Writing a Children's Book

Lesson 1: Writing for Children

W.I.P. Section. Basic Plot/Genre.

In every lesson in this course, I will include a W.I.P. Section like this one. This is a separate part of the lesson written especially for those students who want to start writing a children’s book immediately. Not all students will want to use this section yet, but I suggest you do read it through. It might come in useful later, and there will be some information and advice in the w.i.p. sections that might not be offered elsewhere in the course.

The first thing you need to do is to decide what you want to write about.

You may already have an idea, a storyline or one or more characters in mind.

You might have the children's book manuscript you have started or written to first draft form already.

You might also have a manuscript you have completed, but which you have not yet been able to place, or about which you are not confident.

Whether you are at any of these stages, or have not yet reached any of them, you can adapt the following instructions and make them work for you.

Most writers who want to write a children's book, have a pretty specific idea of what kind of book they prefer. It doesn't matter where you start, although some levels and some genres are easier to sell than others.

For the purpose of this course, I'm going to provide instructions for writing a short novel. This novel will be made up of five chapters, and it can be at any level except picture book. Generally, books for the SCB and Y.A. levels tend to be much longer than those at the JCB and RS levels, but the structure of a novel remains surprisingly the same, no matter which level it occupies.

If you elect to write an JCB or RS for this exercise, it is possible that you might end up with a manuscript of publishable standard. If you choose one of the others, it would be difficult to market, because it will be shorter than most editors would expect. Don't let this prevent you from choosing the level you prefer, because the object of this exercise to to learn how to structure and complete a children's book.

Before you make your final choice of level, you should look at the idea, storyline or characters you hope to use, and make sure these are suited to the level you prefer. A well-known rule of thumb is the most young readers prefer to read about characters their age or a little older. Therefore, if you plan to write and JCB, with putative readers of seven or eight years old, you should probably make your major characters somewhere between seven and nine. Characters in a SCB should probably be 11, 12 or 13, or characters in a Y.A. can be anything from 13 to 19 or 20.

It is quite possible that be genre of your story is inherent in the idea. Some ideas, as we saw when looking at "Trinity Street", can span two or more genres or some genres. Despite this, most children's books fall mainly into one genre, and it is probably worth deciding which it is.

Once you have decided on your age level and genre, you should begin by writing a proposal. This proposal is not for sending to an editor. It is a writing tool for you. The great enemy of most writers is hazy thinking, or imperfectly formulated ideas. You need to have a very clear idea of what kind of book you're writing before you start.

To write your proposal, follow this simple formula.

Begin with the words:

"This book is an (insert AGE LEVEL) novel in the (insert GENRE) genre.

It is about (insert CHARACTER, including name and age) who wants/doesn’t want/fears (insert CONFLICT or OBJECT) because (insert MOTIVATION).

To avoid/achieve (insert OBJECT or GOAL), s/he (insert ACTION), which results in (insert RESULT).

After this, s/he (insert ACTION) which results in (insert CLIMAX).

In the end, (insert END or RESOLUTION).”

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