Notes

Writing Children's Books For Dummies
From Writing Children's Books For Dummies, 2nd Edition by Lisa Rojany Buccieri, Peter Economy
As you explore writing children's books, you enter a different world, one filled with book formats — from board books to young adult novels — and a whole different set of rules to follow and restrictions to heed for each. If you want to become a successful children's book author, you need to know how to edit yourself and how to promote your book.

Tips for Editing Your Children's Book
At some point after you have a solid draft of the children's book you're writing, you must begin the editing process. Here's a quick overview of the salient points to keep in mind.

If a sentence doesn't contribute to plot or character development, delete it.

Make sure your characters don't all sound the same when they speak.

If you have a page or more of continuous dialogue, chances are it needs tightening.

When changing place or time, or starting a new scene or chapter, provide brief transitions to keep your story moving smoothly.

Make sure to keep the pace moving from action to action, scene to scene, chapter to chapter.

If you find yourself using a lot of punctuation (!!!), CAPITAL LETTERS, italics, or bold, chances are your words aren't working hard enough for you.

When you can find one word to replace two or more words, do it.

Be careful with changing tenses midstream. If your story is told in the past tense, stick with it throughout. If present tense, then stick with that. Be consistent.

Watch excessive use of adjectives, adverbs, and long descriptive passages.

After you choose a point of view for a character, stick to it.

If your character hasn't changed at the end of your story, chances are he isn't yet fully fleshed out.

If your character talks to himself or does a lot of wondering aloud, he needs a friend to talk to.

If you're bored with a character, your reader will be, too.

If you can't tell your story in three well-crafted sentences: the first one covering the beginning, the second one alluding to the climax (the middle), and the last one hinting at the ending — you may not have a complete story yet.

If you find yourself overwriting because you're having trouble expressing exactly what you mean, sit back and say it aloud to yourself, and then try again.

Tips for Writing Books for Younger Children
The rules for writing books for younger children (ages 2–8) are different from the rules for writing books for middle graders or young adults. Keep the following 12 commandments in mind. (As with most commandments, you may be able to dance around one or two, but you'd better have a good reason.)

It's okay to be different from others, but it's not easy.

Bad guys never win.

The good guy must come out on top in the end.

Extremes rule (the world is black or white, not both — most children ages 10 and under can be quite literal).

All characters should be drawn with both good points and weaknesses. No one is just one or the other — even the good and the bad guy.

It's fine for something to be scary, but it can never touch a little kid's body.

Little people can triumph over big people.

Poopoo, peepee, tushies, passing gas, burping, underwear — they're all hilarious.

Turning things upside down is funny — as long as those things make sense in the first place right side up.

Magic can occur as a logical reaction to an action.

Regular children can perform extraordinary feats.

Regular children can go on implausible missions sanctioned (or not) by adults in charge.

What Not to Do when Writing Children's Books
Just as writing children’s books has a unique set of rules to follow (you know that the good guy or gal always wins), there are some things you should never do — never! Don’t even consider doing any of the following in a book for children:

Write books that preach or lecture.

Talk down to children as if they're small, idiotic adults.

Write books that have no real story (nor a plot with beginning, middle, end).

Use art that is totally inappropriate for the story or vice versa.

Pack picture books with lots of text.

Pack nonfiction books with too much text and too few visuals.

Create characters who are boring or unnecessary to the development of the story.

Create main characters who have a problem they don't solve themselves or who don't change throughout the course of the story.

Tell instead of showing by using narrative as a soapbox.

Anthropomorphize animals or use alliterative names (Squishy Squirrel, Morty Mole — Wretched Writer).

How to Promote Your Children's Book
After you've written a children's book, you have to sell it — you didn't spend all that time and effort just to entertain yourself, did you? Try to accomplish one of the following tasks each week to help your labor of love blossom to life in the marketplace:

Add new content weekly to your website or blog to keep it fresh.

Explore live readings in bookstores, schools, or libraries.

Submit your book for an award or prize—or ask the publisher to do so.

Consider creating a trailer for your book and an interview with yourself to post on YouTube.

Use Facebook, Twitter, and other social media to keep fans updated on professional news related to your book or your writing (or illustrating).

Age Levels for Children's Books
If you're writing a children's book, it pays to be familiar with how publishers classify them. Publishers generally assign age groups for readers of various formats as set out in the following list:

Board books: Newborn to age 3

Picture books: Ages 3–8

Coloring and activity (C&A) books: Ages 3–8

Novelty books: Ages 3 and up, depending on content

Early, leveled readers: Ages 5–9

First chapter books: Ages 6–9 or 7–10

Middle-grade books: Ages 8–12

Young adult (YA) novels: Ages 12 and up or 14 and up

It's okay to veer off a year or so in either direction when assigning a target audience age range to your work.

Outline Tools to Structure Your Children's Book Plot
By Lisa Rojany Buccieri and Peter Economy from Writing Children's Books For Dummies, 2nd Edition
Structure is simply the bones of your children's story upon which are laid the skin and organs: drama, pacing, effective transitions, and strong point of view. You hear a lot of talk about structure in writing circles, and it’s true that structure is the key to a good story.

To give a story structure means you tie in your story’s beginning, middle, and end with characters who move it forward with action and a plot that proceeds apace.

You can turn your story’s plot structure into an outline pretty easily. Outlining your story allows you to pinpoint what your main character wants, what she does to get it, and how conflict intermittently challenges her.

If other characters become important, you can expand your outline to include them too. Regardless, your outline becomes a repository for the who, what, when, where, why, and how of each of the three parts — beginning, middle, and end — of your story. From there, you can easily flesh out the details.

Plot and character are closely intertwined because the protagonist drives the plot. Character and plot are so connected that they proceed neck and neck on the same schedule. When the plot hits a bump, so does the main character (or vice versa). When the conflict in the plot approaches resolution, so does the main character’s desire.

And when the ending results in a changed character and a wrapped-up plot, the reader feels like the journey was worth it.

Sometimes visualizing what plot structure looks like is challenging, even with an outline. Fortunately, if you have a character arc created for your main character, you already have a plot visual handy.

Create a step sheet
A step sheet (also referred to as an action outline) is a useful tool for keeping track of plot points. It can also help you keep track of beginning/middle/end, pacing, and character development. You can make your step sheet as detailed or as thinly written as you feel is necessary.

The idea is to create a simpler outline to really visualize your story’s plot structure. You can follow your step sheet with a detailed outline if you choose.

Here’s what the beginning of a step sheet may look like, using the story of Cinderella as an example. A lot of the steps in the plot have been cut off and just a few key examples are left for you to look at. Your step sheet, on the other hand, should have a bullet point for every single action that takes place.

The beginning:

Plot point: A spoiled young girl’s wealthy father remarries a woman with two daughters.

Character development: Show Cinderella in action trying to befriend mean stepsisters.

Pacing: Show emotion behind growing dejection she feels.

Also at the beginning:

Plot point: The father dies.

Character development: Show Cinderella’s grief.

Pacing: Show stepmother and sisters plotting to take over house and grounds.

The middle:

Plot point: A prince holds a ball to find a bride.

Character development: Show entire town excited over event, Cinderella depressed at not being able to participate.

Pacing: Show prince in action as adventurer, romantic — a definite catch.

The end:

Plot point: The prince and the princess live happily ever after.

Character development: Show the rightness of the good guys winning.

Pacing: Slow down into final ending.

Your main character is the focal point of your step sheet, but you can add secondary characters if they affect the main plotline. Just make sure their fates are also satisfactorily wrapped up at the conclusion of the story.

Flesh out your outline
A step sheet is a bare bones outline that helps you clearly see your plot structure. Some writers like a more detailed outline so they have a sort of blueprint to write from. A more fleshed out outline can provide a separate place for you to add notes about details you want to remember to incorporate when you get to that point in your story.

It can also provide highly left-brained people with a literary to-do list, highlighting specific steps to check off once accomplished.

Outlines are organizing tools. They aren’t holy words carved in stone. If, in the course of writing fiction, you find yourself veering away into some interesting but unforeseen place, you’re allowed to follow your characters to see where they lead you.

Now suppose you choose to write your Cinderella story as a middle-grade chapter book. Now you can create a full outline of the story, starting with the journalist’s trusty six questions:

Who: Character development

What: Plot point

When: Time

Where: Setting

Why: Drama, pacing, and character motivation

How: Plot point

So the start of your outline may look like this:

Chapter 1:

Setting: A castle and its grounds.

Time: Medieval Europe.

Plot point: A spoiled young girl’s wealthy father remarries a woman with two daughters.

Character development: Show Cinderella in action trying to befriend mean stepsisters.

Supporting characters: Father, stepmother, stepsisters, house staff.

Pacing: Show emotion behind the Cinderella’s growing dejection.

Chapter 2:

Setting: Same but widens to include the town and church and burial ceremony.

Time: A few months later.

Plot point: The father dies.

Character development: Show Cinderella’s grief.

Supporting characters: Introduce Cinderella’s best friend, Jude.

Pacing: At end of chapter, show stepmother and sisters plotting to take over house and grounds.

Chapter 3:

Setting: Same castle, but show Cinderella going to town.

Time: A week later.

Plot point: The stepmother enslaves the girl, treating her badly.

Character development: Show Cinderella facing up to her tasks with good cheer, determined to survive despite the conditions.

Supporting characters: Further develop relationship between Cinderella and Jude. Show townspeople watching her demise from upper-class to working class.

Pacing: Show how stepmother begins plundering Cinderella’s father’s assets to feed her own vanity and greed.

1. Write two pages of your story and incorporate all five senses.

Adding the senses to descriptions helps show the story to the reader and makes dull passages come alive. Readers want to be involved in scenes. Using senses adds plausibility and immediacy to the story. When a passage seems flat, check that some of the senses are included.

2. Write two pages that begin with the phrase: Nobody knows this about me …

The emotional content of the manuscripts that were brought to class from this prompt showed how valuable it was. Nothing gets to the heart of emotions like confession. All the characters, even in fiction manuscripts, have things to confess.

3. Write a typical day.

Not every aspect of your story needs to be sensational. Characters are developed through typical day-to-day interactions. Readers want to draw their own conclusions about characters through action, not author’s descriptions.

4. Write a passage entirely in description, then the same scene only using dialogue.

When dialogue is included in a story, the scenes are more immediate and interesting to the reader.

5. Write your last chapter.

Where is your story going? Every story needs an ending. Knowing the ending causes you to focus on the paths you need to cover to attain the resolution of your story.