Writing a Children's Book

Lesson 4: Shaping and Pacing.

Unwritten Rules about Subjects.

One of the most difficult aspects of writing for children is learning and understanding the unwritten rules about subjects and ideas, themes and attitudes. At every level you will find yourself running up against “rules” you didn’t know existed.

To understand this, there are things you need to know.

(1) You are writing books for children or teenagers, but most of the time you are selling books to adults.

Editors are adults. So are agents and publisher/financers. Booksellers are adults. So are reps. So are librarians, teachers and parents and most reviewers.

Teenagers and children might buy their own books, but even then they can buy only those books that have filtered through the fine mesh of adult choice.

(2) Fashions in books change. Favourites of your own childhood are almost certainly out of date. You need to write for the current generation.

Be especially wary of writing stories where everyone is nice and has a good time.

(3) Some publishers don’t like specific settings and prefer you to set stories in Everytown. It’s worth checking out other books published by that company to see if this is likely to be one of its “rules”.

(4) Modern writers for children are no longer banned from writing about subjects such as birth and death, divorce, neglectful parents, illness, cruelty, racism and (up to a point) sex. However, there are new (and mostly unadmitted) bans in place.

Just as the world of medicine beat smallpox and got AIDS instead, so the new batch of writers can be disallowed from writing about some forms of morality. The pendulum swung back from the casual sexism and ageism of the 1960s, to the terror of the 90s at the bare idea that a female parent might cook a meal or that a grandfather might prefer to sit in the garden rather than kick a football and sail a yacht.

The pendulum is still swinging, and you must try to anticipate its current and future arcs when writing for children.

(5) Another pendulum problem is what you might call counter-elitism. Some people in the book world are so against the idea of publishing books that might seem elitist that no character is allowed to harbour much in the way of traditional ethics or to enjoy activities such as ballet or horse riding that are available to only a few.

Writing style can also be homogenised with an easy-to-read structure that can sometimes lead to bland and forgettable books. It doesn’t have to be like that, but it can be.

(6) Subject matter that is suspect in PB or JCB, RS and in some SCB includes; befriending strangers, activities such as scouting, admiration of teachers, camping without parents, sharing food, some forms of fantasy, Christmas, Easter, witches, ghosts, swearing.

The reasoning behind some of these unadmitted bans is clear.

No one wants to encourage children to indulge in risky or dangerous behaviour.

No one wants to encourage elitism or segregation.

No one wants to offend or alienate the large numbers of people who disapprove of some forms of fantasy.

What makes much of this difficult for writers is that sometimes publishers ignore their own (or others') “rules” and publish books that break the rules. Sometimes these books do very well, which makes the other writers, who have been disallowed from following the same paths, feel put-upon.

It is very galling for authors whose books about wizards have been rejected on the grounds of “the rules” to see other authors making a very good living out of —books about wizards!

There is nothing you can do about any of this, but it does pay to be aware of the problem subjects before you waste your time and the publisher’s by submitting the wrong ms in the wrong place. In other words, don’t put a gun in your character’s hands. You’ll only shoot yourself in the foot.

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