Writing for Children

10 articles tagged as Writing for Children

There’s definitely an extra obstacle to writing for an audience in which you and your friends/colleagues do not belong.

The other night I had a brief moment of panic. What if what I think middle grade readers will like is not what they will actually like? Just because I like reading middle grade books and I like my story does not mean that it will be loved. But I guess this is the problem all writer’s face. It just becomes a bit more complicated when you are writing for a different age group than the one you fit into.

Reading books in my genre will only take me so far. While I may think my book is on equal footing with other successful ones, what if it’s not? What if I have completely missed the mark? Eventually, I’m going to have to make sure that my book passes snuff.

Although my first draft is a ways from being reader ready, (though I’m still aiming to have it submission ready by the end of the year), I’ve realized I’m probably going to need some 9-12 year old guinea pigs. My first thought was why don’t I have any kids? It would be so much easier. Of course, this would have raised a series of other dilemmas, such as finding the time to write, something that’s hard enough without extra people vying for it.

I remember when I was in fifth grade a kid’s dad came and read us a chapter from the middle grade book the kid’s mom was writing.The story was really interesting. Since then I’ve been dying to know what happened at the end (we only got to hear a couple chapters). As far as I know, the book was never published. If anyone knows of an undersea kids adventure book by an author with the last name Adams, please let me know.

I always thought this was such a good way to reach an audience. But do you need to do this before seeking representation?

What other ways are there to reach out to the middle grade/young adult readers? Do you need a test group of readers or should you just go straight to an agent? Any thoughts?

I was reading this great blog post from the Adventures in Children’s Publishing blog and thought I would share (I’ve also had a migraine for three days, so can’t come up with anything original). The post is a summary of the Workshop on the Middle Grade Novel from this year’s SCBWI conference. It’s a really great post full of tons of things any writer of middle grade novels needs to know.

Life is all about cataloging. We are taught from a young age to sort things into groups. Apples go with bananas because they are fruit, or they go with firetrucks because both are red. Groups and order are integral to our daily lives. In my paid profession as an archaeologist, I do this on a daily basis. As authors, we too must catalog, only it is our writing that we must put into the appropriate box.

Playing the Genre Game

When I tell people I’m writing a book, the first question they ask is “what’s it about.” I find this to be a surprisingly hard question to answer, not because I don’t know what my plot is about, but because people are looking more for where your book falls in the grand scheme of the literary world. In my case, my category is not one that many people think of when they make their literary map.

I used to tell people that my book is a children’s fantasy. “How far along are you?” they would ask. Anything over 20 pages got me a weird look. “Isn’t that a bit long for a kid’s book?”

YA = Vampires, right?

So then I switched to telling people it was a young adult book, thinking the success of Twilight and other such books would have put this category on the map. Unfortunately, this almost always leads to the question “Are there vampires?”

So what am I writing? In the publishing world, its a middle grade fantasy book. But how many non-writers know what this means? How many writers know what this means? Or what any of the under-18 categories mean?

MG Defined

The basic difference in categories is the age group the book is intended for. Middle Grades tend to be aimed at the 8-12 year olds. Tween or Upper Middle Grade extends upwards to 13-14. Young Adult is intended for the 12-18 age group. And children’s books include everything below 8, and they in turn have their own sub-divisions including chapter book, picture book, etc. And of course, to correspond with these varying age groups, content and the age of the main character are also affected by the above categories.

To learn more, check out MG vs YA fiction: What’s the Difference?

I’m not quite sure why, but the thought of creating an online platform to draw in MG/child readers seems a bit strange to me. I think about when I was a kid and had to pay for Internet usage by the minute. If I was looking for a new book, I asked the school librarian or perused the shelves at my local bookstore. But oh, how the times do change.

In thinking about younger siblings of my friends, they were extremely active online, joining writing communities and list serves and engaging in online role playing games from 8th grade up. And this was 10+years ago. With the advances in technology and publishers such as Simon & Schuster launching online books (see my post from July 30), why wouldn’t you be able to build an online platform for children, middle grade readers, or young adults? Who knows, it may even be easier to capture these age groups online than it is to capture the 40+ readers who did not grow up surrounded by constant access to the Internet and technology.

I just found this great post by Sarah Webb on how many words a book should be. She, in turn, got some great info from kidlit.com. The general breakdown is as follows:

• Board Book — 100 words max
• Early Picturebook — 500 words max
• Picturebook — 1,000 words max (Seriously. Max.)
• Nonfiction Picturebook — 2,000 words max
• Early Reader — This varies widely, depending on grade level. I’d say 3,500 words is an absolute max.
• Chapterbook — 10,000 words max
• Middle Grade — 35,000 words max for contemporary, mystery, humor, 45,000 max for fantasy/sci-fi, adventure and historical
• YA — 70,000 words max for contemporary, humor, mystery, historical, romance, etc. 90,000 words max for fantasy, sci-fi, paranormal, etc.

You can also check out Chuck Sambuchino’s Word Count for Novels and Children’s Books: The Definitive Post

Looks like I’m closer to my target word count than I thought I was. Guess that means there will be some serious editing in the near future.

Which is better, writing in 3rd person or 1st?

I remember when I was younger my teachers told me to write in 3rd person. It’s less messy (not a sentiment I agree with, but it’s what they told me). Lately I’ve seen a lot of books written in 1st person and it’s got me wondering: will my book have less appeal if I stick to the tried and true 3rd person POV?

I recently read an article (for the life of me I cannot remember where, so my apologies) that said it is better to write in 1st person if you are writing to a younger audience. This makes the reader feel more connected to the story and like you are one of them. But there have been a lot of books written for the mg/tween/ya audience that were not written in 1st person, many of them published this year.

In an attempt to jive with my intended audience, I’ve given first person writing a chance. The problem I’ve run into is that getting an entire story to flow when told in first person is pretty tough. Not to say it isn’t possible. I’ve read many successful examples recently, but every time I try, the writing seems forced. So after much perusing of the Internet, I’ve come to the following conclusion: write in whichever style you are most comfortable with. You writing will flow better and your reader will be engaged because you were engaged.

To see page one of my novel, written in 3rd person, check out my writing excerpts page.

The next best thing to attending the SCBWI (Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators) Conference is reading the conference blog. One blog post caught my attention today. It is an interview with Carolyn Mackler on Creating Characters That Come to Life. In the interview, Mackler stresses the importance of:

  • Thinking about your characters quirks – what makes them special? Does your character twirl his/her hair when nervous? Does he/she trip a lot? Is your character prone to worrying?
  • Reading your books/story out loud so you can hear your characters – the way a character speaks says a lot about who the character is
  • Research – talk to real life people who share traits similar to your character’s. If you’re writing a nurse, talk to a nurse.
  • Imagine what your character’s closet looks like.

The third point was probably my favorite. Usually I try to imagine what a character’s bedroom looks like, but a closet is even better. While a bedroom is private space, people do occasionally wander into them. A closet, though, is completely private space. Are the clothes organized by season and/or color? Does your character use hangers or is everything piled on the floor? Perhaps a secret alter is hidden away in the closet, or a stalker collage? Maybe it is so crammed with things that the door barely opens, like that wonderful scene in Mary Poppins when everything comes spewing out of the closet as the door slams shut (or did I imagine that scene). A closet can reveal so much about a character, bringing that character from words on a page to a living, dynamic being that your readers can engage with.

What questions do you ask about your character to gain insight into his/her life?

In my attempts to enter the minds of kids, I’ve been spending a lot of time perusing children news sources, which are surprisingly abundant. One recent find was an article in National Geographic Kids, Beelzebufo: A Giant of a Find. Talk about great inspiration. After all, what’s cooler than a frog the size of a beach ball?

In other news, a bear in New Hampshire ‘rescued’ a stuffed bear being held captive by humans. Read about it here.

Finally, a boat made out of plastic crossed the Atlantic.

You’ve gotta love the inspiration you can get from bizarre happenings in the world.

Is it wrong to make my overweight characters evil and mean? Is this playing into stereotypes? Is this too much of a cliché? Does this teach children to view overweight people negatively? So often with writing it becomes difficult to see past the works of those whose footsteps we walk in so that we can forge our own path. I worry that I will inadvertently play into the stereotypes created by my predecessors, and that my work will suffer as a result.

Kids Come in Every Size

Certainly obesity is something that shouldn’t be encouraged in children, but children who are overweight, or those with body issues, may become more self-conscious about their weight if characters physically similar to them are villanized in stories. Equally, the kids who would pick on overweight children may feel their behavior is justified through the negative portrayal of overweight characters in books.

The Harry Potter series instantly jumps to mind when I think about negative portrayals of overweight people. Dudley is fat, unintelligent, and a bully. Malfoy, on the other hand, while evil, is intelligent and conniving. He is also thin.

Stereotyping Obesity

There are many other children’s books that also portray overweight characters in a negative light. Of course, overweight characters are equally portrayed as jovial, yet simple. Rarely do you see a normal, run-of-the-mill overweight character. Rarely do you see an overweight hero (one of the refreshing things about Disney-Pixar’s UP).

But would we want to write an overweight hero? Aren’t we trying to encourage weight loss and exercise? Do we want children to associate being overweight with being dimwitted and/or mean? Or are we inadvertently excluding an increasing population or readers? According to the CDC, 17% of children in 2006 were obese. This is double the amount found in 1980. With these numbers rising, maybe we should not treat obesity in such a negative way. Certainly we can show an overweight character struggling with their weight, or facing obstacles they would not face were they more fit (again to reference UP : Russell faced obstacles brought on by his lack of fitness), but to make every overweight character less than the fit characters may not be the best message to send children.

Books on writing – you walk into the bookstore and there sit shelves and shelves of books, all promising to make you a better writer. Sitting for hours on the floor of the bookstore, you feel like you are accomplishing something as you peruse the content of book after book. Then you decide on one or two and as you pay for them, a warm feeling washes over you. This book will be the one that works. This book will provide you with the secrets you need to succeed.

Weeks go by and you have yet to finish reading the book, or finish much of anything else. Slowly you begin to realize that this book was not the cure to your writer’s block. It did not provide you with the secret to quitting work so that you could find the time to write. It did little more than provide you with a couple weeks worth of a false sense of accomplishment.

Not all writing books, though, are created equal. For Christmas, I got a new writing book. Whereas the others were how-to writing books full of inspirational stories and writing prompts, this one is nothing more than a reference. As an aspiring children’s book writer (grades 5/6), I felt that Mogilner & Mogilner’s Children’s Writer’s Word Book, 2e would be different than the other books. This book does not claim to provide some secret to success. Rather, it is a thesarus set up to help writers choose appropriate words for young audiences. Writing for adults, any word that naturally comes to my mind should be at the appropriate reading level. Writing for children, though, its hard to say. Looking back on my childhood, I like to think that I knew all the words then that I know now. But deep down, I know that this is not the case.

This book also provides information about what subjects children learn in school at various ages. I must say I was extremely relieved to see that environmentalism (the underlying theme of my novel), was cited not only as one of the big topics from 5th grade on, but also as a topic that will continue to be published for years to come.

In addition to this book, I have also found Karen Weisner’s First Draft in 30 Days to be equally useful. While I have always resisted outlining, her outlining techniques have really helped me to work out some tricky plot points, such as how to end my novel and who the protagonist will be. I was also able to work in some really good subplots. Now all I have to do is sit down and turn those outlines into stellar prose!

Books on writing may be the procrastinator’s best friend, but there are a few gems out there that can really aid one’s writing.