Writing a Children's Book

Lesson 7: Climax and Ending.

Strong Writing.

When you come to write your climax, use your strongest writing. Use strong, direct verbs, cut the waffle and make events clear and easy to understand.

Make sure your protagonist(s) can be involved in the thick of the climax. If the climax takes place in a battle zone, a natural disaster area or a confrontation with powerful enemies, make sure your protagonist has a role.

Remember, even in broad-canvas novels, it is the personal stories that matter. A ten-year-old can’t rescue an entire group of people from a flood or a bushfire, but s/he can salvage a pet, a small sibling’s favourite toy or a treasured photograph. An eight-year-old can’t possibly face down five twelve-year-old bullies terrorising a friend, but s/he can find the fortitude to fetch an adult.

Don’t gloss over the climax in a bridging sentence or so. Some writers dislike writing dramatic scenes, and so finish one scene with the protagonist facing apparent disaster and begin the next one with disaster averted. If you can’t (or don’t wish to) produce a full-blown dramatic scene in real time, you must at least describe it in retrospect, or in dialogue.

Keep the level of drama pitched to suit the level of your readership. The scene in “Trinity Street” where Pris pursues Tell with the burning brand would be too graphic for a JCB.

Keep the level of drama pitched to suit the genre and tone of your book. A light-hearted comedy romp can be exciting, but it shouldn’t suddenly turn tragic at the climax.

Notice the reassuring tone in the climactic scene in “The Orange Outlaw”. Ruth Rose confronts the villain, but the most he does is grumble and sneer. It would have been completely off-tone for this story if he had grabbed Ruth Rose and held a knife at her throat.

Fantasy, science fiction and historical novels sometimes call for harsher situations than you might put in a contemporary children’s book. Societies differ in different genres, and in some fantasy or historical contexts a twelve-year-old protagonist might be functioning autonomously. If evil is abroad your characters might need to fight it with swords or guile or any other means. How much violence or pain or controversial behaviour you include depends partly on the level, partly on genre, partly on tone and partly on specific publishers.

When I was writing a fantasy adventure for readers of nine or so, my editor said my boy-knight could not fight the dragon with a sword or spear. I had to think up another means of combat. In a YA novel, I was asked to punish the villains rather than letting them escape. In a YA novel a scene where the teenaged heroine detested her stepfather’s habit of watching three news broadcasts was excised. You really never know what an editor will allow or want removed or rewritten.

Here is a short passage from "Candle Iron", a “young” YA novel. I was doubtful that an editor would allow my heroine to practise self-mutilation, even for a good reason, but the scene was passed without comment. The book won an award, and no one has ever objected to the scene.

From "Candle Iron"

“With a rush, she brought her arm down hard on the glowing metal.

The pain was worse than anything she had ever imagined. Worse than a beating, worse than the slash of a dagger. The hiss of singeing flesh was as sickening as the smell.

She might have screamed, but the breath was driven from her lungs with the shock, and her throat seemed to be closing.

Gritting her teeth, sick with pain, she lifted her arm from the candle-iron and stared at the livid white lily-shaped sear-mark on the flesh of her arm. Already the skin was crinkled, the crimson showing through.

'Now, take my memory if you can!' she whispered. “

  1  2  3  4  5  6  7