|
| |
Writing For
Children
|
|
Wendy’s Top
Tips:
Remember
 |
Children are attracted to stories with characters or situations to which
they can relate: Home/family/school/neighbourhood/inner imagined worlds. |
|
Your reader needs to recognise and identify with the characters.
|
Characters
|
Keep
to one, two, or at most three central characters. (See my story spiral)
The rest are extras, just at the very edge of the story |
|
Make each of the main characters different to each other, in looks style
and attitude
|
Themes
|
Quest
- for treasure/knowledge/wisdom - think The Three Rings |
|
Identity - timid person becomes brave/ plain girl becomes beautiful/wimp
becomes brave boy – think Cinderella |
|
Rescue
– saves someone from a bad fate, becomes hero - think Superman |
|
Problem solving – saving the family from bankruptcy/betrayal/ destruction
- think Jack and The Beanstalk
|
You
might note that many adult novels share these themes!
Language
|
Keep
the language plain, elegant, and telling. Keep sentences and paragraphs
short, active, effective . |
Structure
|
Your
story should have distinctive shape – should move forward from page to
page, from chapter to chapter, from crisis to solution to a new crisis to
a new solution. (See my illustrations of a hump backed whale or a range of
hills…) |
The best part about children's writing is that there are
unlimited ways to tell one tale, and with a young audience readily willing
to accept the imaginary and the impossible, the only limits are those of the
author's imagination. Be clever, be concise, and be childlike.
©
Wendy Robertson 2007 |
|
