Know your audience. This sage advice is appropriate for all writers and, in particular, authors of children’s books. “Children” is a broad concept, representing a wide range of readers from birth to young adulthood.

In order to communicate clearly so readers will enjoy and understand the story, we have to recognize the differences in age groups. The writing should be appropriate for the age group of the target audience. Emerging skills and changing interests of children require different writing for different ages.

Nancy Kelly Allen is the author of fiction and nonfiction picture books, including Happy Birthday: The Story of the World's Most Famous Song, Trouble in Troublesome Creek, and the Little World Math Concepts series. See all her work at www.nancykellyallen.com. For more information on writing for different age groups, see The CBI Challenge, a step-by-step writing course on The CBI Clubhouse.

Before writing the first word, determine the age group of the reader. Understanding the interests and abilities of the audience helps us adjust our message of what we say and how we say it. We should also consider the interests of the age group so we can develop a character with which the reader can identify. Younger children respond to child-centric books and to concepts reflecting their life experiences. Most kids like to read about characters their same age or slightly older. Boys like to read about male main characters and girls will usually read books with either male or female characters.

Toddlers are concrete learners. They explore books to learn about the world around them and accept the information at face value. Concept books with the themes of counting, colors, and objects are appropriate. Bedtime stories and books about family and animals are favorites, as well. Toddlers enjoy picture and novelty books (board books, cloth books, flap books, and pop-up books). Most of these books, such as The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle, have bright colors, few words, and illustrations that are easily recognizable. Read more

Probably the most oft-asked question a fiction writer has to answer is “Where do you get your ideas?” Along with writer friends, I have struggled to answer it and, occasionally, struggled to find ideas. Even the most experienced writer can find the creative well dry.

So, WHERE do we get ideas for a short story, a picture book, a first chapter book, or a full-length novel?

The answers are as varied as writers themselves.

Let me share with you some suggestions that I and other writers have tried.

Journaling. If you don’t keep a journal, start. If you already are writing in a journal, look to it for things that are important to you. Chances are you will find ideas right there among your own words.

Read the phone book. Or a “name your baby” book. Sometimes a name can ignite an idea. Discover the origin of the name, what it means, when it became popular. Ask yourself what kind of person an “Alex” or a “Byran” would be.

Imaginary dialogue. Do you remember how you used to play “make believe?” Revive that pastime. Pretend that you are an eleven-year-old girl and are having a conversation with a friend. Write down everything you and your “friend” say to each other. Perhaps you decide to be a six-year-old boy dealing with the death of his mother. The possibilities are limited only by your imagination.

Eavesdrop. I have put this forth before as a way to improve crafting dialogue. Eavesdropping is also a great way to pick up ideas. Hang out at a fast-food place. Visit the playground. Pick a spot at the mall, bring some snacks and a notebook, and prepare to be entertained.

Become a news junkie. Newspapers and magazines are a great place to find germs of ideas. I based one of my romances on a small article I found in the back page of our local paper. The article told of the transplanting of the gray wolf in selected areas of Colorado and the controversy it roused between ranchers and naturalists. Advertisements in magazines and on television can also spark ideas. Marketing people are experts on what children, teens, and young adults are interested in.

Tune in to social networking. Listen to what others are talking about. Pay attention to how people communicate with each other.

Volunteer at your children’s schools. If you don’t have children in school, volunteer anyway. You can’t help but pick up on what is current among children when you listen to their banter and conversations.

Make nice with a teacher and/or librarian. These individuals are on the forefront of working with children. They hear and see everything. They can steer you away from subjects that have been overdone and give you a fresh set of eyes from which to evaluate ideas..

Check out the calendar. Look at upcoming holidays. Does the memory of a Christmas past stir a memory within you that you can turn into a story? What about the Fourth of July? Can you picture yourself when you were a kid staying up far past your bedtime, waiting for the fireworks to go off? What about Labor Day? Did your family take a trip before school started? Tap into those memories and the emotions they produce. Then use them as a platform for a story.

Brainstorm. Do you belong to a writers’ group? Suggest a brainstorming session. (The other members will thank you as they are probably struggling to find story ideas as well.) Listen to the ideas of others; contribute some of your own. The only rule is that no idea is treated with ridicule.

Make a list and check it twice. Make a list of things that interest you, including your hobbies. Do you collect dolls? Do you like to hike in the mountains? Do you volunteer at an animal shelter? Find the core of that interest and ask yourself why you find it fascinating. Choose a character who would share that interest and start writing.

Finding ideas is much like going to a garage sale. You have to sift through a lot of junk before finding a treasure. When you discover that treasure, you will feel a zing of excitement like no other. Your job as a writer is to be aware of the world around you and then to write about one small element of that world with sensitivity, humor, and compassion.

Jane McBride Choate is the author of 32 books. Her latest is Larrabee's Luck from Avalon Romance. Read an interview with Jane at Avalon Authors.

I was recently reminded that the simplest writing tips still bring the best results. I stumbled across a blog by Carolyn Jess-Cooke, an Irish writer living in England whose first adult novel, The Guardian Angel's Journal, was just published in the UK, Australia and New Zealand. I was impressed by how this young writer relies on tried-and-true techniques for getting the juices flowing. Her blog post "How You Are Being Massively Productive by Doing Absolutely Nothing" shows us that creativity occurs in the moments when we least expect it. Her article "How 1 Dollar Could Make You a Bestselling Author" on the Guide to Literary Agents blog underscores the age-old writing practice of keeping a notebook available at all times to capture those fleeting inspirations. In a high-tech world, it's nice to remember that low-tech still works.

logical construction – A term used by editors and others that refers to a manuscript’s adherence to logic. In other words, logical construction is the quality that makes a manuscript make sense to the reader throughout. Samples of illogical construction would include characters that do not follow their own moral system throughout the book, actions by a character that do not make sense in the book’s world, and effects of an action that do not ring true.

From PUB SPEAK: A WRITER’S DICTIONARY OF PUBLISHING TERMS

Logical construction touches on almost every aspect involved in crafting good fiction. Many times, when a reader is pulled out of a manuscript, it’s because an action, thought or piece of dialogue they’ve just read doesn’t make sense within the context of the work. This is known as a logic problem, and can be easily fixed.

Character Building

Part of character building is mapping out your character’s moral code. For example, you might have a character that never lies, whether that means that he’ll get in trouble or others will. He is so honest, his classmates tease him with the name “Honest Abe.” He’s actually become unpopular because teachers know that if they ask Honest Abe a question, he’ll tell the truth, to the detriment of his classmates.

Logic Problem:

What if half-way through the novel, Honest Abe lies about eating a cookie without reason?

Fix:

Is it necessary to the plot that Honest Abe lie about the cookie? Does Honest Abe have to lie in order to achieve his ultimate goal?

If so, then you need to show a gradual change in Honest Abe’s moral system, so that by the time he lies about the cookie, it rings true to the reader. Maybe something happens and the boy’s honesty creates a much more serious consequence than just extra homework. Maybe he sees that people around him are benefiting greatly by their lies. Perhaps there’s a combination of factors and the cookie is the last straw.

But, if it’s not necessary to the plot that Honest Abe lie, then have him tell the truth. Keep his morality system intact, in order to stop the reader from questioning that one small lapse in logic.

Narrative Arcs

One of the common problems I’ll see in a manuscript is a character who has been trying to achieve a certain goal for the length of the novel, and then when they have the option to achieve it, they decide to do something else instead. Logically, it doesn’t make sense for a character to choose not to achieve their goal in the easiest manner possible. For example, let’s say you have a character who has been trying to defeat a robotic villain throughout the work, and the villain gives them an opening to disable them.

Logic Problem:

The protagonist can disable the robot by pulling out the battery while the robot is distracted, but instead decides to try an elaborate scheme that is likely to fail.

Fix:

The character needs to try the most obvious solution first. Let’s say he does try to pull out the battery, but then the robot wakes up as soon as he touches it. Then the character knows that what seems like the obvious solution requires more skill and planning. We’ve also added some tension to the plot, without bringing the reader out of the story by making them wonder, “Why not just pull out the battery?”

World Building

Whether your story is set in the real world or an imaginary world, the laws of the world must stay consistent. For example, if you have set your story in the real world and have a 150 pound adult and a 70 pound child on opposite ends of a seesaw, then the child will never be able to keep his side of the seesaw down without help, or without moving closer to the fulcrum (where the board pivots) of the seesaw. The laws of physics must apply in the story in the same way that they apply in real life.

If your story is set in an imaginary world, then perhaps the laws of physics are different in that world, but they must stay consistent throughout the story. If the same situation of a mom and child on a seesaw occurred in a world where everything weighed the same, then they would be able to play without any special considerations.

Logic Problem:

If, in that world where everything weighed the same, things were described as being heavy or light, then we have a logic problem.

Fix:

If everything weighs the same, then characters wouldn’t have a concept of heavy or light. So what would they use instead to describe objects? Would size become more important? Would a new unit of measurement have to be invented, or would an old unit suddenly have more ‘weight?’ (Sorry, couldn’t resist the pun!) Eliminate descriptors that don’t mesh with the character’s world experience and think more deeply about how they would compare things in their world.

Tracy Marchini is an editorial consultant and freelance writer. She is the author of PUB SPEAK: A WRITER’S DICTIONARY OF PUBLISHING TERMS, and has been accepted for publication in Highlights. She has worked at a literary agency, as a newspaper correspondent and as a children’s book reviewer. She can be found at www.tracymarchini.com and on Twitter as @TracyMarchini.

Teaching Kids the News is a site created by two Canadian educators and a journalist, and designed to make current events and culture understandable for elementary school children. Like an actual newspaper, the site features News, Entertainment, Science, Arts, Sports, Politics, and even and ESL section where some articles are rewritten for readers just learning English. Though the local news tends to be Canadian in nature (but why not have kids in the US read about another country's happenings?), most of the current events articles are global in scope.

Check this site out if you're a teacher or parent. If you're a new writer, study it out for examples of how to make nonfiction subjects accessible to younger readers. And if you're a published nonfiction writer, this is a good example of something you can create that could tie in with your books, but also raise your online profile with teachers and parents who might not otherwise know your name.

When published authors offer advice gained from their own hard-earned experienced, it's wise to listen. And good writing is good writing, regardless of the age or genre for which you write. So when adult horror writer Stephen Graham Jones wrote "7 Things I've Learned So Far" on the Guide to Literary Agents blog, I was struck by how much of his advice could be applied to children's book writing. Here's his post, with my comments in italics:

1. Characters are most interesting when they lie. It’s when they’re the most naked, the most vulnerable, the most perplexing—the most like us. Stories need stupid decisions that, at the time, seem absolutely rational and necessary. Without stupid decisions, the world isn’t thrown out of balance, and so there’s no need for a "rest of the story" to balance it back.

Flawed heroes are one of the most difficult things for children's writers to create, because they feel their characters must always model perfect behavior for the readers. But it's much more interesting — and entertaining — to see a character get himself into trouble, and then figure how to get himself out. And isn't that really how the most important lessons are learned?

2. If you keep having to dip into the story’s past to explain the present, then there’s a good chance your real story’s in the past, and you’re just using the present as a vehicle to deliver us there. However, we cue into that charade extremely fast, and move on to another story, another book.

If a character's backstory is really so compelling that it needs to be constantly spotlighted in the present, maybe you're not starting your book in the right place. This is true for novels for all ages.

3. Don’t run down every single rabbit hole. Yes, your twenty-five-year old character has endless Kool-Aid stands and dances and family reunions behind her, all of which add texture to who she is. But, please, we don’t need to know about each and every one of them. If it doesn’t contribute directly to the end, then it doesn’t belong.

Well said. Like adults, kids want to read about the unusual details of your character, those things that impact why she's in her present situation and how she reacts to it. Anything else can be jettisoned.

4. If the main character’s not in jeopardy—physical, psychological, emotional, whatever—then you don’t have any tension, and you don’t have a story. There’s no reason for us to turn the page, as what you’re delivering us is simply a recounting of these events that happened, none of which matter, as nothing’s at stake at the character level. The story is the ups and downs, though, the near misses, the impossible obstacles, the unlikely saves, the sacrifices, the victories, the accidents.

Ditto. Conflict and tension are essential, even for picture books. Just remember that "conflict" for a four-year-old might be losing his favorite toy, whereas conflict for a teen is much more complex.

5. If you haven’t manipulated us such that we’re invested in either one outcome or another, then we’re not engaged with what’s happening on the page—again, you don’t have a story. At the end of any piece of fiction, we need to have that feeling of satisfaction—not so much that this was the outcome we were rooting for, or the outcome we suspected (one of the most basic pleasures of reading is to have our expectations subverted), but that this was the inevitable thing that finally had to happen to make the rest of the story true.

It's that conflict, and that flawed character, that gets the reader invested in the story. This is just as true for kids as for adults. And the ending needs to be inevitable — not because it's predictable, but because it makes sense that the protagonist would end up there after living through and being changed by the events of the plot.

6. The only question you need to be able to answer about your story is: Why today? Why this day out of your character’s life rather than all the other days? And the answer, it’s always Because this is the day that’s breaking the rhythm, the day that’s an aberrance, the day everything can change, if the character can just walk that tightrope to the last page.

Thank you for this one, Stephen! Too many children's book manuscripts (especially picture books) feature ordinary days in the lives of the characters. We know ordinary days. What we want authors to do is show us extraordinary days, days that take the protagonist to unexpected places. That's what children want to read, and that's what book buyers pay for.

7. Making people laugh is so much more difficult than making them sad. Too much fiction defaults to the somber, the tragic. This is because sad endings are easy, in comparison—happy endings aren’t at all simple to earn, especially when writing to an audience jaded by them. But the truly great fictions, they trick you into thinking we’re heading for something dour, some big final downer, but then, at the last moment, there’s a flower in this expanse of tundra, and the main character sees it, and just leaves it there for the next person coming along, and you’ve done your job.

Yes. Humor always wins in children's books (look at The Diary of a Wimpy Kid phenomenon), but happy endings don't have to be slapstick to feel good. They can be joyful, or life-affirming, or hopeful. It's fine to take readers to dark places, but show them some light at the end so they're glad they read your book.

Editor's note: Audrey is a 13-year-old student from California who is currently working on her own novel between school, sports and choir. She's also a Contributing Editor to Write4Kids, focusing on middle grade and YA literature. If you have writing-related questions for Audrey, or want to suggest a topic for a future column, please contact Laura at Laura@write4kids.com.

Visit Audrey's new blog, Audrey Reads and Reviews, for more of her insights into YA lit.

For this blog post, I’ve interviewed Alma Alexander. Ms. Alexander has published the YA fantasy series Worldweavers from HarperTeen. Her side project is a very interesting one—she wrote a novel as a 14 year old, and she has been editing it and revising it on a website: http://heritageofclan.wordpress.com/. Visit her online at: http://www.almaalexander.com/.

Audrey: I really like the social structure of the story (with the clans and guilds etc). But, more than that, I like the world you’ve created. Do you have any advice for creating a world so thoroughly? When I read your work, I feel like there’s a bigger world out there than just the parts that you’ve written about. Any advice?

Alma: Actually there is a whole file that I created about that world (and yes, I still have that too) which delves into ALL SORTS of detail about it – most of which never ever makes it into the book/story itself. It’s what I call the Iceberg Theory of Writing – what the reader sees is only the top 5% of what there is to know, the stuff that’s above the waterline and looks pretty and spectacular. But it RESTS on all that invisible 95% that is under water, never seen. That is what provides the stability and familiarity for that 5% which appears to be floating effortlessly in mid-air.

In our own everyday mundane world that 95% can be as visible as the rest – simply because we LIVE in this world 24/7, live it breathe it hold it touch it smell it every day, and it’s deeply and utterly familiar and transparent to us. We take a huge amount of stuff for granted, simply because we KNOW that it is there. Creating a fantasy world from scratch means that you lack this built-in scaffolding, and you have to build your own. The advice you are asking for boils down to one simple thing – ALWAYS know more about your world than you let on, and then the reader will instinctively pick up on the fact that there is more to know, and therefore the world has a depth and a reality which is then comparable to our own “real” world.

Audrey: You have a lot of characters. They all seem to have totally different personalities. How do you do this? I love ensemble casts (I usually write them, but mine are mainly all teenagers), and you seem to be writing about all different social castes and ages. How do/did you figure everything out about the characters? How do/did you keep everything straight about them? When I try to do a lot of characters, I mix them up.

Alma: Hi, my name is Alma and I HEAR VOICES…

Well, that’s a simplistic way of putting it, but that’s what it boils down to, for me. I don’t so much create characters as allow them in, simply let them wander by and tell me a story, and I simply take dictation. The fact that they all have different voices stands to reason – they are all different people. I contain many many people, I contain worlds. But it isn’t something I do on a conscious level. I simply listen.

Part of the ability to write across the boundaries of class and race and age comes from the fact that I am a voracious reader. I devour books – and every book I read teaches me something which gets filed away for future reference for if and when a character who might be so VERY different from myself might need such knowledge or identity markers. If I am writing about somebody from a culture with which I am less than adequately familiar, I will immerse myself in reading about that culture until I “internalize” some of its basic ideas and beliefs – and with those, comes the voice.

A character’s voice is rooted in that character’s context and culture. These are creatures who all exist in a complex mix of relationships to the people and places in their lives, to their set of beliefs, to their faith, to their worldview, to their morality, to their physical and metaphysical address in the world in which they live. All of these things inform the way they respond to that world.

In the Clans book, for instance, I am setting up a conflict between two people who love and respect each other – who are foster-brothers – who have both grown up aristocrats in a world where aristocrats have a certain social position – but their minds and the thoughts and feelings therein are very different, and when their positions in their world are rocked by new revelations they respond in ways that will set them up as enemies in what amounts to a civil war. It is important to realize that even people who on the face of it look almost identical to one another might react very differently to the same stimulus – and once you keep this in mind, the different inner voices of these people will make themselves known to you if you listen closely. Read more

Among the many reasons would-be authors give for packing it in and giving up their dream is "I'm too old".  Nice try, but it doesn't wash.  William Steig (Shrek, Pete's a Pizza and many, many other wonderful books) didn't launch a children's book career until he was 61.  Laura Ingalls Wilder didn't publish her "Little House on the Prairie" series until she was in her 50's.

Courtesy of the Huffington Post, here's a look at some more authors who got a late start – but finished big.

And then, allow us to destroy some of your other possible excuses for calling it a day.  Here's

Five Reasons Why You Can’t Be A Writer (And Why None Of Them Are True)

Keep writing, people!

What do Dr. Seuss, Maurice Sendak, Margaret Wise Brown and Beatrix Potter all have in common? Other than being beloved authors and household names, none had children of their own. And yet that didn't stop them from creating books that children have cherished for generations.

There's a difference between having a child, and having a childlike sensibility. Simply being a parent doesn't mean you can effectively tell a story from a child's point of view. Sure, having kids can help, and if you're paying attention you'll gain valuable insight into their world. But I've read lots of manuscripts by parents and grandparents who feel it's their job to teach a lesson to the world's young ones (and their own offspring in particular, who simply won't listen when it's time to turn off the TV and do their homework). Not to mention that they have to work all five of their children's names into the book, as well as the family dog.

Personal stories don't always make for fiction that's universally appealing. There are plenty of gifted writers with loads of children, and I hope their kids appreciate the great stories Mom and Dad are telling them. But having kids doesn't necessarily give you any special writer-powers. And if you're not basing your story on your child, then you're free to change the character, send the plot in a new direction, and use every bit of your imagination. If you can do all that and be a parent too, good for you. But if you're using your childless status as an excuse for not getting published, you'll have to scratch that one off your list.

What do you think?

Have you ever looked at a shelf full of vampire novels and wondered, "Is this a trend, or is the lure of the sexy, fanged love interest here for good?" Middle grade author Laura Toffler-Corrie deftly defines the difference between a trend and a writing style in her article "Examining Trends vs. Style in Children's Books" on the Guide to Literary Agents blog. She also advises ignoring the former and following the latter, especially for new authors. Check it out.