Writing a Children's Book

Lesson 8: Polishing and Editing.

W.I.P. Section. Edit and Polish Your Book.

Now you should have finished the first draft of your practice book. The length of this course doesn’t allow for any resting time, so start from the beginning and read your narrative right through. Try to read as a reader. Imagine an acquaintance has given you this computer file or typescript and asked you to read it.

What do you think? Did you enjoy the story? Did you find it interesting? Did you find the characters believable? Were you amused, or moved or impatient or bored or impressed?

What advice would you give the acquaintance that handed you this rough draft book?

If you thought it was pretty good or very good, you can probably move straight on to the second draft.

If you thought it had serious faults, see if you can work out what they are.

Graph the finished book and see if there are slow spots. See if the characters interact believably. See if their motivations are clear.

See if the challenge or problem matters enough.

See if the major scenes are “big” enough.

See if any of it seems over the top.

Possible Pressure Problem

If you find the ms disappointing, you may have had a problem with writing to a timetable, or with working under pressure or to a set of instructions.

Professional writers have to deal with all these things, but if you don’t find them congenial it doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t write children’s books. It just means that you should probably write only the kinds of books that hold a strong inspiration or appeal.

It is more difficult to sell a book that doesn’t fit in a series or imprint, but it isn’t impossible. And besides, writing isn’t always about selling or publication. Sometimes, even for those of us who write full-or part time for a living, it is important to write what we want.

It would be lovely if I could tell you that writing from the heart will always bring you publication as a reward, but it wouldn’t be truthful. Writing from the heart will bring you a reward, but it’s quite likely to be a private one. Writing to market guidelines is not a sure fire route to publication, either, but it does improve your chances.

Full time children’s book writers often alternate their jobs, writing some bread-and-butter work and some from-the-heart work each year.

The Next Step

After the read-through, you need to take the next step. Do structural editing if necessary, or go right onto second draft. When you’ve done that, polish and prune.

After that? Get yourself a nice cup of tea and sit down with a good book. You’ve earned it.

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