Children’s Writing Web Journal

Unlike their parents, when kids look for advice they don’t usually turn to Oprah. Most kids get everyday, self- improvement type information from children’s magazines. If you’re brimming with ideas for articles on how to teach kids to help themselves or develop new skills, here are some tips:

* Let the audience and age group guide your topic. Each magazine has a different focus–some are health-related, others might concentrate on the activities of a specific organization. Make sure your advice fits with the magazine’s editorial slant. Also, pay attention to the age of the targeted audience. An article on why spreading gossip is a bad thing is relevant to teen and preteen readers. A piece about being a responsible pet owner could appeal to any age group, depending on how it’s written. So check out potential markets before you sit down to write.

* Don’t preach. You’re giving advice, so it’s tempting to lecture or preach to the reader. Don’t. You’ll lose your audience faster than you can say Dr. Phil. Instead, acknowledge what your readers face in their lives and let them know you’re on their side. “The hard truth is, sharing DNA with your siblings is no guarantee that you’re always going to like each other,” is a better approach to an article about resolving sibling rivalry than, “Brothers and sisters are supposed to love each other. Fighting just drives your parents crazy. Let it go!”

* Don’t try to sound “hip.” Use a normal conversational tone when writing advice for kids, as if you’re speaking to agroup of them in person. Don’t throw in slang or pop references unless they routinely roll off your tongue. On the other hand, opening your article with an anecdote, unusual statement, or humorous question can be an attention- grabber. Just make sure those anecdotes are about other kids, and don’t begin with, “When I was your age….”

* Talk directly to the reader. This is one of those rare situations where the second person point of view works. Address the readers directly (The first time you walk into a new school, you may feel nervous. You might even think everyone’s looking at you. Don’t worry–all new students feel this way.) Put the readers right into the article so they can see how your advice can be useful in their lives.

* When possible, combine the advice with a “how-to” approach. After explaining to the readers how to make an improvement in their lives, show them. Either as part of the article or as a separate sidebar, give how-to, step-by-step instructions that can be seen at a glance. For example, if you’re writing a piece for teens on being financially responsible, you can include a how-to sidebar on finding a summer job, complete with tips for filling out applications and doing interviews.

Use other self-help and advice articles in your targeted magazine markets as templates for how you should write your article. Pay attention to style, length, and whether the information is presented in small bites or large chunks. Then unleash your best advice, and one day you too may be on Oprah!

Interested in learning how to write a book and send it to children’s book publishers? Come on over to The CBI Clubhouse for audios, videos, insider writing tips and much, much more!

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Mysteries have always been popular with middle grade readers. They are typically fast-paced stories that build self-confidence by permitting the reader to solve the crime. Simple mysteries for this age group follow a clear formula in which the author lays out clues for the reader in a predictable fashion, using escapes, setbacks and coincidence. The Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books fall into this category.

As readers become skilled at solving mysteries, they reach for books that require careful scrutiny to discern clues. Goody Hall by Natalie Babbitt and Mystery of Drear House by Virginia Hamilton and are good examples. Here are some tips to keep in mind if you choose to write mysteries for children.

* Unlike other types of children’s books, the child protagonist in a mystery does not go through major character development during the story. His or her character must be strong at the start of the book, and have qualities the reader will identify with or admire. However, one of the protagonist’s character traits (a photographic memory, for example) can be used to solve the mystery, as long as the readers know about it.

* Another difference between mysteries and other types of fiction is that in mysteries there is little or no underlying theme to the story (such as loneliness, peer pressure, etc.). The plot drives the story, and the conflict and tension is derived from what happens to the main characters from without, rather than what’s going on inside themselves.

* The child in the story need to be as smart, or smarter, than the grounups. Adults can help in certain situations in order to make the story believable, but the child must uncover the major clues and solve the case.

* The clues to the crime, as well as the crime itself, must be accessible to children in real life in order for the story to be realistic. This also helps the reader solve the mystery. A child would not know, for example, how someone could alter the brakes on a car, but he or she is most likely aware of how this was done to a bicycle.

* The reader needs access to all the clues available to the protagonist. It’s not fair for the author to withhold information.

* It helps if the author rehashes the entire crime and rounds up all the clues at the end of the story. A common method is using the protagonist to summarize the crime to another character just before solving the case. This will remind readers of the clues, and give them a better chance of coming up with the solution on their own.

Laura Backes is the publisher of Children’s Book Insider, the Newsletter for Children’s Writers. For more information about how to write children’s books, including free articles, market tips, insider secrets and much more, visit Children’s Book Insider’s home on the web at http://write4kids.com and the CBI Clubhouse at http://cbiclubhouse.com

This video explores some cool alternative methods of telling a story. If you’re struggling to add some flair to your writing, check these tips out!

If you can’t view this video properly, you can also find it here: 5min graspr Viddler blip.tv Veoh DailyMotion Sclipo YouTube

Feel free to share this video or embed on your site or blog!

Interested in learning how to write a book and send it to children’s book publishers? Come on over to The CBI Clubhouse for audios, videos, insider writing tips and much, much more!

Sure, it’s aggravating. You work tirelessly on your manuscript, revise, re-write and revise again. You send it off to publishers and get a mailbox full of rejections. Meanwhile, some pop star or ballplayer gets a big money deal to write a children’s book without lifting a finger.

Well, that’s the way the world works. No need to get down about it. Just get to work. Non-celebrities get book deals every day. Here’s how you can do the same.

Step 1: Master the Rules.

If you’re not famous, your manuscript or query letter takes the same route as the rest of the non-celebrities. It gets dropped, as part of a huge pile, on the desk of an overorked, underpaid, editorial assistant (or a freelance reader). Her job is to dig through the pile of dross and find a few nuggets of gold, and then pass them on to an equally overworked and underpaid editor. The editor then reads through the smaller pile, pulls out the submissions that catch her eye, and brings them to an editorial meeting. If the general consensus is “yes, this is a book we want to publish”, you’re on your way to partying it up with Madonna in the special “Children’s Writers’ VIP Lounge” at the Viper Room.

Buried in that timeline is a bit of bad news and a bit of good news. First the bad news: The editorial assistant weeds out up to 95% of the submissions that arrive. In other words, the vast majority of submissions to a publishing house never even make it in front of a person in a position to publish it. Why not? They may, of course, simply be awful submissions, laden with poor grammar, misspellings and hackneyed writing. They may be the obvious work of amateurs, handwritten on lined paper with childish drawings. Or, and this is where there’s some hope, they may simply get turned down because they’re the less obvious work of amateurs.

More subtle things, such as using single spacing rather that double spacing, or a manuscript whose word count is out of whack with the “norm” is sometimes all it takes for an EA to say “Beginner”. Rejection.”

So here’s the good news: simply by picking up the specific, but not wildly arcane, rules of children’s publishing, you can leapfrog over the madding crowd. When an EA or reader reads a manuscript that comes from someone who clearly knows how it’s done, they’re far more likely to give it a fair reading, and far less squeamish about passing it on to the boss.

So how do you learn the rules? Visit http://cbiclubhouse.com and have a look at the resources available there.

Step 2: Write to the Publisher’s Needs.

The problem with most aspiring children’s book writers is that they have a specific idea from which they won’t budge. To be honest, it’s usually a pretty dumb idea and, even if it’s halfway decent, chances are it’s been done many times already. Look, I know your dream is to write that book about the talking dish sponge and his sinkside pals, but put the dream on hold for a bit. The absolute best way to get published is to figure out what publishers want - and give it to them.

Here’s an example: Schools desperately need fiction and nonfiction books that integrate into curricula. Publishers, thus, are desperate to provide said books, as schools are big and dependable customers who are likely to buy directly from the publisher, giving even a better profit margin.

And you’re response to this is..? Hopefully, it’s “Hey, I’m gonna write some books that tie in with school curricula!”

This is just one example - publishers have all sorts of often unglamorous niches they need filled. How to find out? Send for their guidelines and catalog. Often, they’re quite explicit about their needs, other times you need to read between the lines of the catalog to figure it out. But the answer is usually there.

And, seriously, let’s see Brad Pitt try to write an exciting thriller about the passage of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act.

Step 3: Learn to Write a Great Query Letter.

Your query letter (used if you’re sending a few sample chapters of a longer manuscript) or cover letter (used to accompany and introduce a complete manuscript) is your chance to really earn the sale. Almost always, it’s a wasted opportunity filled with irrelevance (I’m the mother of four and I’ve always dreamed of writing a children’s book!), pleading (It would mean so much to me to see this book in print!) and ludicrous assertions (Everyone tells me I’m the next J.K. Rowling!).

A good query letter is basically this: a powerful sales letter meant to convince a publisher that it is in its best interests to publish your book. Essentially, you need to tell them that your manuscript fits their needs and will sell to their current market and will expand into new markets. Tell them, specifically, how you will be able to deliver readers (e.g. I have a weekly blog read by more than 20,000 parents and my website attracts 60,000 visitors a month) and how there is a defined need for your book and how you will reach the target customers (e.g. There are over a half million foster children in America. These children, their foster parents and foster siblings need books like mine to help make sense of their situations. I will promote my book directly to them through organizations, conferences, newsletters and websites.)

To succeed in publishing, you must strip away the romantic nonsense you’ve been brought up with and see things as they are. Children’s books aren’t published by magical elves. They’re published by business people (albeit, business people who, thankfully, often genuinely love the books they publish). Display to an editor that your book will be an artistic and financial success and you’re taking a big step in the right direction. For much more on writing a great query letter, go to http://www.write4kids.com/query.html To learn about a collection of actual query letters from children’s authors that you can use for models, go to http://www.write4kids.com/a2e.html.

Step 4: Write to an Underserved Existing Market.

Sometimes the concept of writing to a publisher’s needs can be turned on its head. Perhaps there’s a sizeable, wonderful market that no one is serving and you can convince a publisher that its just the one to serve it. It could be anything - children of interracial marriage, girls who like jazz, boys who play piano, American kids who dig the game of cricket - if there are enough of them out there and are too few books for them to read, you may very well be introducing a publisher to a potentially lucrative market.

Do your research. Talk to trade associations, government experts, owners of websites that serve specific markets or anyone else who can give you some supporting backup on the size of your target group. Search Books in Print for already existing titles that target the group. Speak with librarians and booksellers to get their viewpoint on needs. And include it all in a great query letter.

Step 5: Listen to the Pros.

There’s no need to go it alone. Take the time (and spend a few bucks) to listen to others who have made the journey. Writing conferences, workshops (visit http://wemakewriters.com for an excellent one), books and newsletters (such as Children’s Book Insider — write4kids.com/aboutcbi.html) can dramatically increase your chances of getting published by helping you avoid typical mistakes and pitfalls. An eBook such as I Wish Someone Had Told Me That: 64 Successful Children’s Authors Give You the Advice They Wish Someone Had Given Them (http://write4kids.com/wishbook.html) is a great example of this sort of instruction. Pay heed to the voices of experience!

Laura Backes is the publisher of Children’s Book Insider, the Newsletter for Children’s Writers. For more information about how to write children’s books, including free articles, market tips, insider secrets and much more, visit Children’s Book Insider’s home on the web at http://write4kids.com and the CBI Clubhouse at http://cbiclubhouse.com

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A while back, I took up karate. It’s a wonderful workout, but the biggest reason I train is I want to be a formidable senior citizen. If someone tries to grab my purse or deny my senior discount at Denny’s, I’ll be able to answer with a quick roundhouse kick to the solar plexus. By laying the foundation now, I’ll be a badass when I’m 65.

But the neatest thing about taking up karate when you’re a woman in her mid-40’s is that people don’t automatically expect it. If you’re just a casual acquaintance, you won’t know I’m working toward my black belt. And by the time I’m collecting Social Security, the possibility won’t even cross your mind. Unless you try to steal my purse.

In life most people become more complex as we get to know them. This should also be true for characters in children’s books. At a conference I recently attended, Lyron Bennett, editor for Sourcebooks Jabberwocky, called it “the slow reveal”. It means investing your characters with enough varied qualities that some can be withheld until called for in the plot.

The slow reveal is particularly important when writing a series. If J.K. Rowling had allowed Harry Potter to reach his full power as a wizard in Book 1, would fans have waited nine years and six more books to discover if he finally defeated you-know-who? But equally important is planting the seeds early on for who you want your character to become. From the beginning, readers saw Harry’s potential, and Rowling allowed greatness to surface in Harry when it was least expected. Those qualities expanded along with Harry as the series unfolded.

You don’t want to reveal everything at once in stand-alone books either. Picture books and easy readers, with their lower word counts and straightforward plots, do best with characters who have one or two surprises up their sleeve. In Peggy Parish’s classic easy reader Amelia Bedelia, the child sees that Amelia is doing a poor job on her first day as a housekeeper because she can’t understand the list her employer left her. But even before Amelia begins on the list, she whips up a lemon merengue pie. What the reader doesn’t know is that Amelia makes the most delicious pies anywhere, which eventually saves her job at the end of the book.

Doling out your protagonist’s strengths and weaknesses keeps the tension taut in a novel. In Gary Paulsen’s timeless Hatchet (ages 11-14), Brian, a city kid, is stranded in the Canadian wilderness after the his bush plane crashes, killing the pilot. Neither Brian nor the reader know if he’s got what it takes to survive on his own. Can he figure out how to start a fire? Yes, quite by accident. Can he fish? Eventually. Kill and cook a bird? How about live through a moose attack or weather a tornado? Brian evolves from reacting to his predicament and stumbling upon solutions to thoughtfully taking control of his situation. But nothing Brian does is out of character. Though he must teach himself to live in the wild, he draws upon bits of information he learned from watching TV or at school, and reserves of strength that were in him all along.

Even if you’re writing a single title, make your children’s book characters complex enough to carry on for several books, just in case. Fans loved Brian so much that Paulsen was persuaded to reprise the character in several other wilderness adventures. Picture book series (such as Mo Willem’s Pigeon books) or easy reader series like Amelia Bedelia typically grow because the protagonist’s quirks are open-ended and funny enough that readers don’t mind exploring them over and over in different circumstances.

The slow reveal works particularly well in mysteries. In this genre, the readers slowly get to know the victim (perhaps an honor student who is discovered to be running an Internet business selling test answers), and the villain (who may seem like a nice guy at the beginning of the book). Or, how about a first person narrator in any genre who appears normal and likable early on, but becomes less and less reliable as the story unfolds? Read Robert Cormier’s outstanding young adult I Am the Cheese for a superb example of a shifting first person reality. If you prefer a broader perspective, try Avi’s Nothing But the Truth: A Documentary Novel for ages 11-14, which looks at one incident from several viewpoints, gradually separating fact from fiction. So when you first breath life into your characters, don’t stop too soon. Add layers that can be exposed later on. These surprises will keep readers , whether you’re writing about a boy wizard, a demanding pigeon, or a ninja grandma.

Laura Backes is the publisher of Children’s Book Insider, the Newsletter for Children’s Writers. For more information about how to write children’s books, including free articles, market tips, insider secrets and much more, visit Children’s Book Insider’s home on the web at http://write4kids.com and the CBI Clubhouse at http://cbiclubhouse.com

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