Childrens Writing

CHILDREN’S WRITING ONLINE COURSE

• Learn how to write childrens books, articles, etc
• Discover the scope, nature and opportunities that can be found being a professional childrens writer 
• Develop your creativity, fire children’s imaginations through storytelling
• Learn techniques and skills to communicate effectively with children

Tap into developing minds and stir their imaginations. Learn how to write for children across a range of genres and gain the basics of editing and improving your work. Finally, use your new skills to produce your own creative work for children.

Lesson Structure

There are 10 lessons in this course:

1. Introduction
   • Understanding Children, their thoughts, needs, development.
2. Overview of Children’s Writing
   • Categories (fiction & non fiction), understanding the market place; analyse & understand what is needed for the different categories, etc.
3. Conceptualisation
   • Conceiving a concept where & how to find inspiration/influence.
   • Developing a concept, how to plan.
4. Children’s Writing for Periodicals
   • Children’s pages in magazines, newspapers, etc.
5. Short Stories
6. Non-Fiction
   • Texts (writing to satisfy curriculum.
   • Other (eg. nature, history, biography, hobbies).
7. Fiction
   • Settings,
   • characterisation,
   • fantasy,
   • science fiction,
   • adventure.
8. Picture Books and Story Books
9. Editing your work
   • Grammar,
   • spelling & punctuation.
   • Improving clarity.
   • Cleaning out clutter; expansions.
10. Project
    • write a short story, picture book or kids page for a (hypothetical) periodical.

Each lesson culminates in an assignment which is submitted to the school, marked by the school's tutors and returned to you with any relevant suggestions, comments, and if necessary, extra reading.

Aims

• Describe children’s cognitive development and target writing to be appropriate to various developmental stages.
• Explain the nature and scope of writing for children.
• Describe the process of planning a written manuscript of children’s writing.
• Describe the planning and processes involved in writing articles for children’s magazines.
• Develop a short story for children to read.
• Discuss the specific requirements associated with writing children’s non-fiction
• Describe the various categories of children’s fiction and the writing processes involved.
• Explain the scope and nature of literature aimed at young children.
• Explain the scope and significance of editing skills and processes for children’s writing.
• Plan, evaluate, edit and present a piece of writing for children

What You Will Do

• Develop lists of imaginary titles and brief descriptions of stories that would be appropriate in your society (or country) for children of different age groups.
• Analyse the page(s) in a text aimed at children in terms of language complexity and style, conciseness of the writing, content, graphic layout, etc
• Determine concepts for children’s writing.
• Develop outlines that would help you to write about each concept.
• Develop a set of guidelines (or a plan), that a writer should follow in regular preparation of a children’s page in a newspaper, and consider what, in your opinion, is the purpose of a children’s page in a daily newspaper.
• Discuss how you would approach writing a comic, and why you think this would be the best approach for you?
• Write short articles or stories, suitable for situations such as:
  • An educational magazine,
  • A preschooler or infant school age magazine
  • or a teenage boy or girl magazine
• Write a short story.
• Identify a non-fiction book for children which you would be suited to write.
• Write an outline for a proposed non-fiction book. In your outline, you would include a list of major subject areas (or chapters) that the book would cover and a brief description of the content of each chapter. Include a brief description of how the book would be illustrated (ie. are photos appropriate, or line drawings, paintings, etc?). You would then write one or two pages for your non-fiction book.
• Write a fantasy, adventure or science fiction short story for a 7-8 year old, which fits specified criteria.
• Write a story for a 5-6 year old child.
• Edit some sample short articles.
• Plan, then write, a children’s short story, a picture book or children’s pages for a newspaper.

How to Get Published as a Children's Author 

Learn how to turn a childs mind upside down!

Writing for children is not easy, and getting published is even harder! Editors are receiving so many manuscripts from would-be children’s writers that many are strictly limiting what they will accept. Many publishers will no longer accept submissions for picture books. With so much to choose from, and so many publishers, the children’s book market is highly competitive and editors can afford to demand high quality and uniqueness.

Many editors will only consider books that they know will sell well. Some publishers might accept an exceptional book or one that is different on the chance that it becomes a new best-seller, but most have exacting requirements, and the writer must do the research needed to know what the publisher wants. On the other hand, publishing is a changing business, reflecting the sometimes rapid changes in readers’ tastes and expectations and reading levels. For example, children are much more likely to read what is called ‘high fantasy’ (which involves the creation of a whole alternative world) since the Harry Potter books by Rowling and the series by Lemony Snicket have become so popular and a new generation has been introduced to the wonderful Lord of the Rings trilogy by Tolkien.

Before starting out as a children’s writer it is important that you clearly identify the age group and the category (often called genre) that you wish to write for.

CATEGORIES OF CHILDREN’S WRITING

As with other writing, children’s writing is broadly divided into fiction and non-fiction. Keep in mind, though, that children are in the process of developing their awareness of reality and may not perceive the difference between the real world and fantasy in the same way that adults do. Below are some common categories of writing for children:

*Picture books – 6 months - 5 years. Picture books for babies and toddlers are hardcover board books with a few basic words and lots of colourful illustrations. Usually designed to teach the child basic concepts, eg. farm animals, opposites, numbers. Picture books for older children are longer, more complex and written to entertain, as well as educate.

*Story books – Short fiction stories for younger children. Colourful pictures are still important but plot and characters are also important features.

*Novels – Longer fiction stories for older primary and high school children.

*Short Stories – Published in children’s magazines, or in books (either as short story collections by one author or several authors).

*Activity books – Magazine-style publications with interactive activities, such as puzzles, colouring in, stickers, short stories. Highly visual, sometimes based on an educational theme (eg. wildlife) or on popular TV characters.

*School/text books – Either written specifically to fulfil a pre-determined school curriculum or as a supplementary text. Generally requires that the author has expert knowledge on the subject (and possibly, but is not an essential prerequisite, a teaching background).

*Comics – Sometimes written for educational purposes (eg. to explain traffic safety to a young reader), but usually written solely for entertainment. Highly visual, usually requires that the author is a skilled cartoonist and can write in a very concise, humorous (witty) manner.

*Poetry – Poetry written for children is published in children’s magazines, or in anthologies (collections of poems by different authors).

*Children’s Pages (in newspapers or magazines) – These are a mix of things, including activities (such as a crosswords), poetry, colouring-in competitions, letters from children, etc.

More Comments from our Writing Students

"I found the course to be extremely helpful. It has given me the confidence and skills to present my work to publishers."
- Dilys

"The course demonstrated to me what I enjoyed writing about, the types of writing I was good at, and not so good at. It broadened my horizon to show me what was out there to write about. It gave me knowledge and confidence. I have continued to write, and in the future want to commence with the next course, but in the meantime, I have submitted various articles of mine to some magazines and have had nothing but positive feedback from all the editors and some of my work is to be published!! Which I personally feel is fantastic as I have only been doing this for a year or so. Thank you for opening up a whole new world of creativity to me which I can only enhance upon!!"
- Jo