It’s the Writing for Children Podcast, with your host, Katie Davis. Katie’s an author and is the Director of the Institute of Children’s Literature, where, since 1969, aspiring writers have learned to write for children and get published.
Young children do not consider themselves unreasonable. They also don’t consider themselves tiny and adorable. They don’t consider their arms to be tiny, their hands to be tiny or their faces to be tiny. All of those things are adult perspectives and they grow out of adults writing about kids from the viewpoint of adults.
Does that mean you can’t write kid stories from life? Sure you can.
Listen to the show to learn more!
Reminders:
Whoohoo! Congratulations to our two winners of the podcast launch giveaway:
You'll be getting the huge package of writer's courses and products. Thanks to all who entered!
We have our ongoing writing for children contest right now with $1,300 in cash prizes. Every contest is following by an instructional webinar with the faculty from ICL. All the info is on our homepage, at the bottom.
The Institute for Writers market guides are available here and if you want your odds of getting published to improve, get either the Book Markets or Magazine Markets for Children’s Writers. Book Markets, for example, has
This week's tips are linked in the downloadable show notes:
Research: A Writer’s Best Friend and A Writer’s Worst Enemy
“I have always considered “Write what you know” one of the most useless pieces of advice a beginning author gets…”
Clean Teen Publishing
Accepts teen and new adult manuscripts.
Rainbow Rumpus
The magazine for youth with LGBT parents.
Rainbow Rumpus pays $300 per story on publication.
Another episode you might like:
Episode 002 - Three Keys To Writing Nonfiction For Children
Don’t forget to leave your questions:
The faculty of the Institute of Children’s Literature answers the podcast questions.
You can leave your question at http://www.speakpipe.com/WFC.
“My journey began with an ICL course and now I have five traditionally published books (in Christian teen fiction trilogy, middle grade fiction, and marriage nonfiction) and a cheeky little self-published picture book.”
Laura Caron Thomas, ICL graduate (Writing for Children and Teens and Writing Children’s Books)
Really? Now you want to talk about this...at the start of summer?
Whether for Christmas, Independence Day, Fourth of July, Hanukkah, or whatever, magazines are a prime spot to sell your writing for children, but you need to submit it way early! Holidays as a cultural experience are welcome at many magazines. They expand reader horizons. You can also do well with holiday crafts, recipes, and activities. These are especially welcome if they offer more of a season feeling than a tie to a specific holiday. If a treat can be shaped like a Christmas tree or a Chanukah dreidel, you can probably find an interested magazine but if it can be shaped like a snowman, a snowflake, or a snowy tree, you'll have even more takers.
Learn more by listening to this episode.
The tips in the show notes, which you can download at writingforchildren.com/006 include:
Chase’s Calendar of Events -
If you're looking to tie a promotional event to a special month, travel to a music festival halfway around the world, blog about a historical milestone or do a celebrity birthday round-up on your blog, Chase's Calendar of Events is the one resource that has it all.
Goofy Days of the Year -
Get inspiration for new stories, or tie your book into one of these funny holidays.
How to Tie Your Book Into a Holiday -
One creative way to publicize your book is to tie it to a holiday or special event. You'll be able to reach your audience on a more personal level by promotion your book alongside a holiday, theme month, or cause.
Our listener question of the week is from Angelique and she asks, "What are the key differences between writing a story for a magazine and a book? How can we tell if our story is better suited for one or the other?"
Episodes you might like: Episode 002 - Three Keys to Writing Nonfiction for Children
Episode 006 - Magazine Nonfiction That Connects
Picture books are a marriage of two totally different story telling styles. The writer tells a story in words––either prose or verse. The illustrator tells his or her own story in pictures. And the two story styles together bring something deeper and richer than either could do alone. Even though the author and illustrator usually don’t interact, the story is truly something created by both. The book at the end isn’t the author’s book or the illustrator’s book; it belongs to them both.
Listen to the episode for more info!
This week’s links and bonus links:
-Picture Book Summit 2016: The first online picture book conference.
“My pores are oozing with information and inspiration. Many thanks for all the work that went into bringing us such a wonderful conference.” ––Merry Haugen Bradshaw
-Check out the show notes for Episode 004 which includes a link to the Twitter Picture Book Pitch Fest where you can…wait for it…pitch to agents on Twitter!
-Writing for Young Children Cheat Sheet This week’s listener question is asked by Keri: “How do you get important messages across in a book for children without sounding too preachy?”
Download the show notes at writingforchildren.com/005
Reminders:
CONTEST: We have our ongoing writing for children contest right now with $1,300 in cash prizes. Check it out!
GIVEAWAY: To celebrate the launch of the show we’re having a random drawing for two $918 writers bundles!
QUESTIONS: Don’t forget to leave your questions: The faculty of the Institute of Children’s Literature answers the podcast questions. You can leave your question HERE at speakpipe.com/WFC.
Why is Episode 4 of Writing for Children called
One of the toughest things for newer writers to learn to do is create a story. A story is a specific kind of thing. It isn’t a synopsis, like the work stories you tell over the dinner table. It isn’t a vignette, like the funny story you tell of your daughter’s vocabulary gaffe. Writers aren’t born knowing what a story really is. Stephen King once wrote about his lack of success selling one of his early story attempts. He couldn’t understand why it wouldn’t sell at the time. An editor finally told him that he was a talented writer but that the piece wasn’t a story. As Stephen King came to understand stories, he agreed.
So, what is a story? How do you know if the characters and circumstances you have created come together to make a story?
Listen to learn more!
The tips in the show notes which you can download at writingforchildren.com/004 include:
Twitter Picture Book Pitch Party - Resources for Picture book Writers about Pitches, Agents, and Editors
A Twitter Pitch Party Calendar - Don’t miss a pitch party! This site has a whole calendar of pitch parties for all different genres and the appropriate hashtags for the parties.
YouTube Video on Why Writers Need Social Media
Twitter for Beginners - Specifically for writers who need help getting started on Twitter.
Our listener question of the week is from Kimberley Moran, who asks,
“How do you know when you’ve hit the right audience age range? Do you need to have kids in that age group or just read a lot of books targeted to that age?
The Institute of Children’s Literature faculty answers!
You can ask your question at speakpipe.com/wfc.
Have feedback? Leave us a review HERE on iTunes!
In this, Episode 3 of the Writing for Children podcast, we discuss
One thing children are not very forgiving of is a shallow, or poorly thought out character.
Characters who vacillate between being too babyish and too adult are common in the
manuscripts of new writers. So are generic characters with no real personality. Writing a
character, especially a protagonist, is a bit like taking on an acting role. You must truly know
the character in order to flesh it out completely.
Listen to learn more!
The tips in the show notes which you can download at writingforchildren.com/003 include:
Know What a Magazine Wants - Highlights Foundation wisdom
Naming Your Character - Character naming is important and author Susan Uhlig has some resources to help.
What's Your Character Thinking?
Have trouble knowing how to handle a character's thoughts in your story––here’s help.
Our listener question of the week is from Kimberley Moran, who asks,
“How do you know when you’ve hit the right audience age range? Do you need to have kids in that age group or just read a lot of books targeted to that age?
The Institute of Children’s Literature faculty answers!
You can ask your question at speakpipe.com/wfc.
Non fiction can sound like nonfun to a kid. (Loosely quoting Andrea Davis Pinkney at Picture Book Summit). In this episode we discuss the many wonderful things that should go into good nonfiction for children: great ideas, careful research, excitement, humor, and an understanding of your audience. But most of the elements of good nonfiction can be boiled down to three key elements: focus, vitality, and appeal.
In the show notes you'll get a link to 10 mistakes writers don't use, how to write tips, and a link to a great article that you'll want to bookmark for when you're choosing character names.
Our listener question of the week is from Robyn Campbell, who asks, "Can you explain the importance of stressed and unstressed syllables in prose picture books to help guide the rhythm. Can you explain it? (Better than I just did!)
Our ICL faculty answers!
Welcome to the first episode of Writing for Children, a show focusing on the craft of writing for children. We'll have tips and links to great resources for children’s writers, whether you write for pre-k, mg, teens, books or magazines.
The weekly downloadable transcripts are included in the show notes and have extra tips and links! There's a weekly Q&A, and if your question is featured on the show, you’ll get a gift!
If you want to be a part of the launch celebration, go to writingforchildren.com.
This week's listener question comes from Shauna, who asks, "I'm just starting out in this process and feel I have some great ideas, but just don't know where to start in the whole publishing thing. What is the first step to getting published, other than the writing itself?"
One of the Institute of Children's Literature faculty answers.
We also cover nine critique group tips and links to hot resources and info-packed sites for children's writers.
Here is what you’ll get out of this show every Friday:
It’s short, easy to consume, yet jam-packed with content If you’re writing for children. Doesn’t matter if the children you’re writing for are pre-k, elementary school age, middle grade, or YA, this is a great show for you to listen to. We’ll be focusing on craft. Some of the episodes we’ve already done
Some of the ones we have in store for you are Episode 001-Write a Children's Book What's Your Idea, 006-Holiday and Seasonal Material and coming up, 009-Creating Characters for Young Children, 010-Unusual Story Forms.
We also have downloadable show notes every week with the transcript, plus, linked tips and hard to find resources.
We even answer your writer questions in our weekly listener question of the week segment, answered by the Institute of Children’s literature faculty.
We’d love it if you’d subscribe and leave your review, too.