The Children's Writer's Guide 2
By Simon Rose
()
About this ebook
The Children’s Writer’s Guide 2 is ideal for writers not just of books for children and young adults, but also features information that’s applicable to writers in all genres. The first installment of The Children’s Writer’s Guide has a wealth of tips and advice, including suggestions regarding how to get started as a writer, dealing with writer’s block, conducting research, choosing appropriate names for your characters, the editing and revision process, as well as the world of marketing and promotion.
This second book further explores the writing process, examining topics such as developing memorable characters, creating effective dialogue, the importance of book covers, the value of blogging, age levels and appropriate content for books for children and young adults, networking, and the process of submitting your work to publishing houses.
In combination with The Children’s Writer’s Guide, this second book provides invaluable advice and support for both established and aspiring authors of books for children and young adults.
Simon Rose
Simon Rose is the author of The Alchemist's Portrait, The Sorcerer's Letterbox, The Clone Conspiracy, The Emerald Curse, The Heretic's Tomb, The Doomsday Mask, The Time Camera, The Sphere of Septimus, Flashback, Future Imperfect, Twisted Fate, Parallel Destiny, the Shadowzone series, and the Stone of the Seer series. He is also the author of The Children's Writer's Guide, The Time Traveler's Guide, The Working Writer's Guide, The Social Media Writer's Guide, a contributor to The Complete Guide to Writing Science Fiction and has written many non-fiction books with Crabtree Publishing, Beech Street Books, Weigl Publishers, and Capstone.Simon offers a number of services for writers, including editing, coaching, mentoring, consulting, manuscript evaluation, and writing workshops. He has provided substantive and copy editing services for many other writers over the years. This has been for novels, short stories, fiction, nonfiction, biographies, inspirational books, and many other genres. He also offers copywriting services for business, including website and social media content. Full details can be found on his website at simon-rose.com. He is the founder of Children’s Authors and Illustrators on Facebook, served as the Writer-in Residence with the Canadian Authors Association, is a member of the Calgary Association of Freelance Editors, and served as the Assistant Regional Advisor for SCBWI Western Canada.Simon offers a wide variety of presentations, workshops, and author in residence programs for schools, along with virtual author visits. He is an instructor for adults with the University of Calgary and offers a variety of workshops and writing courses for both children and adults.You may also follow him on Twitter or Instagram, connect on Facebook, or visit his channel on YouTube.
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Book preview
The Children's Writer's Guide 2 - Simon Rose
The Children’s Writer’s Guide 2
Working as an Author for Children and Young Adults
By
Simon Rose
The Children’s Writer’s Guide 2
Copyright © 2018 by Simon Rose
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations for the purpose of a book review. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, please contact Simon Rose at sorcerersletterbox@gmail.com
Published by Sorcerer's Letterbox Publishing
Calgary, Alberta
www.simon-rose.com
Print ISBN: 978-0995940383
Ebook ISBN: 978-0995940390
Thanks to Isobelle Davenport for her invaluable help with this book.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Introduction
Chapter One - Writing What You Know
Chapter Two - Editing Your Own Work
Editing Issues
Dialogue
Punctuation and Tenses
Description
Characters
Story Synopsis
Chapter Three - People Plotting
Finding Characters
Making a Difference
The Real World
Chapter Four - Dynamic Dialogue
Is Said Dead?
Adverbs and Adjectives
Dialogue and Description
Who is Speaking?
Almost Realistic
Chapter Five - The Importance of Book Covers
Attracting Attention
Packaging Products
Chapter Six - A Story in One Paragraph
Chapter Seven - Age Levels and Word Counts
Board Books
Early Picture Books
Picture Books
Nonfiction Picture Books
Early Readers
First Chapter Books
Chapter Books
Middle-grade Books
Young Adult (YA) Novels
Chapter Eight - Age-appropriate Material
Relationships
Swearing
Violence
Chapter Nine - Study Guides and Resources
Inspiration and Imagination
Workshops and Creative Writing Exercises
Chapter Ten - The Value of Blogging
Blog Word Counts
Post Frequency
The Importance of Good Content
Blog Tours
Topics to Cover
All About You
Chapter Eleven - Networking and Writers Groups
Membership in Groups
Maintaining Connections
Online Groups
Feedback
Networks
Chapter Twelve - Submitting Your Work
Researching Publishers
Cover Letter
Synopsis
The Time Camera Synopsis
Sample Chapters
The Time Camera – Sample chapters
Conclusion
About the Author
Books by Simon Rose
Fiction
Non-fiction
Anthologies
Introduction
The Children’s Writer’s Guide 2 is ideal for writers not just of books for children and young adults, but also features information that’s applicable to writers in all genres. The first installment of The Children’s Writer’s Guide has a wealth of tips and advice, including suggestions regarding how to get started as a writer, dealing with writer's block, conducting research, choosing appropriate names for your characters, the editing and revision process, as well as the world of marketing and promotion.
In this second book, I further explore the writing process, examining topics such as developing memorable characters, creating effective dialogue, the importance of book covers, the value of blogging, age levels and appropriate content for books for children and young adults, networking, and the process of submitting your work to publishing houses.
In combination with The Children’s Writer’s Guide, this second book provides invaluable advice and support for both established and aspiring authors of books for children and young adults.
Chapter One
Writing What You Know
In terms of writing and publishing trends, even though the height of the Harry Potter phenomenon is now long gone, there doesn’t seem to be any shortage of books with similar fantasy themes. I’m in bookstores in Calgary conducting signings on a regular basis and a large percentage of the books that children and young adults seem to enjoy are in the fantasy genre. These stories don’t always involve wizards and dragons and that kind of thing but magic is usually part of the story. This appears to be an ongoing trend although vampires, elves, and zombies seem to be less popular than they used to be. Steampunk mostly appears in adult novels but there have been books published in this genre for teens and YA in recent years. The paranormal is also quite popular these days, but how long that trend lasts is unknown, of course.
As an author it’s really up to you what you decide to write about, but I always find it’s best to write about what you know or at least about something that you’re interested in. It’s much harder to write a novel to satisfy a current trend if you dislike or are uninterested in the topic or genre. For example, my own books cover such areas as fantasy, science fiction, the paranormal, time travel, superheroes, parallel universes, alternate realities, historical fiction, and a few other themes. These are the things I’m interested in writing about so that makes it easier to develop the story ideas but also to actually create the novels.
I do write lots of nonfiction books on topics that may not always be my favourites and which involve considerable research but that’s a little different, more like writing magazine articles or being a business writer or journalist. I probably wouldn’t write a book about fishing, sailing, mountain climbing, farming, most sports, horses, and several other topics, although these things might crop up in a book as part of the plot. I prefer to stick with what interests and inspires me, which makes the writing process much more enjoyable.
I should clarify that this doesn’t mean that you have to pigeonhole yourself. If you come from a small town does that mean you can never write about life in a big city? If you live on a farm in a rural area, can you never compose a gritty crime drama set in New York? You should always strive to stretch yourself creatively. Everyone develops as a writer as they work on their stories and most writers usually become more proficient at their craft as they continue to create new work.
Writing what you know refers to what interests or intrigues you rather than what you’re qualified to do. As I mentioned, my nonfiction work has often been on topics with which I’m less familiar and involved considerable research, similar to that conducted by journalists when completing an article for a magazine or an online publication.