales that were always designed to have a, “And so, the moral of this story is…” type of ending.
Naturally, your choices of story category, genre and the style you pick to use to tell your story with, will dictate a lot of the parables for you once you start to compile your list of characters. Character sketches will obviously have to be designed to fit the type of story chosen to be written. It’s easiest to decide on the basics first, such as the ages of each character, their physical attributes; fat, tall, strong, slight, physically impaired, hair color, bearded, big nosed. Next develop your characters a little more deciding on their personal likes and dislikes. Give each character a few strengths and some weaknesses. Now you should start to get a little better idea of the role each character is going to play in your story. Decide on a main character. Narrow down who the villain is. Start to document what the different relationships are between each character. This, will aide you later in how each character will act when in the presence of certain other characters. A lot of the main body of your story including plot and theme will develop naturally out of the way you perceive your characters interacting with one another. Likewise the more your characters interact, the more they develop closer and closer into becoming whole characters themselves, slowly but surely revealing more and more dynamics of their personalities, quirks, psychosis and even their subconscious to your readers.
The bulky middle of your story focuses on the challenges you create for your characters to face and the choices they make as they deal with their challenges. There will be consequences and rewards based on how they choose to react to the situations that they find themselves in. Decide who will grew from their experiences and who will be consumed by their character flaws. Now, themes, naturally begin to poke their heads out of hiding. Choose the ones you’d like to develop more. Now that you have written some volume of material and have established a much more rounded picture of your whole story, it is time to work on the beginning (opening) of the tale.
Choosing at what precise point in your main character’s life is best to jump into and start documenting is never easy. The start of your story must be engaging, entertaining, exciting and grasping enough to hook your reader into making a commitment to read the whole works. The beginning has universally been deemed the most important part of writing any story or book by both contemporaries of the craft of writing as well as their audiences, the readers. The beginning should introduce your characters and give some insight into the plot of the story. Themes are developed later as the story progresses.
Stories written for the very young usually do best when there is a happy ending. Very young children don’t like when bad things happen to their favorite characters. As you move into writing for an older child then you can consider inching into unhappy endings which are designed to help the young kids familiarize themselves with some of life’s hardships preparing them to be able to cope if and when unhappiness confronts them in their own life.
“Try to see things from a child’s perspective.” Advises Vivian Tule’ published creative writer, story writer and children’s lyricist. “Kids are curious, devious, fearless little monsters sometimes. So, keep in mind that is who you are writing for. Ultimately to entertain the little buggers and keep them coming back for more, you’re going to have to give them the things they crave. Get inside their heads and really think about what eight year old children find to be funny. What truly fascinates ten year olds? What’s exciting to six year old kids?”
The most common mistake new children story writers make is trying to tone the sophistication of their writing down to the targeted age groups level of their perceived audience. “The one thing that makes kids loose interest fast.” Explains story book writer, photographer and illustrator Arron Smitters. “Is when kids realize they are being talked down to and treated as children. Remember kids, at any age and any level of development, are always very interested in the stuff that people older than themselves are doing. Just as teenagers are always trying to be accepted as adults, smaller children, six and seven year olds are ever interested in what eight, nine and ten year olds are up to.”
One thing to remember when writing for children is, adults generally have to approve the purchases of most kids’ books. For really young kids it will be an adult who is probably reading the story to the child or at least, helping the child to enjoy the book. Parents, teachers and guardians place a lot of value on proper grammar and the correct use of language. For this reason, limiting or abolishing the use of slang is a good idea. Adults want their charges to experience literature that is not only entertaining but of some learning value. Adults are also interested in supplying reading material of the very best quality of writing that will help them with their job of molding and shaping their young children into becoming proper adults someday. But, the thing that’s mostly, on almost every adults mind when they’re deciding whether to purchase a child book is whether or not the book will encourage the young reader to read more. That is the real key to becoming a bestselling children’s book author.
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EDITING SERVICE! PROOFREADING! SPELLING! GRAMMAR CHECK! GHOST WRITING! KINDLE BOOKS!
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The Responsible Children's Author by Stuart Leventhal
Children, grow, learn, mature strengthen their minds, gain confidence, constantly and in many, different ways. Steering the ways children develop is important to assure they will be prepared for adulthood when the time comes. But, not all kids respond to the same types of stimuli, in the same way. Therefore many teaching styles and methods must be applied to make certain a well-rounded education is achieved.
Bettering one’s reading, writing and communicating skills is always beneficial regardless of a child’s level of growth and understanding. Enhancing reading abilities such as vocabulary, grammar and diction has many additional upsides because reading is involved in many means of learning; history, science, math, the arts. Yes, even dance skills can be enhanced via reading. The higher one’s reading level the easier it is to tackle and understand the higher, tougher levels of any school subject.
A child who reads well is much more independent. If reading resources are readily made available such as recently with our fast growing internet computer driven society, the kids can learn about virtually any subject they wish to pursue. The child can also satisfy their quest for knowledge, unassisted by adults who sometimes put a lot of pressure on children causing stress which turns children off and sours the reading, learning experience. When children are able and free to seek info on subjects they choose themselves, they are more truly interested and will read longer and pay closer attention, thus more knowledge is learned.
Reading is the key to opening many doors of learning and evolving, therefore a children’s author has a lot of responsibility. Embarking on a writing career of creating children literature should not be taken lightly.
In a lot of ways, writing for children is tougher than writing for adults. Children stories, children books, child age poetry is all scrutinized much more thoroughly than a poem or story for the adult masses would ever be. Children’s literature is critiqued and rated toughly. Not only do parents and guardians have to approve the books their children read but schools, teachers, librarians and often government agencies, all have their hands in picking what our kids get to read.
If our children are our future then there is a lot at stake when we decide what information we will allow our youth to have access to. Habits, both bad and good, are picked up at a young age. These habits can be difficult to break once acquired and they often stay with us for the rest of our lives. The human mind is a complicated phenomenon. Childhood memories and notions can lay dormant for years then suddenly we’re conscientious of an old thought we had thirty or forty years ago. All children deserve a chance to live a fulfilling, productive and successful life. Through reading a child experiences the world. No one can influence a child more than our children’s literature writers.
Children are very curious beings; they naturally have an unquenchable thirst for learning. They also have a thirst to be entertained. The great child story writers know how to narrow the gap between these two extremes. Combining learning with entertainment is the goal. The key to being successful is not allowing the child to realize that is what you are doing. Camouflaging learning under a mist of fun is not as easy as one would believe. Kids are smart and they catch on quick. If they get a whiff that you are trying to pull the wool over their eyes, you are sunk. On the other hand, if you wish to sell your books, poems and other child targeted, creative writing projects you must make it obvious to adults that there is true value for their kid’s development if they read your writing.
An author, writing for the children’s market, must always keep in mind the first step to sales and acceptance of your work is getting the attention of an adult to purchase your book, story or poetry. This takes a particular set of skills. Of course, responsible parents, guardians and teachers all recognize, you can only require kids to read so much pure text book writing before they revolt against reading altogether. And so, the creative writer’s role becomes very important. Raising a child is challenging, children can be difficult at times. But, the ultimate test will be if children find your writing enjoyable. Winning over the kids takes a whole different set of skills than winning over the parents yet accomplishing both is the prize.
The key is to give kids, of all ages, some benefit of the doubt. Don’t skirt issues. Be honest and never condescending. A lot of times, children recognize dishonesty quicker than adults. They are very perceptive. Tackle themes that aren’t over their heads but are still relevant, especially to the age and level of maturity your writing speaks to. One of the biggest turn offs for young readers is when they think the writer is trying to avoid addressing something to protect them. Kids of every age hate to be babied!
Never write as if you have to specify every little detail because you feel, they might not get it. Remember engaging the child’s imagination is your real goal. Inspiring them to think on their own is your purpose. Getting them to use their minds is not done by spelling everything out for them. Telling the reader everything is boring. Point your young readers in the right direction. Enlighten them to a not so typical point of view. Your job is to open their eyes and show them there are many possible ways to look at the fascinating world all around them. Free up their minds.
When your story is presented successfully, it will appeal to multiple age levels. The kids will take the info you supply then interpret it based on their own maturity level. A scene will mean one thing to one and another thing to a slightly, older child. This cannot be achieved if you spell out everything for a subject. If you do everything for them the child does not need to engage their own imagination or even pay close attention or think much on their own. You don’t want your message to become a memorization exercise. Our goal is not to have the child reader regurgitate a close version of your words at some later date like a parrot. You are trying to teach them how to cope with numerable of life’s experience to come. Your message should be relevant to and adaptable to numerous subject matters not just the single incident or situation portrayed in your story.
The successful children’s literature author recognizes and embraces his/her responsibility to create reading that is entertaining but also stimulates young people to think, conceptualize, dream and imagine. This is done by; penning quality, engaging prose that talks up not down to a child. Good writing is always honest and straight forward when addressing young readers and their issues. By pointing the way and hinting at solutions you spur and motivate your readers to think, discover and invent new possible ways to more clearly assess the unique situations they will encountered in real life. A quality responsible children’s author writes children stories and poems that increase the young, child reader’s ability to interpret life’s issues more accurately and encourages kids to come up with their own options for action. The idea is not to give a child a great step by step recipe to learn but to teach a concept that can be experimented with, in numerous ways, on one’s own. The children’s author shows how teachings of all kinds can be tweaked for multiple purposes. The real goal is to free children's minds by giving them the confidence to decide for themselves the value of whatever stuff they are being taught. True learning is sprouting ideas in the student’s garden that the student is meant to cultivate, for them to grow and flourish.
Bettering one’s reading, writing and communicating skills is always beneficial regardless of a child’s level of growth and understanding. Enhancing reading abilities such as vocabulary, grammar and diction has many additional upsides because reading is involved in many means of learning; history, science, math, the arts. Yes, even dance skills can be enhanced via reading. The higher one’s reading level the easier it is to tackle and understand the higher, tougher levels of any school subject.
A child who reads well is much more independent. If reading resources are readily made available such as recently with our fast growing internet computer driven society, the kids can learn about virtually any subject they wish to pursue. The child can also satisfy their quest for knowledge, unassisted by adults who sometimes put a lot of pressure on children causing stress which turns children off and sours the reading, learning experience. When children are able and free to seek info on subjects they choose themselves, they are more truly interested and will read longer and pay closer attention, thus more knowledge is learned.
Reading is the key to opening many doors of learning and evolving, therefore a children’s author has a lot of responsibility. Embarking on a writing career of creating children literature should not be taken lightly.
In a lot of ways, writing for children is tougher than writing for adults. Children stories, children books, child age poetry is all scrutinized much more thoroughly than a poem or story for the adult masses would ever be. Children’s literature is critiqued and rated toughly. Not only do parents and guardians have to approve the books their children read but schools, teachers, librarians and often government agencies, all have their hands in picking what our kids get to read.
If our children are our future then there is a lot at stake when we decide what information we will allow our youth to have access to. Habits, both bad and good, are picked up at a young age. These habits can be difficult to break once acquired and they often stay with us for the rest of our lives. The human mind is a complicated phenomenon. Childhood memories and notions can lay dormant for years then suddenly we’re conscientious of an old thought we had thirty or forty years ago. All children deserve a chance to live a fulfilling, productive and successful life. Through reading a child experiences the world. No one can influence a child more than our children’s literature writers.
Children are very curious beings; they naturally have an unquenchable thirst for learning. They also have a thirst to be entertained. The great child story writers know how to narrow the gap between these two extremes. Combining learning with entertainment is the goal. The key to being successful is not allowing the child to realize that is what you are doing. Camouflaging learning under a mist of fun is not as easy as one would believe. Kids are smart and they catch on quick. If they get a whiff that you are trying to pull the wool over their eyes, you are sunk. On the other hand, if you wish to sell your books, poems and other child targeted, creative writing projects you must make it obvious to adults that there is true value for their kid’s development if they read your writing.
An author, writing for the children’s market, must always keep in mind the first step to sales and acceptance of your work is getting the attention of an adult to purchase your book, story or poetry. This takes a particular set of skills. Of course, responsible parents, guardians and teachers all recognize, you can only require kids to read so much pure text book writing before they revolt against reading altogether. And so, the creative writer’s role becomes very important. Raising a child is challenging, children can be difficult at times. But, the ultimate test will be if children find your writing enjoyable. Winning over the kids takes a whole different set of skills than winning over the parents yet accomplishing both is the prize.
The key is to give kids, of all ages, some benefit of the doubt. Don’t skirt issues. Be honest and never condescending. A lot of times, children recognize dishonesty quicker than adults. They are very perceptive. Tackle themes that aren’t over their heads but are still relevant, especially to the age and level of maturity your writing speaks to. One of the biggest turn offs for young readers is when they think the writer is trying to avoid addressing something to protect them. Kids of every age hate to be babied!
Never write as if you have to specify every little detail because you feel, they might not get it. Remember engaging the child’s imagination is your real goal. Inspiring them to think on their own is your purpose. Getting them to use their minds is not done by spelling everything out for them. Telling the reader everything is boring. Point your young readers in the right direction. Enlighten them to a not so typical point of view. Your job is to open their eyes and show them there are many possible ways to look at the fascinating world all around them. Free up their minds.
When your story is presented successfully, it will appeal to multiple age levels. The kids will take the info you supply then interpret it based on their own maturity level. A scene will mean one thing to one and another thing to a slightly, older child. This cannot be achieved if you spell out everything for a subject. If you do everything for them the child does not need to engage their own imagination or even pay close attention or think much on their own. You don’t want your message to become a memorization exercise. Our goal is not to have the child reader regurgitate a close version of your words at some later date like a parrot. You are trying to teach them how to cope with numerable of life’s experience to come. Your message should be relevant to and adaptable to numerous subject matters not just the single incident or situation portrayed in your story.
The successful children’s literature author recognizes and embraces his/her responsibility to create reading that is entertaining but also stimulates young people to think, conceptualize, dream and imagine. This is done by; penning quality, engaging prose that talks up not down to a child. Good writing is always honest and straight forward when addressing young readers and their issues. By pointing the way and hinting at solutions you spur and motivate your readers to think, discover and invent new possible ways to more clearly assess the unique situations they will encountered in real life. A quality responsible children’s author writes children stories and poems that increase the young, child reader’s ability to interpret life’s issues more accurately and encourages kids to come up with their own options for action. The idea is not to give a child a great step by step recipe to learn but to teach a concept that can be experimented with, in numerous ways, on one’s own. The children’s author shows how teachings of all kinds can be tweaked for multiple purposes. The real goal is to free children's minds by giving them the confidence to decide for themselves the value of whatever stuff they are being taught. True learning is sprouting ideas in the student’s garden that the student is meant to cultivate, for them to grow and flourish.
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Thinking Like a Children's Writer
by Stu Leventhal
Children; they’re cute, obstinate, fickle, emotional and full of surprises. What more can we say about the apples in our eye, except raising one can often be quite a handful. The only thing more frustrating than trying to teach a child, with their wandering, tiny attention span, is trying to entertain them. A creative writer trying to specialize in writing children’s books must master both teaching skills and entertainment skills, plus be able to combine the two fluidly, as prose that sounds and feels natural. The great child stories have lessons imbedded throughout their pages. Great kid’s reading is also very fun.
Not many things concerning child raising and early-age teaching out shine the importance of establishing good reading habits in kids that will go on serving the child well throughout their entire life. Reading is truly the number one skill that a child needs to develop in order to succeed in our modern society and live a full, satisfying and fruitful life. But, most children consider reading work! They all enjoy having a story read to them but when it comes to doing the reading themselves, it often is laced with so much stress, embarrassment and frustration that the child can barely remember the words they just read. And if the kid is shy, being forced to read out loud especially in the presence of a large group can be traumatic. Let’s face it reading is not on the top of the list of kids choices when compared with TV, sports, play time in the back yard, playing games, or going to the playground. The goal of a children’s writer is to instill a passion for reading in a child’s life. The question is how do we get kids to start looking forward to reading time?
A creative children’s story writer must come up with unique story ideas that kids will consider fun. Can you think like a kid? Can you put yourself in their shoes? Can you see things from their perspective? If you have a great memory and can think back to recall fun times from your own childhood that works great. Most of us can recall a few fond memories as a starting point but the fine details needed to write about our own childhood are fuzzy now. As we grow as children we leave our younger versions behind suppressing the silliness, fears and worries replacing them with acting mature and emulating the adults we see. You’ve spent a life time trying to put on a face of professionalism, strength, courage. Seriousness, civil mindedness and dependability are what society values as we try to make our mark in the world. Now, as a kid’s writer, you must turn back the clock and regress, relax and almost hypnotize yourself to recall those forgotten times in detail. To refresh your mind what childhood was really like you are going to have observe children.
Stop for a moment and step back to study the kids, we all run into throughout our everyday lives. Watch and really take note of what children do and how they act in given situations. When a young girl is holding her mother’s hand, as they walk down a busy inner-city sidewalk, what is the little girl looking at? Is her head spinning round and round trying to take in all the awe that is going on around her? Does her face show distress as she gazes angrily up at her mother because she’s struggling to keep up with her Mom who appears not to be aware that she is walking at too fast a pace? Are the two really holding hands or is the Mom grasping the girl’s wrist and leading her down the sidewalk?
It’s always a good idea to do a little research on your target audience before jumping right into the writing process. I always recommend visiting your favorite library and a few local book stores to first see what type of books are currently filling the shelves in the particular child age group you’ve chosen for your story. Note the subject matter that is most popular. Note the genres. Skim through a few books to get the feel for the level of vocabulary being used for your target age. Try to speak to a librarian and a few book store managers to ask what types of books do children themselves request their parents to buy for them? What are the most popular kids’ books in recent months? Study those best sellers. Try to figure out what features a kid would be attracted to. Is the subject matter the draw? Or, is it the title and cover picture? Is it the overall attitude that intrigues the child to want to know more? Usually it’s a combination of the three or all three that makes a child’s story or child author a kids’ favorite for the masses.
In order to be successful in the field of creating kid’s literature, the new, novice and want- to-be children’s author needs to recognize that specific, unique dynamics of the creative writing process come into play when writing for kids. Certain rules apply that must be adhered to. Each age group has its list of subject matter that is taboo. Each age group has its list of words and phrases that are off limits. Publishers have length requirements for different age groups and standards that must be met.
The adults who approve the purchases of most children literature are concerned with monitoring the content that young minds are given access to. They prefer children’s literature that instills good, wholesome values and healthy living concepts during the early impressionable years of a kid’s life. Stories with morals impress parents, teachers and other authorities who are in charge of purchasing children’s books. Stories that subtly teach subjects like history, science or math are popular. But first and foremost on the list is finding, children stories that make children like reading and leave the kids looking forward to the next time they’ll get a chance to open a book. That means writing stories that are fun both when they are read to a child and/or when the child is working on reading by him or herself.
The best most successful children’s authors like kids a lot. They enjoy teaching young people and showing them something new. They delight in making kids laugh and seeing them happy. Their writing stems from this joy. Many new writers chose to start with a children’s book and stories because they unwittingly think it will be easier to write a kid’s story than an adult story. This is a common assumption because vocabulary used is at a much lower level and the sophistication of the subject matter that one has to write about should be a lot less complicated level also. Plus, kids are easier to impress than adults. If this is the reason you’ve chosen to write a kid’s stories, you should reconsider. The children’s book and story market is fierce with competition. It’s always best to write about the things you love and to target an audience you relate to and care about.
Children stories are created deep from within an author’s heart. You are writing tales that are meant for shaping young minds when they are most vulnerable, that is a big responsibility! Your stories will be read at bed time by Grandparents, parents and guardians to their charges. The best books and stories will be handed down from generation to generation. To create that type of story you must have the child’s best interest in mind as you struggle to type the perfect words and phrases. Think of yourself as the surrogate grandfather attempting to tell a bedtime story. You must first love children to create and write stories for children.
If you’ve done your homework on you audience, you’ve by now found out that young children love fantasy; magic, super powers. They also are suckers for cute animal characters that are given human qualities such as bears who wear clothes and walk upright and talk with voices like one of your next door neighbors. Inanimate objects coming to life are favorites; such as a talking toaster giving advice to a child character as he eats his breakfast or a tennis racket that sprouts arms with hands and legs and feet so it can hold your hand as the two of you go for a stroll through the park on your way to the big match at the tennis courts. Most of the time, the sillier the notion is to an adult the more the kids like it.
To the run of the mill adult, it seems incredulous that a child, who knows, there is no such thing as flying horses, would insist that a horse who is flying with a few children on his back, looks ridiculous and is flying wrong. Children expect a flying horse to point his front legs out straight in front of him and stretch out his back hooves, flying similar to the way superman flies. His mane and tail should be blown straight back from the wind pressure. All the silliness and make believe must be anchored in reality or the kids won’t accept it.
Children from all walks of life, grow up dealing with problems and pressures, some real and some imagined. Children want to see how their beloved superficial characters react when confronted with similar problems that they or their friends or family members face. Even if your story’s main character is a blob of clay with a nose eyes, ears and a mouth to speak with, children will pay attention if the story line relates to their world. Add some little blobs of clay for children and a mommy blob of clay who is hanging up her apron because she has to leave for her night job and you got the beginning of a serial kids’ story.
To write a great child’s tale the kid’s author must step into the world of children. Do you get what a child finds funny? Can you emphasize when a child is embarrassed, angry or heart broken. These are the things you must write about, whether your tale is set in a future society where everyone can fly or your characters are a mix between children and walking, talking jungle animals and inanimate objects come to life. Children of today grow up fast. Hours and hours of television expose them to violence, sex, crass humor. You must compete with TV, video games and the internet for their attention. Now more than ever it is important to write something of value if you hope to lure them away from the new 60 inch wide screens.
Adults still look at books and reading as a learning experience for their charges, even if your stories are about Princes and Princesses in exotic make believe fairytale lands. Succeeding in children’s literature today, takes as much if not more serious dedication and practice as successfully writing for any adult literary genre. The children’s author needs to be forth righteous, honorable and trust worthy as well as imaginative. Children’s stories must be penned with love and integrity. A successful children’s author must love writing and also love children.
Not many things concerning child raising and early-age teaching out shine the importance of establishing good reading habits in kids that will go on serving the child well throughout their entire life. Reading is truly the number one skill that a child needs to develop in order to succeed in our modern society and live a full, satisfying and fruitful life. But, most children consider reading work! They all enjoy having a story read to them but when it comes to doing the reading themselves, it often is laced with so much stress, embarrassment and frustration that the child can barely remember the words they just read. And if the kid is shy, being forced to read out loud especially in the presence of a large group can be traumatic. Let’s face it reading is not on the top of the list of kids choices when compared with TV, sports, play time in the back yard, playing games, or going to the playground. The goal of a children’s writer is to instill a passion for reading in a child’s life. The question is how do we get kids to start looking forward to reading time?
A creative children’s story writer must come up with unique story ideas that kids will consider fun. Can you think like a kid? Can you put yourself in their shoes? Can you see things from their perspective? If you have a great memory and can think back to recall fun times from your own childhood that works great. Most of us can recall a few fond memories as a starting point but the fine details needed to write about our own childhood are fuzzy now. As we grow as children we leave our younger versions behind suppressing the silliness, fears and worries replacing them with acting mature and emulating the adults we see. You’ve spent a life time trying to put on a face of professionalism, strength, courage. Seriousness, civil mindedness and dependability are what society values as we try to make our mark in the world. Now, as a kid’s writer, you must turn back the clock and regress, relax and almost hypnotize yourself to recall those forgotten times in detail. To refresh your mind what childhood was really like you are going to have observe children.
Stop for a moment and step back to study the kids, we all run into throughout our everyday lives. Watch and really take note of what children do and how they act in given situations. When a young girl is holding her mother’s hand, as they walk down a busy inner-city sidewalk, what is the little girl looking at? Is her head spinning round and round trying to take in all the awe that is going on around her? Does her face show distress as she gazes angrily up at her mother because she’s struggling to keep up with her Mom who appears not to be aware that she is walking at too fast a pace? Are the two really holding hands or is the Mom grasping the girl’s wrist and leading her down the sidewalk?
It’s always a good idea to do a little research on your target audience before jumping right into the writing process. I always recommend visiting your favorite library and a few local book stores to first see what type of books are currently filling the shelves in the particular child age group you’ve chosen for your story. Note the subject matter that is most popular. Note the genres. Skim through a few books to get the feel for the level of vocabulary being used for your target age. Try to speak to a librarian and a few book store managers to ask what types of books do children themselves request their parents to buy for them? What are the most popular kids’ books in recent months? Study those best sellers. Try to figure out what features a kid would be attracted to. Is the subject matter the draw? Or, is it the title and cover picture? Is it the overall attitude that intrigues the child to want to know more? Usually it’s a combination of the three or all three that makes a child’s story or child author a kids’ favorite for the masses.
In order to be successful in the field of creating kid’s literature, the new, novice and want- to-be children’s author needs to recognize that specific, unique dynamics of the creative writing process come into play when writing for kids. Certain rules apply that must be adhered to. Each age group has its list of subject matter that is taboo. Each age group has its list of words and phrases that are off limits. Publishers have length requirements for different age groups and standards that must be met.
The adults who approve the purchases of most children literature are concerned with monitoring the content that young minds are given access to. They prefer children’s literature that instills good, wholesome values and healthy living concepts during the early impressionable years of a kid’s life. Stories with morals impress parents, teachers and other authorities who are in charge of purchasing children’s books. Stories that subtly teach subjects like history, science or math are popular. But first and foremost on the list is finding, children stories that make children like reading and leave the kids looking forward to the next time they’ll get a chance to open a book. That means writing stories that are fun both when they are read to a child and/or when the child is working on reading by him or herself.
The best most successful children’s authors like kids a lot. They enjoy teaching young people and showing them something new. They delight in making kids laugh and seeing them happy. Their writing stems from this joy. Many new writers chose to start with a children’s book and stories because they unwittingly think it will be easier to write a kid’s story than an adult story. This is a common assumption because vocabulary used is at a much lower level and the sophistication of the subject matter that one has to write about should be a lot less complicated level also. Plus, kids are easier to impress than adults. If this is the reason you’ve chosen to write a kid’s stories, you should reconsider. The children’s book and story market is fierce with competition. It’s always best to write about the things you love and to target an audience you relate to and care about.
Children stories are created deep from within an author’s heart. You are writing tales that are meant for shaping young minds when they are most vulnerable, that is a big responsibility! Your stories will be read at bed time by Grandparents, parents and guardians to their charges. The best books and stories will be handed down from generation to generation. To create that type of story you must have the child’s best interest in mind as you struggle to type the perfect words and phrases. Think of yourself as the surrogate grandfather attempting to tell a bedtime story. You must first love children to create and write stories for children.
If you’ve done your homework on you audience, you’ve by now found out that young children love fantasy; magic, super powers. They also are suckers for cute animal characters that are given human qualities such as bears who wear clothes and walk upright and talk with voices like one of your next door neighbors. Inanimate objects coming to life are favorites; such as a talking toaster giving advice to a child character as he eats his breakfast or a tennis racket that sprouts arms with hands and legs and feet so it can hold your hand as the two of you go for a stroll through the park on your way to the big match at the tennis courts. Most of the time, the sillier the notion is to an adult the more the kids like it.
To the run of the mill adult, it seems incredulous that a child, who knows, there is no such thing as flying horses, would insist that a horse who is flying with a few children on his back, looks ridiculous and is flying wrong. Children expect a flying horse to point his front legs out straight in front of him and stretch out his back hooves, flying similar to the way superman flies. His mane and tail should be blown straight back from the wind pressure. All the silliness and make believe must be anchored in reality or the kids won’t accept it.
Children from all walks of life, grow up dealing with problems and pressures, some real and some imagined. Children want to see how their beloved superficial characters react when confronted with similar problems that they or their friends or family members face. Even if your story’s main character is a blob of clay with a nose eyes, ears and a mouth to speak with, children will pay attention if the story line relates to their world. Add some little blobs of clay for children and a mommy blob of clay who is hanging up her apron because she has to leave for her night job and you got the beginning of a serial kids’ story.
To write a great child’s tale the kid’s author must step into the world of children. Do you get what a child finds funny? Can you emphasize when a child is embarrassed, angry or heart broken. These are the things you must write about, whether your tale is set in a future society where everyone can fly or your characters are a mix between children and walking, talking jungle animals and inanimate objects come to life. Children of today grow up fast. Hours and hours of television expose them to violence, sex, crass humor. You must compete with TV, video games and the internet for their attention. Now more than ever it is important to write something of value if you hope to lure them away from the new 60 inch wide screens.
Adults still look at books and reading as a learning experience for their charges, even if your stories are about Princes and Princesses in exotic make believe fairytale lands. Succeeding in children’s literature today, takes as much if not more serious dedication and practice as successfully writing for any adult literary genre. The children’s author needs to be forth righteous, honorable and trust worthy as well as imaginative. Children’s stories must be penned with love and integrity. A successful children’s author must love writing and also love children.