Stories for very young children tend to come in two flavors: the story with a plot and the story with a purpose. Now, a story with a plot can also have a purpose, but if you don’t have a plot, you better have a purpose. The purpose of a very young child’s story may be to introduce a concept like counting or colors. The purpose may be to introduce the child to a moral or character-building activity like sharing or patience. The purpose may be to introduce the child to a potentially scary activity they will soon face like going to the doctor or starting school. All of these purpose things can also have a plot (and will probably sell far more easily if they do). And if the story has a plot, it probably has a single main character as well.
So let’s think a bit about that main character. Your character needs to be someone the young child can (1) relate to and (2) care about. Your main character may not be the nicest person we know. Children are actually much more forgiving about the flaws of others than we expect. Most kids know that they are not always so nice themselves––especially inside. However your reader needs to relate to the character––the reader needs to find something in the character that feels real.
Listen to the show to learn more!
Listener question of the week:
Claudia asks:
Can a long poem for children, where a character doesn’t really grow, but the story does advance, be a picture book?
Want to ask your own question? Go to speakpipe.com/WFC.
Download the show notes and get the links to the following articles:
The Delicate Art of Character Folding
Advice on character creation in writing for older kids
Humpty Dumpty Submission Guidelines
This group now consists of two magazines: Humpty Dumpty (ages 5-7) and Jack and Jill (ages 6-12)
22 Lessons for Writing Narrative, Expository, and Persuasive Texts.
This is actually a site for teachers, but whoo-boy, is it great for writers to read!
Here's another episode you might like:
EPISODE 007 - The “Write What You Know” Loophole