A Few Basics About Writing for Children
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
You may have read countless stories for children, but unless you understand certain things about this readership and the markets for this audience, you might have trouble writing for children.
Follow these tips:
1) Stories for adults often include the viewpoints of many (or all) of the characters. Today’s stories for children (particularly magazine stories) are generally told from the viewpoint of a single point of view character. Learn to set up your story, right from the start, with a clear sense of this viewpoint character, and maintain only this character’s P-O-V throughout the entire story.
2) In stories for children, the point of view character should be faced with some BIG problem right at the start of the story. Then, this character should struggle and struggle with this problem (things keep getting worse and worse) until he/she is finally able to solve (or at least resolve) the problem by the end of the story. Start the problem on page one!
3) Your viewpoint character should change somehow by the end of the story – as a result of all the struggle he/she went through trying to solve his/her big problem. Think of the story as a journey this character is going to take. At the end of the journey he/she is a changed person as a result of this journey. Many magazine editors like to see a twist at the end of the story, too. For example, a character starts out with a problem, thinking there is something he really, really wants, and he’ll do most anything to get it. But, by the end of the story, he gets something else and comes to realize that what he first thought he wanted wasn’t really very important. In fact, it wasn’t what he really wanted after all.
4) Children don’t usually like to read about adults. They want to read about other kids. Therefore, give adults very minor roles in any stories for kids most of the time. Also, avoid having parents or other well-meaning adults step in to “save the day” by solving the child’s problem. Notice that in most stories for kids the parents are in the background or the kids don’t even seem to have any parents.
5) When writing for children, try to “sound” like a kid! If your viewpoint character is 12 years old, then try to sound like a 12-year-old kid, even in the narrative parts of the story.
6) Children’s Magazine editors generally avoid buying stories that include elements of danger, so make sure the stories you submit don’t have characters carrying guns or knives in their pockets, or choking their friends. You need conflict, of course, but for young readers it needs to be fairly mild for the magazine markets since these tend to be a bit conservative.
Keep these tips in mind as you’re writing for children and you’ll be more likely to sell your work.
Visit my website for additional tips about writing for children.
Topics: Uncategorized |