Writing for Children
Or Adults Don't Understand Me
Erik Talkin -- November 7, 2005
Imagine a readership opening your book, their minds like fresh snow, unmarked by decades of culture overload -- ready to hear your voice. Okay, the mind of average young reader isn't exactly untouched, thanks to the work of many fine corporations keen to imprint a lifetime need for overconsumption at an early age. However, more than any other readership, this is one that is unjaded and ready for whatever new world you throw in their direction. What writer doesn't want that?
My own journey towards writing for young people began with being co-creator of a trio of these child specimens myself. Worn down by sleepless nights and demanding days, my brain became mush. Reading a brief picture book about some form of insect was about all my medulla oblongata could take before slipping into the blissful void. Then miraculously as my kids began to grow, my brain re-grew with them. With a background as a playwright and a screenwriter, I could see the dramatic structures holding together the books my kids read. This looked like fun, and I wanted my piece of it. The second manuscript for children I wrote, The Master Detectives, is to be published by Llewellyn in 2006. It is a middle-grade (more on these age splits later) novel about teen brother and sister detectives who get help in each book from a famous detective from the past. I now devote all of my writing towards literature aimed at young people.
Kids are reading more than they were a few years ago. Harry Potter is the juggernaut behind which the childrens' book publishing industry has been warily advancing. Most children love to read given the chance and a couple of good teachers, with girls and boys being voracious readers during the middle grades. Boys then seem to avoid fiction when they go to high school (have you read any good hormones lately?)
The market for children's books is as segmented and over-analyzed as any other. The lines between different age groups are constantly mutating depending on what's hot and what's not. Picture books are the youngest books for kids, many of which are under 1000 words. In this stage of my life, I'm far too grumpy to write a picture book, and am saving that for when I am an annoying grandfather. The other age groupings are split thus:
Chapter books -- For ages 7-10, these books are 45-60 manuscript pages long, broken into 3-4 page chapters. Stories contain a lot of action. The sentences can be a bit more complex, but paragraphs are still short (2-4 sentences is average).
Middle grade -- This is the golden age of reading for many children, ages 8-12. Manuscripts suddenly get longer (100-150 pages), stories more complex (sub-plots involving secondary characters are woven through the story) and themes more sophisticated. Kids get hooked on characters at this age, which explains the popularity of series with multiple books involving the same cast.
Young adult -- For ages 12 and up, these manuscripts are 130 to about 200 pages long. Plots can be complex with several major characters, though one character should emerge as the focus of the book. Themes should be relevant to the problems and struggles of today's teenagers, regardless of the genre.
Forty five manuscript pages? "I can handle that!", I hear you exclaim. Perhaps you can, though the old adage about "I'm sorry this letter is so long, I didn't have time to shorten it", still holds true. How then does the budding writer for young people begin? The good news is that there are a large number of people around who can help you. Unlike screenwriting where writers are intensely secretive about their work, children's book writers are far more open about supporting each other. We are lucky to have a professional organization which is geared up to helping beginners learn the craft. This is the SCBWI (Society of Childrens' Book Writers and Illustrators). Go to SCBWI.ORG and you will find both the national body and information about your nearest local chapter, which is usually active in organizing writing and business of writing seminars, as well as sponsoring local critique groups. I also get good critiques from reading my material regularly in my children's schools. This is not even to mention the three junior critics who are skilled at ripping dad's feeble material to shreds. I think it only fitting to end a happy, jolly article on writing for children with a quote by that Ronald McDonald of Existentialism, Albert Camus:
"A man's work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened."
Writing for children allows me to take that trek.