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Contents
MODULE ONE
Introduction To Writing Children’s Stories
MODULE TWO
Age Groups & Story Types
MODULE THREE
Choosing & Developing Your Scene
MODULE FOUR
Developing Credible Characters
MODULE FIVE
Writing Dialogue
MODULE SIX
Plotting, Storyline & Theme
MODULE SEVEN
Writing For The Under Seven’s
MODULE EIGHT
Writing for Seven To Twelve Year Olds
MODULE NINE
Writing For Teenagers
MODULE TEN
Writing Fantasy & Science Fiction
MODULE ELEVEN
Writing Non-Fiction
MODULE TWELVE
Writing For Other Media
MODULE THIRTEEN
Writing Secrets Of Sucessful Authors
MODULE FOURTEEN
Insider’s Guide To Getting Published
MODULE FIFTEEN
Introduction To Self-Publishing
Module Sixteen
Cover Design & Working With Illustrators
Module Seventeen
Deigital Printing And e-Book Essentials
Module Eighteen
Effective Self-Marketing
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WriteStoryBooks
ForChildren.Com

MODULE ONE
Introduction to Writing
Children’s Stories

5
L E A R N I N G O U T C O M E S
• Apply the Three C’s to your stories
• Describe the 5 practical elements that
produce page-turning fiction
• Explain the three major elements of fiction
• Identify the voice to use in your stories
• Recognize common mistakes
INTRODUCTION TO WRITING CHILDREN’S STORIES
Welcome and a huge ‘Thank You’ for enrolling in our Write Storybooks For Children course. I
know you are going to be thrilled with all of the hottest and latest insider tips and techniques
you can use to make a great income from writing children’s books.
Sales of children’s books have soared in the last ten years with authors gaining the same status
and wealth as pop stars and footballers.
J.K. Rowling’s multi-million dollar earnings from writing the series of Harry Potter books began
with an idea she had during a four-hour train journey.
So how did she develop that idea into a series of books and films that took her from struggling
unknown author, to rich and famous A-list personality?
Here’s how J.K. Rowling got started:
• During that four-hour train journey, she used the time to think about her idea.
• Back home, she immediately started writing down those thoughts – before they were
forgotten.
This is what J.K. Rowling did next:
• She wrote loads of background information notes that would never make their way into
any of her books, including a history of the death eaters. They were written for her own
pleasure and because she personally likes to read books where she feels confident that
the writer knows everything about the characters and their lives.
• She brainstormed to find the name for the dementors.
• She wrote Chapter One about thirteen times. Every previous version was discarded
because they each gave too much of the plot away.
• Just for her own reference, Rowling drew pictures of her characters and a sequence
of drawings of the entrance to Diagon Alley so she could be certain the description of
getting into Diagon Alley worked well.
She believed in her story and wanted to give it her best shot. But she didn’t know if anyone else
would like the book and she was a complete unknown.
However, she sent off her first book to two agents, and one took her on. The agent, Christopher
Little, had a hard time selling the book to publishers. It was viewed to be too long, and a wizard
school was not considered politically correct.

6
The advance fee for the first book of the series was just over $4000. The advance for the second
book was $170,000.
Prior to the launch of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, 350 million of her books had been
sold and the series translated into 65 languages!
Some other results are:
• The Harry Potter books have been sold in more than 200 countries.
• Books on CD and digital download sell nearly as well as the print books.
• The books have hit the world of book collecting. Some of the highest payments made
have been $14,000 for a single first edition and $42,000 for a first editions set of books
1-4.
• Estimates of Rowling’s earnings are as high as $425 million (which Rowling says is
wrong).
• There have been merchandising deals with companies like Coca-Cola.
• In Toronto, 12,000 people paid up to $340 a ticket to see and hear Rowling reading from
one of her books.
• Because the ‘Best Seller List’ was dominated by three of Rowling’s books, a separate
‘Children’s Best Seller List’ was created.
• America put Rowling into the list of power people.
• The last book of the series sold 7,000 copies a minute (just UK and USA sales) during
the launch from one minute past midnight on July 21st, 2007 until seven am. This
equaled over 8 million in the USA and 2.6 million sales in the UK.
Here are some tips on how J.K. Rowling made it to the top of the writing profession with her
Harry Potter series:
• Rowling’s memories of her childhood have had a big influence on her writing. She
remembers so vividly what it felt like to be a child.
• All seven books of the series were plotted before the first book was finished.
• The first book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, took five years to write. It took
shape from a collection of notes into a book.
J.K. Rowling’s advice to new writers is:
“Read as much as you can, read anything. It will teach you what you like, increase your vocabulary.
At first you will probably hate what you write but sooner or later you will produce something you
like.”
So are you ready to join the lucrative and exciting world of writing for children? As you can see
from the information on J.K. Rowling, it’s not just books that sell; it’s all the spin-offs from the
most popular stories.
The spin-offs are:
• Recordings.
• Films.
• Licensing.
• Merchandising.

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• Worldwide book sales.
The world of children’s stories is truly a multi-billion dollar worldwide phenomenon.
Every story starts as an idea and that idea is developed into a book!
Welcome to the magical world of how to find and turn an idea into a book and become a
children’s author. Step this way and start your journey…
There are five main practical elements that produce page-turning fiction.
They are:
1. Planning.
2. Setting.
3. Viewpoint.
4. Plotting.
5. Characterization.
These are the ‘nuts and bolts’ of fiction and you must pay attention to all of these elements if the
story is to be a success. I’ll explain each of these a bit further on, because first of all you need to
know about…
Besides the practical elements listed above, there are three ‘artistic’ attributes that most good
stories and plays have. When you are starting out, you would do well to ensure that your stories
have a hefty helping of all three. Known as the ‘three Cs’, they are:
• Character.
• Contrast.
• Conﬂict.
Here are fuller details of each of the ‘three Cs’:
There must be several strongly drawn and different characters. The more believable your
characters are, the better chance you have of writing a great story.
This means that even if you are writing a science fiction or fantasy novel, and perhaps your
characters are from another planet, they must still have recognizable personality traits and
mannerisms.
For example:
• Light and shade.
• Tears and happiness.
• Anger and love.
• Summer and winter.
• Fast parts of the story and more leisurely, reﬂective parts.
All good stories have one or more strands of conflict running through them.
GETTING STARTED
THE ‘THREE Cs’
CHARACTER
CONTRAST
CONFLICT

8
For example:
• Boy against the aggressor.
• Girl who wants to go to college but also wants to nurse her dying horse.
• Good versus evil.
Important note: In children’s fiction, conflict is almost always resolved in the end. The vast
majority of children find inconclusive unresolved endings unsatisfactory (as indeed do most
adults).
Remember that all good stories have the three ‘Cs’. If even just one of them is missing, the story
may seem one dimensional and weak. It is an interesting fact that the more sophisticated (or
older) the audience, the more different strands of character, contrast and conflict you can have
running through the story.
For young readers, you might have just one strong character (Polly Pirate) that has one conflict
(trying to find her lost treasure) with one or two contrasts (slower descriptive bit, followed by
a fierce battle on an island). However, even in the simplest good story, all three elements are
present.
As the target audience gets older, you can weave more complex sub-plots of conflict into the
stories. You can have several strong characters (contrasting, of course) and you can introduce
many levels of light and shade, fast moving parts and slow moving parts.
The skill in correctly targeting your reader is to identify what level of complexity in the three Cs
they are able to accept. A Shakespearean play, for example, has many levels of intricate subtlety
in contrast, conflict and character – which is what makes them so good, of course!
Now, let’s take a closer look at three of the five practical elements of a story.
Two of these elements, Plotting and Characterization, will be dealt with in depth later in the
course. The other three elements are Planning, Setting and Viewpoint.
Hot Insider Tip…
Published authors who produce stories and novels without first planning them, are few and far
between. The clue, of course, is in the words published authors!
Would-be writers who believe that they should ‘wait for their muse and let the words fall out’, are
surprised when they discover they need to carefully plan their books by writing a detailed outline.
“Oh, I couldn’t do that,” many new writers protest – “I have no idea what is going to happen in
advance, my characters just sort of take over and guide the plot along.” So with only a very vague
idea of their story, they fire up their computers and pitch headlong into writing.
These are the results for ninety-nine out of every hundred would-be writers with this attitude:
• They start at page one, write feverishly for a while until they get stuck and eventually
give up.
• The few who do manage to complete a whole, rambling book wonder why it comes
back with a rejection letter that says, if anything, ‘inadequate plotting’ or ‘lacks pace’.
They then retire to nurse their wounds and wonder why the ‘blind’ publishers cannot see their
genius. They will probably also pontificate loud and long to anyone who will listen about how all
the publishers want these days is formulaic drivel.
THE PLANNING STAGE

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What happened was that, because they didn’t know where they were going, they got lost on
the way. If you were to set off on a journey through a strange country, without the benefit of a
map, then you would not be too surprised if you ended up in some random place, having taken a
strangely irrelevant route to get there! It is the same when writing a book.
Your synopsis is the ‘map’ to guide you through the story.
And if you think a synopsis sounds like a lot of extra hard work, let me tell you that:
The quickest route to writing a complete story or book is by planning it ﬁrst!
All professional writers do a synopsis. Even millionaire bestsellers that sign lucrative three-book
deals have a contract that says ‘subject to acceptable outlines or synopses’ (synopses is plural of
synopsis).
The most sensible thing to do with your first book, rather than investing the time and nervous
energy needed in writing a whole book, is to prepare a detailed synopsis (and if you are
concerned about how to write a synopsis, everything you need to know is fully explained
within this course). Send it to your chosen publisher with at least one completed chapter. Some
publishers prefer three.
Important Insider Tip…
If you send one chapter, always make it the first and, if you send three, the first three. Never send
random chapters. If you are ever tempted to send random chapters (e.g. chapters 4, 8 and 11
because you think they are the best), it will brand you as a novice immediately.
If you appear to have genius, you may be offered a contract straight away. However, few of us will
fall into that category. If a publisher approves of the outline and your style, it is more likely that
they will ask to see the whole book.
Most children’s books are between 20,000 and 60,000 words, and your synopsis will run to
several pages.
The exception to sending a synopsis is if your book is for very small children and contains less
than 100 words.
Hot Insider Tip…
Every successful writer knows that…
You should ideally be able to describe your whole story in a single sentence!
If not a single sentence, then you must be able to explain what your story is about in a brief verbal
or written pitch. Just to make sure you don’t get confused, a pitch is not the same as a synopsis.
• The job of a synopsis is to give an outline of the major twists and turns of plot, and
information on the main characters.
• The job of a pitch is to explain, in as few words as possible, what the heart of a story is
about.
So why have I included pitching your story or novel into the section on planning? The answer
is simple but powerfully important: if you cannot describe what your story is about quickly and
simply, then:
PITCHING YOUR STORY

10
• The idea won’t truly work as a story.
• At best the story will be weak and therefore worthless.
This simple idea of working out your pitch before you write your story can save you endless
wasted hours and money!
And once you have finished a children’s short story, novel or script, whatever medium you’ve
written for, you’ll want to sell it. Everybody, from your family to agents, publishers, producers,
directors, actors and network people, will want to know what your story is about before they
read one word of your completed work. If what you tell them is not compelling, you can count
that as lost sales because they simply do not have time to wade through dozens of pages of
thousands of manuscripts.
Here are some words of wisdom from the producer Stephen Cannell: “A good idea, badly
presented, sounds like a bad idea.”
I’ve dug out some information on written pitches for you from my swipe files. First, here are two
examples of what is not a pitch:
• Shrek (Dreamworks ﬁlm): “An instant classic – you care more about the donkey than
the entire cast of Planet of the Bleedin’ Apes.” - Ian Crabb.
• Fantastical Adventures of the Invisible Boy by Lloyd Alexander: “This book is
delightful, a warm homage to creativity and the power of the imagination.” - Tes
Teacher.
Neither of these two descriptions gives the reader the slightest idea of what this story is about, I
hope you’ll agree. They are the equivalent of: “Great book! I couldn’t put it down. Loved the main
character to bits.”
Here are some examples to show what a pitch is:
• ‘The Lightning Thief’ by Rick Riordan (Puffin): When Percy Jackson discovers he’s a
demigod, he also learns that Zeus’s lightning bolt is missing and he’s the prime suspect.
Percy and his friends must battle angry gods on a cross-country quest to find the true
lightning thief.
• ‘The Tale of Despereaux’ by Kate DiCamillo (Walker Books Ltd): Despereaux Tilling is
born extraordinarily small, and banished when he is unwilling to behave like the rest of
the mice. But if Despereaux can find his inner hero, he will save not only himself, but also
the beautiful Princess Pea from the terrors of the dungeon.
Written pitches for selling to the public, are usually longer than the verbal pitches you use to tell
marketing people what your story is about. Both of the above book examples were written to
attract sales from the buying public. Think ‘blurb on the back of the dust jacket’ and you have
a good idea of the pitch. Also, look at the film descriptions on DVD jackets – they are excellent
examples written by people who really know their business.
Think it’s impossible to crunch your masterpiece down to one or two pithy lines? How about this
for Alice in Wonderland:
Alice falls asleep one lazy summer’s day. She awakes to see a white rabbit, which she follows
down a rabbit hole. There she has many curious adventures in a mysterious place called
Wonderland. She meets a Mad Hatter and the Red Queen. Eventually she is tried at a court of
playing cards. Was it all a dream?
Next, I want to show you what you can achieve by condensing your story into a single sentence.
This is not working out a great and exciting pitch to sell your story, but a pitch for you as the
writer to check if your idea is good before you write even one word of the story.

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Here are three examples; each stated in a single sentence, which I’m going to label as John’s story,
Janine’s story and Marcus’s story, simply for easy identification.
‘John, aged 9, moves to a new house with his parents and has difficulties settling into his
new school.’
Let’s check this against the three C’s…
Contrast:
• Old school compared with new school.
• Old surroundings and friends compared with new surroundings and friends, etc.
Conﬂict:
• Wanting to make the move smooth for his parents, but hating the new school.
• Loyalty to his old best friend, versus a new friendship springing up at school.
• Conflict between the pacifism preached by his parents, and the knowledge that he has
to face the school bullies and win them around.
Character:
• John.
• The school bully.
• John’s new best friend.
‘Janine is a poor Crow Native American, Linda a rich Manhattan girl, but both girls want to
go to a music college.’
Contrast:
• Rich home compared with poor home.
• Plenty of money to spend compared with little or no money.
• Living in the expanse of Montana countryside compared with the densely populated city
of New York.
• Close-knit family life compared with secular living.
Conﬂict:
• The private music college is expensive and hence impossible, unless Janine wins that
vital scholarship.
• Linda’s parents want her to be a doctor and consider a career in music to be frivolous
and beneath her.
Character:
• Native American Janine and white American Linda will both be very different characters
owing to their vastly differing cultural backgrounds. Both girls will have faced different
prejudices and obstacles during their childhood years (which can lead to some conflict,
which makes for contrast).
‘Marcus travels from the north across the Mason-Dixon line, searching for his brother
Thomas, who has been captured by Confederate soldiers.’
JOHN’S STORY
JANINE’S STORY
MARCUS’S STORY

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Contrast:
• Safety of Marcus’s village compared with wildness and danger of the countryside.
• Journey compared with battle.
• Boy growing up to be a man.
Conﬂict:
• Actual battles, daring and dangerous situations along the way (e.g. robbers, wild
animals).
• Perhaps his desire to stay and help someone along the way conflicts with his desire to
get moving to save his brother at the earliest moment.
Character:
• Marcus and the ‘goodies’ and ‘baddies’ he meets on his journey.
You should write down your story idea in one line like this, and then outline the conflict, contrast
and character of your story.
Put down as bare bones like this, you can see whether you really do have something to write
about.
TIP: If you cannot do this simple task, you should abandon all hopes of being a writer here and
now. I am that serious!
Let’s look at each story idea more closely:
John’s problem is common and one that has been written about many times. So, these are some
of the questions the writer of this idea would ask:
• What is going to be different about this version of the story because, as stated, it is not
very original?
• How is John going to resolve his problems and gain acceptance and friendship from his
schoolmates?
• Does he have a special talent that they will find useful?
• Is the story about overcoming his fear of bullies and facing them down?
Janine and Linda are unlikely to know each other. The rich and the poor tend to live separately
and go to separate schools. So these are some of the questions the writer of this idea would ask
along with some answers:
• Q. How do they know each other?
A. Perhaps they are interacting because they were both involved in an incident that
occurred while Linda was with her parents visiting Billings, Montana.
• Q. Why should we care about their desire to go to a music college? Unless Janine can
win a scholarship, she can’t go, as her parents can’t afford the tuition. However, Linda’s
parents can afford to send their daughter to a music college. So what’s the problem
(conflict)?
A. Only one place free at the college this year? (Now there’s a real problem and the
potential for conflict between the two girls. Maybe it can look all along as though the
richer girl is going to get the spot. Perhaps she can even be bitchy and superior – but
this hides a softer side and, due to something Janine does, Linda has a realization that
JOHN’S STORY
JANINE’S STORY

13
Janine is a better musician and that she – Linda – did not really want to be a musician
but a vet, or whatever. The story is beginning to take shape, but do you see how it is all
based around conflict and its resolution?)
Marcus’s story is much more straightforward. He sets out on a quest, meets and overcomes
various problems (conflicts) on the way, and eventually finds his brother. All the writer needs to
worry about is ensuring that his obstacles and solutions are credible and not too mundane.
Of these three stories, Marcus’s is probably going to be the most complex, so let’s do a little more
work on planning it. I’m going to continue this section as if you were working on the story idea of
Marcus.
Marcus is going to undertake a long and hazardous journey, with at least three major incidents
along the way. Any less than three and it would be a travelogue, not an adventure. It has to be
a long journey to keep the drama going and to space out the incidents, but not too long as the
reader will get impatient for Marcus to ‘get there’ (consider the interminably drawn-out travel
sequences in Lord of the Rings).
Already you can see that there are going to be an awful lot of details and people involved in this
story – far more than you can easily keep in your head.
At this point I want to make a plea for originality – and this is where your creativity will come in.
It is too easy (yes, and lazy) to have Marcus attacked by a bear, wolves and then later by robbers.
Yawn. We could have seen that coming. Better would be a flock of eagles (I have no idea why!)
and a traveling music show, who want a boy for their act – initially they seem friendly but then
their ulterior motive is revealed as they seek to drug and kidnap him. Are you starting to get this?
The next step in planning the story of Marcus and Thomas is to map out your chapters to see
what should happen in each. About twenty chapters is usual in a story for this age range, so start
by writing the chapter numbers down one side of a large sheet of paper. Then space your main
incidents out between the beginning and the end.
The ﬁrst two or three chapters will be about the news of his brother’s capture reaching Marcus
and his decision to do something about it, while struggling against things which conspire to stop
him (mother needs him to look after his younger sister; elder in the village counsels against it;
sweetheart begs him not to go – to the tune of ‘Billy Don’t Be a Hero’).
The last two or three chapters will equally, obviously, have to be about his finding and possibly
releasing his brother. (Twist – when he finally gets to his brother, maybe he doesn’t want to be
‘rescued’ for some reason and needs persuading?)
This leaves fourteen or fifteen chapters in the middle for the journey and the incidents along the
way. Slot them in evenly. If you don’t know at this stage what each incident is going to be, just
write ‘incident’ on your plan. Or if you know the type of incident but have not yet decided exactly
what, then type ‘attacked by wolves’, for example, knowing you will change it later when you have
a brilliant idea (or steal my flock of eagles idea).
Already you have moved from a simple storyline, to a more structured outline and your story is
starting to take shape.
Now you have to ask yourself some questions that will flesh out the story.
For example:
• Why was Marcus a long way away from his brother?
MARCUS’S STORY
MAPPING CHAPTERS

14
• Is Thomas a Yankee soldier? How did he get captured?
• If Thomas is a Yankee soldier, that could explain his capture, but where is Marcus when
the story begins? If his father was a soldier too, the family could live in any of the
important northern cities. How about Boston? It would take several weeks to get from
there to the southern states. Marcus could be too young to join up and fight.
That’s taken care of some of the background information, so next you would ask questions about
the actual storyline.
For example:
• What route would Marcus take?
• Are there any obvious natural hazards on the way that could provide one of the
incidents? He may have to travel across rivers or through unpopulated forests. That’s
a week’s journey by horse or foot from Boston, so if he wanted to save time, he might
try crossing through a region that is especially dangerous. He might even fall foul of a
hurricane if he is near the coast. Check your seasons!
• On his way across the Mason-Dixon line, Marcus would be crossing through dangerous
territory, with Confederate soldier camps and hostile southerners. That gives scope for
at least one major battle and a skirmish, or perhaps an ambush in the forest?
These questions have highlighted a background information problem, which needs to be
answered:
• How come Marcus is able to go off on his own? Is he old enough to make this sort of
decision with his family’s blessing; or is he orphaned, perhaps living with an aunt? If he’s
old enough, how come he didn’t go with his brother to start with? Do you see how you
need to hammer out these fine details if your story is to be credible?
Here’s a practical problem that needs answering:
• How is he going to travel? And please don’t answer ‘by intercity train’! Even mature
fighting men would think twice before traveling on their own through the territories of
hostile groups of Confederate soldiers. A mere strip of a lad wouldn’t last five minutes.
Perhaps he sneaks away and gets a job with a pack train or tags along with a contingent
of soldiers. Or, picking up that music theme, joins a traveling circus or band of musicians.
(Did such things exist then? Do your research!)
By the time you have completed this exercise, asking yourself ‘Why?’ and ‘What if…’ and ‘Then
what happens?’ at every stage, you will have enough detailed material to rough out each chapter.
TIP: ‘Why’ is about the most important question you can continually ask about every element
of your story. Neophyte authors often make their characters move around without sufficient
motivation. Characters should have a motivation for everything they do, from reaching for a
cookie to going on a quest for the fabled golden pendant of Zanthros.
You will also have a fair idea of the characters needed to make the story:
• Marcus and Thomas.
• His parents or aunt or guardian or whatever.
• The person who breaks the news at the beginning.
• The leader of the pack train and his other helpers (or the troop of soldiers, musicians).
• Some horses, perhaps a dog.
• All the people Marcus encounters along the way. This would include some chance-met
travelers, a tavern-keeper, a sinister southerner who spies on him, the soldiers who
ambush him, and various people at the Confederate camp at the end.
Make a separate list of your characters, and show where each character appears and departs in
your rough chapters. I will discuss characters in greater depth later in the course. For now you

15
need have only a sketchy picture of all except the main character.
Your next task is to go back to your rough chapters and consider the story points. These are the
incidents that keep the story moving along to give pointers on what is going to happen later in
the book.
Books written for children need to build to at least one climax, and speed up their pace as
they near the end.
This is especially important in adventure stories, and you need to decide how you are going to
achieve it early in the planning process. Because…
• Too big an excitement near the beginning and the rest will be an anti-climax.
• Insufficient excitement and your readers will get bored and give up.
Next, let’s take a look at how to create a great hero.
First, realize this is a story about a boy on a great adventure and thus your readership is children
(apart from cross-over books such as Harry Potter, which are read by all ages) of a similar age or
slightly younger than Marcus.
His age is critical to your readership. Make him 12 and no child over 13 will touch your book with a
ten-foot disinfected bargepole.
Marcus and his antics will be considered ‘lame’, ‘sad’ or whatever the current phrase is by the
time you read this. So decide on your market ﬁrst – then create the lead character. I hope this
is obvious. Few teenagers will want to read a book called “Molly’s Naughty Pony”, so if you write
that book, your market is for children below 12 years.
And if your young heroine, Molly is 10, your readership is age 8-10 and probably not a month
older! No young adult of 11 (!) wants to read about ‘little girls’ like 10 year-old Molly.
Okay – that said; let’s continue looking at character.
Marcus is obviously brave, and therefore easy for readers to identify with. His decision to go and
find his brother is also the sort of thing most young boys and girls would think of doing. But it is
so far still only a story of an adventurous journey with some excitement thrown in.
By the time Marcus and his companions have survived a clash with hostile southerners, we’re
halfway through the book and we need something to give some urgency and tension to the rest
of the journey. This cannot be a mere succession of dangerous moments, no matter how well
crafted.
So the story still needs more obstacles and conﬂict in order to make it a page-turner with a great
hero at the center.
Here are some ideas:
• After the battle, our travelers stop for the night near a village. There are other
travelers at the tavern, talking about General Robert E. Lee and his campaign against
the Northern aggressors, and a rumor that he is planning to a bold advance at the
forthcoming equinox.
• News could come (how?) that his brother has already been enlisted into the
Confederate army. Of course, this information turns out to be untrue.
• Someone offers to lead Marcus to his brother. But it’s a trap. (Why?)
CHARACTER IDENTIFICATION

16
Now Marcus has a burning urgency to complete his journey and rescue his brother.
Anything that delays him will serve as a tension builder, so here are some delaying ideas:
• Horses go lame.
• Horses are stolen.
• Marcus is badly injured.
• Marcus stops to help someone – who eventually returns the favor?
The closer we get to the climax, the greater the signiﬁcance of any delay.
If you carry out this level of planning for a story early on, it tends to dictate timing, among many
other things. By timing, I mean the order in which things happen and how much time elapses for
each incident.
For instance, it could add tension to the story if the major climax of the book occurs during the
battle of Antietam, a northern victory that prompted the Emancipation Proclamation and ended
Lee’s advance into Maryland.
Since Antietam happened on September 17th, Marcus must leave Boston sometime in late August
or early September, making an autumn journey.
So, you can see the importance of planning in some detail.
TIP: It is almost impossible to write a convincing and publishable story without this level of
detailed planning.
By the way, having a carefully crafted and detailed plan makes the actual writing of the story far,
far easier. It would be a lie to say it writes itself, but it certainly helps!
Looking brieﬂy at the other two storyline:
John could change schools at any stage in the year, so unless his talent is for a seasonal sport, it
probably doesn’t matter too much when this story happens.
Linda and Janine’s story (or Janine and Linda’s story) will have to be in early summer, as this is
the time when scholarship exams take place. A real newbie mistake would be to set this in the
winter or autumn.
Let us now take a look at the second element of the craft:
Along with characterization and plot, the setting of a story is one of the three major elements
of a satisfying piece of fiction. There are also three components to setting, all of which must be
described vividly for your readers.
They are:
• Exteriors - the outside world.
• Interiors - rooms and houses.
• The psychological and social aspects of the environment. For example, the emotional
‘tone’ of a setting.
Hot Insider Tip…
Editors often say that one of the problems with manuscripts from new authors, and the one that
PLANNING THE TIMING OF A STORY
SETTING

17
causes most rejections, is that the setting to the story is inadequate.
The most common mistake that causes this problem:
• When writers set their stories where they have lived for a long time.
It is as though familiarity has led to them to ignore their surroundings. Such writers may be able
to cope with living in a sterile world, but fiction has to excite the reader.
How to avoid making this mistake:
• Detailed description makes certain you avoid falling into what I personally call the
monochrome state of writing.
If you suspect you are slipping into this trap, undertake the exercise of looking at your
environment as though it were the first time you were seeing it. Remember, for your readers it
will be. So use all of the senses, not just what you can see. Your readers will want to know how
the place looks, feels, smells, tastes and sounds. So use all the senses – don’t merely describe
what you can see.
If the setting in your story is a brewery or tannery, don’t forget to tell your readers about the
smell. If you want to include a motorbike pulling out of a turning, it may be important to describe
how it looks and the sound it makes.
Important Tips…
• Detailed description never means including everything you can think of. Most writers,
including me, write loads of impressions and notes down but end up using only a
fraction of them.
• Pick out only what you know to be important to the telling of the story.
• If you can find unusual ways to describe a setting, it helps to make your story unique
and more interesting for readers.
Get into the habit of noticing both color and texture, and comparing them with other things.
For example:
• What are the buildings made of? Stone, brick or wood?
• What color are the bricks?
• Are the bricks rough or smooth? Smooth as ... what? Tile, marble, the kitchen work-
surface?
Here are examples of using the senses for detailed description:
• Sight – What color are cabbages? Not just green: Spring cabbages are called Ox Heart
for their shape and they are pale silvery-green, Savoy Winter cabbages are dark blue-
green with purple tinges and bubbly leaves. If you look at them with the sun behind
them, you will see a delicate tracery of white ribs through the leaves. Red cabbages have
a smooth ball of tight inner leaves in the center, with outer leaves that are deep purple-
red with a silver bloom on them.
• Sound – What sound does a cabbage make? If you think it doesn’t, buy a cabbage and
listen to the squeak as you cut it, and wonder what else might squeak like that (and no,
don’t you dare say ‘a mouse’).
• Smell – Cook a cabbage and smell it again as the steam fills the kitchen and creeps up
the stairs if you are foolish enough to leave the door open, as the sloppy mom of one of

18
your characters might do.
• Taste – What does raw cabbage taste like? (Surprisingly nice, actually). What does a
cooked cabbage taste like? And if you mix those tastes with other foods, what happens
to your taste buds?
The world outside is only one of the three elements of setting, although it is often the most
important.
More techniques to create detailed setting:
• Walk or drive your setting if it’s a long journey, noticing everything as your character
might do. Even if your story is set in history, walk or drive over the ground. Towns and
fields will have changed, but the lay of the land will be approximately the same. The
extent of the change will depend on how far back your story is set.
• If you intend to feature a place at any time in history, take the trouble to go to its local
library or museum and ask for help. If you tell them why you need to know, they will be
delighted to help and will tell you many things you hadn’t even realized you needed to
know, as well as show you old maps and drawings.
• Remember, when looking about you for impressions of your surroundings, that your
readers will be younger than you. Unless you are writing for teenagers, your readers will
be shorter than you, so their eye level is lower than yours. You may be able to see over
a fence into a garden, but a child will only see the boards until he gets to the end of the
fence. While you are admiring the flowers, he is thinking what a splendid noise he could
make if he had a stick to run along the fence.
The second aspect is the interior world. Unless your main characters go into many buildings you
only describe their homes once; twice at most if they go into different rooms. Even in the multi-
interior scenario, be careful not to overdo it.
All settings, exterior and interior, must be described, as they have an impact on your characters.
Some examples:
• A poor child could be expected to notice a rich home, comparing it with his own, and
vice versa for a rich child, but other than that only describe in detail what has a bearing
on the movement of the story.
• Unless artistic, most children wouldn’t simply comment on the color of the carpets, but
they would comment to their friends that they have to leave their shoes in the kitchen
now Mom has got new pink carpets in the living room.
• Any child would comment on a sofa if they were told to stop kicking the base because
it marked the leather, or feel guilty if they spilled hot chocolate on the sofa and couldn’t
wipe it off because the fabric was rough tweed.
The third element of setting is the details of the immediate cultural background of your
characters, together with the wider social mores of the time and place in which they live.
Interaction between children and their parents is important because it sets the emotional
atmosphere of the family. A secure, well-loved child (character); won’t be upset by gentle nagging
about the furniture, or the state of his bedroom (setting). However, a sensitive child will hate the
EXTERIOR SETTINGS
INTERIOR SETTINGS
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CHARACTERS AND SETTING

19
thought of bringing friends home to a house that always smells of over-cooked cabbage.
It is events like these that help to form a child’s character and shape their behavior, and for this
reason they are important for more than background color. This technique adds both richness and
authenticity to your story.
One of the subtleties of writing for different age groups is to determine to what extent you
describe directly, or hint at obliquely, the various elements of setting.
Here are the guidelines:
Younger readers demand direct descriptions:
Example:
“Tony looked at the snow. Great huge dollops of the stuff were dropping from the sky
forming a thick, white carpet on the ground.
He scrambled for his boots. His were to be the first footsteps on that white landscape.”
Teenage readers can cope with indirect descriptions:
Example:
“The grey, pillowed sky appeared to sigh and gratefully shed its load of downy feathers
upon the sleeping earth below. It was crystal-still. Silence in white.”
Notice that in the above example, the word ‘snow’ is not even mentioned!
Younger readers demand explicit emotional ‘tone’:
Example:
“Joe hated his Uncle Harry’s house. It was there, in that cold front room, that he had been
told about the death of his faithful dog, Rex.”
Teenage readers (and adults of course) can handle inexplicit emotional tone:
Example:
“The room exuded a bone-dead coldness. Coldness and fear tinged with sorrow at a loss
half-remembered. The ticking grandfather clock seemed to mark out the span of his young
life and count down the time before the darkness came again.”
This is the third element in producing a successful story – and a very important one. The main
question for every story you write is:
• Who is going to be telling your story?
Obviously you are, but whose eyes and voice will you be using? Here are your choices:
• ‘First person’. (“I awoke to see a large crow tapping its beak against my bedroom
window.”)
• ‘Third person’. (“Marcus awoke to see a large crow tapping its beak against his bedroom
window.”)
DESCRIPTION - DIRECT AND INDIRECT
VIEWPOINT

20
If you write a story in the ‘first person’, you write as if you are the character.
Example:
“I woke up late and looked out of the window. I could see Jock sitting on the lawn gnawing
a bone.”
If you write a story in the ‘third person’, you write as an observer of all the characters.
Example:
“Tony woke late and looked out of the window. He saw Jock sitting on the lawn gnawing a
bone.”
Golden Insider Tip…
Whichever you choose, having made your choice you must continue with it, for there are few
crimes worse in editors’ eyes than switching viewpoints during a story. Changing viewpoint during
a story is one of the quickest ways to mark out the novice writer.
It is irritating enough when encountered in adult fiction (some writers think it’s clever); children
(and adults) instinctively dislike it and will reject books that attempt it.
This is because it causes a break in concentration, a realization that the story you were immersed
in is something that you are reading, rather than watching as though it were real life.
New writers tend to opt for the first person viewpoint, telling the story ‘as it happened to them.’
This seems the easiest way to go about it, but it does have some big snags.
The most important and limiting difficulty with using first person is this:
Whether you choose to be the main character, or a subsidiary character telling the story,
you can only describe what you saw, what you heard, and what you thought. You cannot
know anything that happens ‘off stage’ unless you were told about it, and you must report it
in those terms. This sets you apart from the action if you are not the main character, and it is
important for children to be able to immerse themselves in the action.
(Aside: Try reading Frankenstein and see the ludicrous lengths the author must go to so
that her character can know about the events that are happening back home.)
For example:
“Dan told me how he drew his sword and, with a single stroke, severed the Tensor’s head
from its body.”
Contrast this with the more immediate:
“I drew my sword and, with a single stroke, severed the Tensor’s head from its body.”
So for children’s stories told in the first person, it is best if you are the main character.
To achieve strong writing that works in the first person, you need to ask two vital questions.
They are:
• Why are you telling this story?
• How are you telling it?

21
Be careful how you answer this. The “My teacher said I should write it down,” explanation has
become a tired cliché, as has “Dear Diary...”
The best solution is not to explain – just start. For example, “When I lived in Gloucester...”
The major advantage of using the first person is that it gives you full intimacy with the main
character, and access to his or her deepest thoughts and emotions. This, carefully handled, makes
for a high level of reader identification.
But you have to describe yourself without appearing to be big headed or too introverted.
If you write, “My hair is silken blonde, my eyes are blue and I am very beautiful,” your heroine is
introduced as a vain brat who is asking to be slapped down! No reader will want to identify with
her.
However, if you write, “She was a pretty, blue-eyed, blonde girl,” it makes the heroine much more
likeable. So, you can see that writing in third person has its benefits too. Of course you can get
across the same thing in the first person, but you need to use a ‘device’ such as:
“Mother stroked my hair soothingly. ‘Such pretty blonde hair,’ she said. ‘Your grandmother had
beautiful long hair like this. Her friends called her Goldilocks for fun, you know, when they wanted
to tease her…’”
This shows the reader the main character has beautiful blonde hair, without it coming across as
vanity.
Using the third person also allows you to know more about all the characters, and to be
dispassionate about the main character. So, as an observer, you can say your hero was brave or
your heroine pretty, where these descriptions of oneself in the first person can sound conceited.
However, when using the third person, you should still relate the whole story from the main
character’s point of view. This is essential in children’s stories, because of the ever present need
for identiﬁcation. So, you can’t use any of the devices used in adult fiction, such as breaking up
chapters into sections about the different characters who will eventually come together at the
end (although there are always exceptions to the rule, such as the massively bestselling middle
grade novel, ‘Wonder’ by R.J. Palacio).
(Aside: Even as an adult, don’t you groan inwardly when Chapter One is all about the main
character, then chapter two starts off with someone entirely different and never mentions the
main character?)
Adult readers can accept this level of sophisticated narrative technique; children see it, as an
unnecessary and highly confusing change of viewpoint.
The next decision on viewpoint is where you, as the narrator, are standing in time. In other words,
what tense are you going to use?
The best place to start is at the beginning and move logically through the events as they
occurred. The devices of hindsight or ﬂashbacks are too sophisticated for children, and are
another one of the jolts that bring them back to the real world.
So here’s an example that is not too sophisticated:
“John wished he was back in his old class at Oakley Road, with his friends around him.”
Here’s that example made too sophisticated:
End one paragraph with “John backed up against the wall and stared defiantly at Steve and
PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE TENSE

22
Andy,” then start a new paragraph with a flashback description of the classroom at Oakley
Road, full of other children who haven’t been mentioned before.
The readers would wonder what they had missed, and start turning back the pages to see what is
happening.
The final decision you have to make on viewpoint is the ‘voice’ you will use. Voice sets the mood
and says a lot about the main character as well.
Voice doesn’t mean dialogue, but the tone in which the story is told. Here are some choices of
tones:
• Matter-of-fact.
• Melodramatic.
• Heroic.
• Lyrical.
You choose whatever is appropriate for the story as with viewpoints, it must remain the same all
the way through.
For example, Marcus is unlikely to be a daydreamer or poet if he is brave enough to set out to
cross a land full of warring southerners. He will view the country he goes through in a matter-
of-fact but wary way, knowing that a big tree could conceal an enemy. He will probably not wax
lyrical about its strange unearthly beauty.
This doesn’t mean you can ignore his emotions, or dismiss them in a single sentence.
Here’s an example of too bald a statement for Marcus’s emotions:
“No-one likes to hear of a brother in the hands of the enemy, and Marcus was no exception.”
Here’s an example that gives the reader Marcus’s emotions:
“Marcus was stunned by the news. Thomas captured? How could it be true? His big brother,
brave Thomas, the best horseman in Commonwealth of Massachusetts? Thomas, who had
taught him to ride? Just thinking of that first lesson brought back the feel of the pony
underneath him, the warm muscles rippling beneath his legs and the rough hair of the mane
as he clutched at it to steady himself. Thomas, who had laughed and punched him on the
arm when he fell. Thomas, who was now under threat of death...”
Janine, on the other hand, is going to remember things in a very different way.
We already know she cares deeply for her music, and she is likely to see everything around her in
a more lyrical way.
Here’s an example that shows the reader Janine’s emotions:
“Janine remembered the first lesson she had with Mr. Stanislow. She had been struck by the
sensitivity in his long bony fingers as he almost stroked the haunting tune from his violin.
He had been so patient with her clumsy attempts to copy his perfect timing. She thought
it would take her whole lifetime to equal his delicate fingering. Just as she felt she was
improving a little, her hour was up and she had to go, out of his tiny room, down the narrow
stairs out into the street to the bus stop.
As she waited for the bus, she heard the haunting tune again, wafting out of the open
window and filtering down through the dancing leaves of the giant beech tree that stood in
his front garden.”
VOICES

23
In our ‘Janine’ story, we have two very different girls. So, they would obviously react very
differently to the news for instance, that their boyfriend has been seen with another girl.
Example of Janine’s reaction to this event told in her lyrical voice:
“It was the saddest thing that has ever happened to me. I had to creep away to be sick and
then pretend I’d eaten something that didn’t agree with me. I knew it would be no good
trying to tell them how I felt. They just don’t understand.”
Example of Linda’s reaction to this event told in her matter-of-fact voice:
“It made me feel pretty sick, I can tell you. Still, there wasn’t a lot of point in making a fuss
about it – they’d have only said I was being silly.”
These are just a few examples of the voice you might use. Don’t go too far away from your own
personality, though, or you will find it difficult to sustain.
As an example to demonstrate how important it is that all of your characters have a distinct voice
here is a true cautionary tale. The editor of a publishing house received one postcard a day over
several days from the same author. Each postcard depicted a character for a children’s novel.
Unfortunately, the author’s strategy to get noticed by this editor and be offered a publishing deal
for his children’s novel backfired. The author only succeeded in annoying the editor because every
character spoke with the same voice.
Where to begin? This is the problem that faces every writer, with every story.
Given that I have already explained that ﬂashbacks are not appropriate in children’s stories, there
is only one place to begin and that is at the beginning.
But where is the beginning? How much scene setting should you do, before you get to the
incident that triggers the problems your characters have to overcome? The answer is as little as
possible.
You want to hook your readers almost immediately – if you can do it with the ﬁrst sentence, so
much the better.
You either want to establish a strong character that will hook the reader’s sympathy, or you
really need some action on the first page. Nothing major, necessarily, but enough to let the
readers know that something life-changing (conflict) is going to happen, and to indicate the main
character’s qualities.
Insider Tip…
New writers often start their story too far back. (Once upon a time the earth was in a molten
state. Eventually the crust cooled and…)
Here are some examples of what NOT to do:
• Don’t show heroine Janine finishing her day at school and chatting to her friends on the
bus, walking to her house and stopping to pat the dog before she goes indoors.
• Don’t go into a long exposition about how the Confederates came to be based in
Massachusetts, how many men were there, why Marcus is there and who his family are.
Way before all this routine guff has ended the readers have gotten bored and given up. You
have to get their attention straight away or you’ll lose them, particularly in these days of Internet
surfing and TV channel hopping.
THE FIRST CHAPTER

24
We really aren’t concerned with the details of Janine’s school day, or her journey home. We want
to know what is going to happen to her. So start by showing her putting her key in the door,
dropping her bag in the hall and seeing the envelope marked ‘Brighthampton Music College’ on
the hall table and her mother looking anxious.
Similarly, on the first page, Marcus will have been outside the tavern near his home and heard
someone shout, “The Confederates are retreating! The ones that weren’t slaughtered were
captured.” And he would rush home, heart beating to be greeted with, “I’m afraid we’ve had bad
news, Marcus.”
Either of these beginnings will keep the pages turning.
The best beginnings are those that involve a change in the life of your main character (conflict).
John’s, Janine’s and Marcus’s story have this theme, and they all need to start with the
introduction of the change to come. Journeys are always a good way to initiate change, or the
arrival of strangers or a letter.
Janine’s letter is just the right way to start a story about someone whose interests are cerebral.
For Marcus, who is a young man of action, it is better that the news is delivered by the more
direct method of a messenger, even if it is inadvertently.
Just before we take a look at setting the tone, consider how vastly different your story would be if
you changed your choice of the poor girl from Janine to Linda. So the one-liner of what the story
is about would read:
‘Linda is a poor Manhattan girl, Janine a rich Crow Native American, but both girls want to
go to a music college.’
Conflict might be:
• Janine’s parents want her to be a politician (the same as her father who worked in an
advisory capacity on Native American affairs at the White House during the height of
his career) and consider a career in music to be frivolous.
Q. How do they know each other?
A. Perhaps they are interacting because they were both involved in an incident that
occurred when Janine was with her parents visiting New York.
The beginning of your story has to set the tone of the whole story, with character insights for
stories of emotional upheaval and action for stories of adventure.
The action start of an adventure story needs to be a small and fairly personal action. Your
readers want to know whose side they are meant to be on, and if you start in the middle of a
major battle they won’t know which side is which. Throughout the story, the climaxes should
come more frequently, with each being of greater intensity than the previous. This is called
‘climbing the stairs’.
All good ‘works of art’ have this inherent, gradual building of climax. Great musical symphonies
will start with a small crescendo and gradually work up to larger and larger climaxes. Good
theater will do the same, until you are on the edge of your seat by the closing moments. The
same is true of a good film.
So don’t throw away all of your good ideas in the opening pages or chapters. Space the ideas
out from start to ﬁnish, saving the biggest and most exciting for last. This will keep the pages
turning, and the reader interested. This, after all, is the end result you want. The more people who
are excited about your story the more copies you will sell – and that could be worldwide!
SETTING THE TONE

25
Don’t be tempted to believe that your work will come out perfectly the first time. Even
experienced best-selling authors expect to revise and polish their books at least once and usually
many times, and as a beginner you will have to do the same.
Top Insider Tip…
Don’t attempt to write perfect prose in your first draft. What is important is that you get the
whole story down on paper as spontaneously and urgently as you can.
Don’t worry whether you are using words that will be outside your readers’ vocabularies, or
whether your sentences are too long. All of this can be dealt with during revision.
You should not let the inevitable gaps in your research (or even the need to find the right word
when it hides on the tip of your tongue) slow you down. Just put in a question mark, or a note
to yourself (in square brackets or colored font to make it easier to find later) and press on. Use
square brackets [] to indicate notes to yourself. [This is a note to myself.]
Don’t let yourself be distracted by the outside world when you should be immersed in your own
created world.
Having done a ﬁrst draft, the bulk of the creative work is complete. Now it is a question of
rewriting and honing the rough stone into a polished gem.
This is the time to labor over individual words and sentences in your search for exactly the right
word or phrase. This stage can take quite a long time, depending on how much of a perfectionist
you are. Typically it will take 3-4 times longer than it took to write the first draft.
Some new writers, having had their first story returned with a rejection letter, put it away and
start on another story. Then, when the second story is rejected, they put that away and start on
a third. Some spend years doing this, writing story after story, sending each one out once only
before adding it to the pile.
There are two reasons to avoid doing this:
• The first is that it is a total waste of the time and emotional energy that it took to write
each story.
• The second is that it doesn’t teach you anything.
Unless you are the sort of writer who refuses to rewrite anything once it has flowed from your
brilliant pen (and there are, surprise, surprise, a lot of unpublished writers who adopt this attitude)
you have to accept that your work has been rejected because there is a problem with it. And
often there are a lot of problems… AND they are great big fat problems, not teensy little nit-
picking quibbles.
A problem with your story does not mean that the whole thing is useless.
If you just put it away and start on something else, you are likely to repeat the error, whereas
looking at it analytically after some time has elapsed should enable you to isolate the problem
and put it right.
Even sillier is to flit from one type of writing to another. If you were to write, say, a school story,
and when it came back, you decided it really was too bad to polish, your next piece of work
should be another school story, not a piece of science fiction.
COMMON MISTAKES - THE BUTTERFLY SYNDROME
THE FIRST DRAFT

26
The same applies when you do have a book accepted. Your publishers, and your readers, will want
more of the same, not something completely different. Each genre has its own conventions and
styles, and it takes time to absorb them fully. If you flit from one to another, you will master none
of them, so give yourself time to learn your craft on one genre before deciding you need a
change of direction.
Remember, all it takes is:
ONE great idea
TWO pinches of imagination
and
THREE spoonfuls of effort…
…to SERVE UP a page-turning book that reaches the top of the
charts in the ‘Children’s Best Seller List!’
That’s it for now. I hope you have enjoyed this module and that it has stimulated your mind into
coming up with some great ideas.

Module Two
Age Groups & Story Types

29
L E A R N I N G O U T C O M E S
• Identify suitable book types
• Identify target age-groups of children
• Recognize different types of story
• Employ effective market research
techniques
• Recognize common mistakes
CHOOSING THE RIGHT TYPE OF BOOK
What I mean here is ‘the right sort of book for you’.
In this module, I will be discussing the different age groups of children, and the different types of
story you could write.
In no other area of publishing are there as many categories as there are in children’s publishing.
The good news is…
Publishers are actively seeking new writers in all categories.
And publishers will be especially happy to welcome you if you can handle more than one sort of
book. Like all new skills, it is best to master one at a time, so start by choosing the category that
appeals to you most.
Here’s the easiest way to do this…
You will probably feel drawn to children of a particular age group, so start by considering what
types of book are published for them.
Most publishers split their lists into age categories, which are referred to as: Picture Books,
Chapter Books, Middle Grade and Young Adult.
Each category has a typical range of subject matter and style of presentation, and you will need
to gear your writing to match these. If you want to be published, you must conform to what
publishers want and accept that they arrive at their conclusions after careful and constant
market research.
They know their business, and it IS a business!
Golden Tip…
Always remember that publishers exist to make money, and NOT to charitably assist aspiring
authors to get their first book published, nor even to educate and entertain children with the
‘best’ literature!

30
A word of warning at this stage:
Choose the age group with which you feel most comfortable. Do not select an age group
because you think it would be ‘easier’. For example, writing for very young children might seem
easy to you (only a few BIG words on each page) but it is acknowledged that this age group is
fiendishly hard to write for and get it right!
The days of: “See Spot. See The Ball. See Spot With The Ball”, have passed.
To a large extent, where writing for older children is concerned, the style you choose will reflect
your personal bent and ability in each of the three elements discussed last module: setting,
characterization and plotting.
If setting the scene and providing authentic backgrounds is your preference, then you should
think of writing for one of the following genres:
• Historical fiction.
• Science fiction or fantasy.
• Non-fiction books which deal in hard facts.
If you enjoy developing your characters, consider one of the following genres:
• Romance for teenagers.
• School stories.
• Biographies.
If plotting and building suspense is your delight, you will be happiest writing for one of the
following genres:
• Adventure stories.
• Mysteries.
• Psychological thrillers.
• ‘Twist’ ending short stories.
There are a number of extremely popular American and UK series in each genre. One of these
produced by Scholastic Hippo is the ‘Horrible’ series of books. There are:
‘Horrible Histories’, ‘Horrible Science’ and ‘Horrible Geography’, for example.
Another hugely successful long running series is the ‘Goosebumps’ series, which falls under the
children’s ﬁction, horror and thriller genres. American author, R.L. Stine characterizes the series
as “scary books that are also funny”. Since the release of first novel, ‘Welcome to Dead House’ in
July of 1992, the books have gained immense popularity and commercial success worldwide. As
of 2014, the series has sold over 350 million books worldwide in 32 languages, and individual
books in the series have been listed in many bestseller lists, including the New York Times Best
Seller List for Children.
‘Captain Underpants’ by Dav Pilkey (Scholastic), which he started writing while he was still in
school, as well as writing another epic series for younger children, ‘Ricky Ricotta and Super
Diaper Baby’.
And the latest book by this author, ‘The Invasion of the Potty Snatchers’ - Demonstrates how
characters from one book series can spawn a whole new series, as this book blurb depicts:
George and Harold (the co-stars of the enormously popular Captain Underpants series) are
in big trouble again! Their mean principal, Mr. Krupp, has had it with their comic books. But
the boys aren’t giving up, and they decide to create an all-new epic novel about a subject
CHOOSING AN AGE GROUP

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they’ve never tackled before! Dr. Dilbert Dinkle started his career as an ordinary, everyday
evil genius/inventor/bank robber. But when he awakens one day transformed into a walking,
talking puddle of pee, he vows to destroy every toilet in town. Will the devious Dr. Dinkle
and his conniving cat, Petey, ruin restrooms for the rest of us? Or could this be a job for the
death-defying, dynamic duo of Super Diaper Baby and Diaper Dog?
Another incredibly successful series of books are those that fall under the genre of Young Adult
Vampire and Paranormal Horror.
An example is:
‘The Vampire Diaries’, created by L.J. Smith - This series, which centers on Elena Gilbert, who is
a cute young high school girl that finds her heart eventually torn between two vampire brothers,
Stefan and Damon Salvatore.
The series was originally published in 1991-1992. The first three novels in the original series (‘The
Awakening’, ‘The Struggle’, and ‘The Fury’) all feature Stefan and Elena as the narrators of the
series, while the last book in the original series, ‘Dark Reunion’, is from another viewpoint.
The third and final book of ‘The Salvation’ trilogy, ‘Unmasked’, was released May 8, 2014. And the
first two books of ‘The Salvation’ trilogy were first released on Amazon.com as a paperback and
e-book. ‘Unmasked’ became available for purchase in five formats during March 2014 at Amazon.
com.
Now Smith continues to write her books on Amazon Kindle as supplementary novellas and not
part of the official series.
If you are serious about writing for children, then you must read the books they read. You
should devour at least five children’s books a week, preferably more. Don’t think you can write for
children without reading almost everything that is currently on the market – you won’t be able to.
Yet it’s totally amazing how many would-be authors launch into writing their first book when the
last children’s book they read was thirty years ago.
And it’s every bit as important to read as many, ‘What this book is about’ descriptions as you
possibly can, so you learn the skill of pitching your story.
Now let’s have a look at the major genres of children’s writing.
We’ll start with an overview of the age categories, as we will be looking at them in more detail
later in the course.
Publishers split books for this age group into Picture and Early Readers.
Picture Books
These consist more of illustrations than words; there are often no more than ten words to a page.
They will not be read by children, but rather to children and the pictures will also be fairly simple
so that the reader can say:
“This is a story about a teddy bear. Look, there’s teddy in his house.”
The stories for the youngest children will feature situations with which a young child will be
familiar, such as getting dressed, going for a walk, or going to bed.
An example of these books is:
‘Goodnight Moon’, by Margaret Wise Brown (HarperFestival) - In Goodnight Moon, a young
rabbit bids goodnight to every object in his bedroom, allowing parents and teachers to support
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32
children as they develop their own reading skills.
‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ by Eric Carle (Philomel) – This is a classic picture book. In this
bright and boldly colored book, a famished caterpillar eats his way through a whole array of
goodies, teaching the reader about colors, counting, and the life cycle of the caterpillar.
When children get a little older and are able to remember what they have heard before, they love
books with appropriate noises. This explains the popularity of ‘Old Macdonald had a farm’, with
its repeated animal noises.
A couple of other good examples are ‘Chugga Chugga Choo Choo’ by Kevin Lewis (Disney-
Hyperion) and ‘Chicka Chicka Boom Boom’ by Bill Martin, Jr. (Simon & Schuster).
Then there are books that help children to learn to count, such as ‘Big Fat Hen’ by Keith Baker
(HMH), and ‘Fish Eyes’ by Lois Elhert (HMH).
‘Fireﬁghters A to Z’ by Chris Demarest (Margaret McElderberry Books) - This book combines the
common love young children have of firefighters with learning the letters of the alphabet.
‘Hairy Maclary from Donaldson’s Dairy’, by Lynley Dodd (Puffin - an imprint of Penguin
Children’s) - This is the first in the classic children’s series, originally published over 30 years ago.
The story features Hairy Maclary and his assorted canine friends from the neighborhood as they
head out on a walk, before encountering the local tomcat, Scarface Claw.
Animals are always popular with both children and the adults who read to them, which is why
many books for this age group feature animal characters.
‘Curious George’ series, by H.A. Ray (HMH) - This is a lively and entertaining story about the
mischief that little monkeys can get up to when they’re bored. With endless books in the series,
children go on an adventure led by George’s curiosity, always knowing that George will end up
safe in the end.
‘Make Way for Ducklings’ by Robert McCloskey (Penguin) - A family of ducks must make their
ways across the busy city of Boston to find a new home.
‘SkippyJon Jones’ by Judy Schachner (Penguin) - A Siamese cat is convinced he is a Chihuahua
– and a rough and tumble bandito besides.
‘Bear Snores On’ by Karma Wilson (Little Simon) – The ever-popular bear appears in the first of a
series of many books about this sweet bear discovering the world.
‘Stellaluna’ by Janelle Cannon (Harcourt) - A baby bat tries to fit into a family of birds after being
separated from her mother.
Early Readers
Moving on to the next category, early readers can be read by the children as well as read to them.
Some publishers call these ‘first readers’, ‘beginning readers’ or ‘read along books’.
These books are also heavily illustrated, but there is more text. The word-teaching aspect is still
represented. For example in books such as:
‘Amelia Bedelia’ series by Peggy Parrish (Greenwillow Books) - Vocabulary expands as
housemaid Amelia Bedelia takes every instruction from her employers completely literally (ie, she
sits down to sketch a picture of drapes when her instructions say, “Draw the drapes.”)
Animals continue to be hugely popular.
The following series use adventure with animals to hook kids in to reading:

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• ‘Little Bear’ by Else Homelund Minarik (Harper Trophy).
• ‘Henry and Mudge’ by Cynthia Rylant (Simon Spotlight).
• ‘George and Martha’ by James Marshall (HMH).
For children whose parents want them to make an early start on learning another language, there
are bi-lingual books such as:
‘Where’s Our Mama? / Ou est Maman?’ by Diana Goode (Red Fox) - Which tells the story of two
children lost in Paris.
As the age of the targeted reader increases, an element of anarchic humor is often introduced.
Some examples of this type of book (some with full blurb, others one-liners) are:
• ‘The Cat in the Hat’ by Dr. Seuss (Random House) - A hilarious story about a magical
cat who transforms a rainy day into a chaotic adventure, leaving the reader asking
themselves whether they themselves would confess such adventures to their mother or
not.
• ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ by Maurice Sendak (HarperCollins) - The winner of the
1964 Caldecott Medal, follows a boy who is sent to bed without any supper to a land of
where wild things hold wild rumpuses and make the boy their king.
• ‘The Legend of Captain Crow’s Teeth’ by Eoin Colfer, illustrated by Tony Ross (Puffin)
- Five brothers are spending the summer holidays in a cramped caravan in Ireland with
their parents. They are mischievous little monkeys who are a trial to their parents. Marty,
the eldest brother, reads his brothers spooky stories and his favorite is about Captain
Crow; a cut-throat pirate who is out to get his revenge on any available nine year old
boy. This summer, Will who is nine years old, is to be the butt of Marty’s most elaborate
prank so far. With characters last seen in Colfer’s The Legend of Spud Murphy, this is
another light-hearted adventure for younger readers, in which the issue of sibling rivalry
is deftly and humorously handled.
• ‘The Stinky Cheeseman’ by Jon Scieszka (Viking Juvenile) - Turns all the fairy tales we
thought we knew on their head – the ugly duckling grows up to be ugly and when the
princess kisses a frog, it stays a frog. There are no lessons to be learned, just fun to be
had, and characters move in and out of each other’s stories at will.
• ‘Billy and Belle’ by Sarah Garland (Walker Books) – Is a story which tells of a chaotic
day at school when a new baby brother is born and Belle, who doesn’t have a pet to
take to school for Pet’s Day, decides to adopt a pet spider.
• ‘Dr Xargle’s Book of Earth Weather’ by Jeanne Willis and Tony Ross (Red Fox) - This
is part of an hilarious series where Dr Xargle lectures a class on the oddities of Earth; in
this one he tells them about the weather and how earthlings behave in different seasons.
In addition to humor, an element of social responsibility is often introduced. For example:
‘The Lorax’ by Dr. Seuss (Random House) - The Lorax tells a tale of the extinction of the truffula
trees, due to corporate greed and consumerism.
Other books are intended to encourage young children to think more deeply about the world
around them.
An example of this is:
‘In the Middle of the Night’ by Kathy Henderson and Jennifer Eachus (Walker) - Which
describes what happens at night in sleeping cities: cats prowl the streets while people work away
on night shifts in a world which few children ever see.

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This is the age group where fiction and non-fiction are firmly separated. I will be devoting a whole
lesson to writing non-fiction, so for now I am concentrating on fiction.
In this age group the categories can become rather confused. They can be for:
• ‘Confident readers’ aged seven to ten.
• ‘Middle grade’ children of eight to eleven.
• ‘Older’ children of over nine.
• ‘Pre-teens’ for ten and eleven year-olds.
To confuse the issue even more, different publishers call their categories different things! The
main reason for the confusion is the vastly different reading levels of children who are the same
biological age.
Of course, just because a child is classified by his or her age, this doesn’t mean that all children of
that age will be at the same stage of development, either physically or academically.
From your point of view, it doesn’t matter too much at the beginning of your writing career. When
you have had several books published, you will find that your publishers will ask you for a book to
ﬁt a particular category.
Until that happens, all you need to do is write your story and leave it to the publisher to decide
into which age category it fits.
The only thing you have to be careful about is to match the level of sophistication of the
vocabulary you use with the complexity of the plot - and this requires some skill.
For example, a book aimed at beginner readers will have a comparatively simple plot and a
storyline that will tackle a situation that a seven or eight year-old can accept as being possible
from their own experience. It should be written using words that are also acceptable to a reader
of that age, which usually means avoiding words of more than three syllables.
Tony Bradman’s ‘Gerbil Crazy’ (Viking ‘Read Alone’ series) - The heroine Sarah persuades her
parents to let her have a gerbil, which she calls Georgie. He keeps escaping, both at home and at
school, but all ends happily when he is found again. The story ends with Sarah suggesting that
Georgie wouldn’t want to escape if he had a companion.
Here is an analysis of the vocabulary in this story:
The whole story is about 3,500 words long.
Only 75 of these words are three syllables, 34 of which end in -ly, -ing, or -ed.
There are 7 words of four syllables: definitely, actually, everything, unusual, and disappeared (three
times).
There is only one word with 5 syllables: eventually.
Despite this, the book does not ‘talk down’ to readers, and it is a perfectly acceptable story for
an adult to read, to while away half an hour.
This is the great skill of writing for this age group – to use words with few syllables and yet make
it so interesting that an adult reader would not necessarily realize the story has been written to
minimize the use of polysyllabic words.
The other side of the equation is that neither this level of vocabulary or plotting will do for older
readers.
WRITING FOR SEVEN TO ELEVEN YEAR OLDS
MATCHING VOCABULARY AND PLOT

35
Consider:
Phillip Pullman’s ‘The Golden Compass’ (Yearling) – (About 117,000 words long) it tells the
story of an orphan who must save her uncle from assassination, then go on a dangerous journey,
straight into a terrible struggle between witch clans and Gobblers, who are known to steal
children and even worse.
The vocabulary is at adult level, with words such as ‘commissionaire’ and ‘penetrate’, and the plot
moves through several stages as the suspense builds to a chilling climax. Such a book would be
far too difficult for most readers under ten.
The ‘Common Core English: The Wheatley Portfolio’ series are used by the education system
to provide comprehensive level-by-level learning and practice for students. But they also provide
Insider Knowledge for a children’s author. The contents within the ‘Common Core Curriculum:
English, Grades K-5’ have headings such as, ‘Reading poetry, comprehension and vocabulary’ and
‘Vocabulary, language usage’.
Because the books are updated and the newer editions appear to be different age groups, unless
you have all of the latest editions (as opposed to a mixture of older editions and new) it can be
a bit confusing. However, they still give you a guideline for the understanding level of language
and complexity (or simplicity) of plot and characterization for the different age groups. And a
guideline is all you need. A writer’s task is to use ‘rules’ to open up creativity not stifle it.
Another point that arises from our last two examples is the length of books required for different
age groups.
The rule is simple…
• Young readers need short books.
• Older readers need longer books.
And that means (usually, because there is always an exception to the rule)…
• ‘Read alone’ books for seven-year-olds run to about 3,500 words.
• For competent readers of eight to ten, books are typically 10,000 to 20,000 words.
• For pre-teens, a typical book length is 30,000 to 50,000 words.
Pre-teens can also cope with trilogies, as long as each book is complete in itself.
Book length is all about the attention span of each age group, allied to the level of plot
sophistication they can cope with. Even a beginner reader can cope with 3,500 words in the hour
between finishing supper and bedtime, but it takes a lot more effort, even for a keen reader, to get
through 50,000 words of complex plot.
As with the other categories, the division between these two is – if it exists at all – an arbitrary
division made by some publishers as a marketing guide.
It is in this age band that the interest in fantasy and science ﬁction becomes fanatical. This
is probably because many of these stories involve some sort of rite of passage, which can be
associated with the transition from childhood to adult status.
Stories set in the present time often include an element of the difficulties of coping with this
transition – some are about an adolescent upheaval, others have it running as a sub-plot, while
others just cope with it as part of the background.
Jacqueline Wilson springs immediately to mind – she has a hugely loyal following of girls in
BOOK LENGTH
WRITING FROM TEENAGERS AND YOUNG ADULTS

36
their young teens eager for her next novel. Her stories deal with modern family and social issues
that every growing girl can relate to. She was so popular an author that she was the Children’s
Laureate for 2005-7.
UK sales of her books total more than thirty million and several of her books have been adapted
for television, radio and stage.
‘The Book Thief’ by Markus Zusak (Knopf Doubleday Publishing) - For readers aged 14+ is about
a girl who saves books from Nazi burning and has also been made into a movie.
Another example is:
‘Percy Jackson’s Greek Gods’ by Rick Riordan full color illustrations by John Rocco (Puffin) - The
son of Poseidon adds his own magic--and sarcastic asides--to the classics. He explains how the
world was created, then gives readers his personal take on a who’s who of ancients, from Apollo
to Zeus. Percy does not hold back:
If you like horror shows, blood baths, lying, stealing, backstabbing, and cannibalism, then
read on, because it deﬁnitely was a Golden Age for all that.
It is in this age group that some girls become keen on reading romances, and this has turned
into a huge market for both one-off stories and series such as Stephenie Meyer’s four -book
paranormal romance series Twilight (Little, Brown). It also provides the main market for short
stories in the many magazines published for teenagers.
Also popular are spy stories like:
‘Also Known As’ by Robin Benway (Walker Children’s) - Maggie Silver is a plucky 17-year-old who
travels the world with her parents who work for a super-secret espionage organization known as
the Collective. Due to her parents’ clandestine careers, Maggie has evaded attending high school,
but their latest assignment and Maggie’s first solo job sends her into a New York City private
school where she must befriend Jesse Oliver and blend in like any other teenager.
‘Russian Roulette’ by Anthony Horowitz (Walker Books Ltd) - This is one of the stories of the
Alex Rider series, which is for both 9+ and 11+ readers. The age is given as 10+ for buyers. The
story: An international contract killer has been given his orders. His next target is a fourteen-
year-old spy ...Alex Rider. The man’s name is Yassen Gregorovich. He knows Alex well. The two of
them share a secret from the past. As he considers his next mission, Yassen remembers the forces
that turned him from an ordinary schoolboy into a hired assassin. What is it that makes someone
choose to do evil? What would it take to make them kill? This thrilling adventure will be the
deadliest yet...
Now let’s look at some more specific types of book, classified by plot type rather than age group.
Stories where the main characters are animals will always be popular with children under ten, and
they fall into two main types:
The first is where the animals behave naturally. The story is about events that could believably
happen to real animals and where any human characters are almost incidental.
A good example of this sort of story is:
E.B. White’s Newbery Award Winner ‘Charlotte’s Web’ (Harper Collins) - It tells the story of a
runt piglet who is saved from the knife by the farmer’s daughter, and the piglet goes on to do
some amazing things, helped by a spider and a rat at the State Fair. Although they do interact
with humans, there is no meaningful animal-to-human communication.
The second type of animal story is where the animals are really no more than humans in furry
ANIMAL STORIES

37
skins, with the species chosen to fill the stereotyped roles that political correctness will no longer
allow writers to assign to groups of humans! Watership Down is a good example.
Another example of this type of story is:
Brian Jacques’ Redwall trilogy: ‘Redwall’, ‘Mossﬂower’ and ‘Mattimeo’ (Red Fox). These books
read like adult fantasy, but mice and badgers represent the good characters, while the bad
characters are stoats, weasels, and a particularly villainous fox.
There are, of course, many other books that fall between these two main types, and there are
also certain animals that are more popular than others. Mice, cats, dogs, horses and elephants are
probably the most popular, followed by frogs, ducks, bears, hamsters and hedgehogs.
If you want to use the perennial ‘bad-guy’ animals such as snakes, crocodiles or rats as heroes,
you can make a specific case for them, such as ‘The Underland Chronicles’ by Suzanne Collins
(Scholastic) or ‘Nightshade City’ by Hilary Wagner (Holiday House).
Equally popular are books that don’t mention ‘bad guy’ animals in the title, but are shown by the
cover illustration and the marketing text (one-liners or blurbs). Titles such as:
‘Flora and Ulysses’ by Kate DiCamillo, illustrated by K G Campbell (Candlewick) - Which is a
book about a squirrel with unusual powers for readers aged 9 to 12.
And for young readers:
‘Ricky Ricotta’s Mighty Robot’ by Dav Pilkey (Scholastic) – This story is about a lonely little
mouse who befriends a giant robot, takes on the school bullies, and saves the city from an evil rat
scientist, Dr. Stinky McNasty!
This style is dominated by series, such as Bantam’s ‘Sweet Valley High’, Richelle Mead’s ‘Vampire
Academy’, and Jenny Nimmo’s ‘Charlie Bone’ series. The ‘Harry Potter’ books by J.K. Rowling
(Bloomsbury) are a series of seven books covering Harry Potter’s adventures each year he
attends Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
However, there are many non-serialized school stories published. For example:
• ‘Wonder’ by R.J. Palacio (Knopf) - Severely facially disfigured Auggie goes to school
for the first time after having been home-schooled his whole life.
• ‘Frindle’ by Andrew Clements (Atheneum) - A fifth grade boy creates a new word for
“pen” and havoc spreads throughout the school.
If you teach, or have some other on-going connection with a school, you will have exposure
to modern school idioms and plenty of material on which to build your plots. Without this
type of on-going connection, you should choose another style, for you will be unable to write
convincingly if it’s been more than three years since you were there yourself!
Hot Insider Tip…
Beware of using too many ‘latest’ phrases, as they tend to date the story rapidly; this is a mistake
made by many novice authors.
No child could relate to a school story in which the heroes all walked around saying ‘magic’, ‘man’
or even ‘mega’, so don’t imagine that the habit of pumping in the air with your fist and shouting
‘YES!!’ or the use of ‘cool’, ‘wicked’, ‘awesome’ etc. will last any longer!
When an eleven year-old boy asked me about one of my characters, during one of the Richard
SCHOOL STORIES

38
and Judy road shows (a former British TV chat show), his outburst was, “Cool!” And a few years
later a comment by a fourteen year-old female reader was “Wicked”, but as the years roll past
even these sound the same as ‘ace’ does now.
Saying “ace” in polite company would raise some eyebrows. If that doesn’t work for you, try
“swell!” You get the idea.
And I have to admit I was even more amazed to hear an eleven year-old boy in a library say,
“Fiddlesticks!” I thought that went out years ago, so the rule really is to keep your ears peeled.
Listen to and talk with children at every opportunity.
Let’s face it – how hard can that be? If you’re writing for children you obviously like them.
This style includes that perennial favorite of mainly pre-teen girls, the pony story.
There is always room for a good pony story - and ‘good’ is the operative word. Not only must
the story line and plot be convincing, so must the technicalities.
If you don’t know the difference between a running martingale and a standing martingale, or the
reason for using one rather than the other, leave this style to writers who do. You can be certain
that readers will soon tell the publishers if you get the slightest thing wrong!
If writing pony stories appeals to you, Usborne publish a series called ‘Sandy Lane Stables’.
Michelle Bates writes some of the books and others are by Susannah Leigh. Reading the series
will show you what publishers and readers expect these days – obviously it’s not National Velvet
anymore.
To give you an idea initially, here is the blurb for, ‘The Perfect Pony’ by Michelle Bates:
“You mean...you’ve bought this pony?” Alex’s sister Kate cannot believe what he’s done. Alex
thought he was solving lots of problems buying a pony at the local auction. So he’s in for a shock
when he realizes he’s now the owner of Puzzle, a filthy, thin and abused pony. But worse is to
come, because Puzzle is in such a state, she may have to be put down.
And an overview of:
‘Midnight Horse’ by Michelle:
When Kate hears that she has a real chance of winning the winter horse trials she is elated!
But Christmas Eve brings an unexpected present to the stables, the mysterious midnight
horse. Unluckily for Kate, his owner, Izzy, has entered the trials too.
Children and teenagers who are keen enough on any sport to read about it are usually sufficiently
fanatical to know all the technical details and you won’t get anything past them. That said, if you
do know your stuff, sports stories will always be in demand and you would be welcomed by any
of the publishers who produce them.
If you desire to write sports stories, but only know a little about your chosen sport, then you
can always ask an expert to read your material for factual correctness before submission to a
publisher.
Here are some examples of sports stories:
• ‘Saving the Team’ by U.S. Women’s Olympic Soccer player Alex Morgan (Simon &
Schuster) – This is about the adventures, conflicts, and fun of a girls’ soccer team.
• ‘Extra Innings’ by Tiki and Ronde Barber with Paul Mantell (Barber Game Time Books)
- Tiki and Ronde have their sights set on a big diamond—a baseball diamond! Sure,
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they’re experienced athletes, but they’ve never played baseball before. Do they have
what it takes to make the team?
• ‘New Kid’ by Tim Green (Harper/Harper Collins) - This is a book for middle grades.
It’s bases loaded, bottom of the last inning, and Tommy Rust is up at bat in the
championship game. This is the moment he’s been waiting for. But then his father
barges onto the field, and Tommy knows what will happen next. They will be leaving
immediately—again—because Tommy and his dad are on the run.
Note this strong marketing editorial:
New York Times bestselling author and former NFL defensive end Tim Green delivers
another baseball tale with sports action and emotional heart—both on and off the field—
that will keep kids on the edges of their seats.
Sports stories are so hot that New York Yankee Derek Jeter is beginning his own imprint of books
at Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers.
Historical stories went out of fashion and popularity slumped for several years. However, in the
last few years they have become increasingly popular, with the rise of historical TV dramas and
films.
Some novels in this genre for children are:
• ‘Finding Family’ by Tonya Bolden (Bloomsbury), Age Range 8 – 12 - Set in 1905
Charleston, W.Va., this richly lyrical and historically persuasive coming-of-age story
explores the ties that bind, break and renew an affluent African-American family.
• ‘May B’ by Caroline Starr Rose (Random House), Age Range 9-12 - Set in the 1870’s, this
Laura Ingalls-inspired verse novel finds eleven-year-old May stuck by herself through five
months of blizzard on the American frontier.
• ‘One Crazy Summer’ by Rita Williams-Garcia (Harper Collins) - Age Range 8 – 12 -
Set in 1968; this novel follows three sisters as they travel from New York to Oakland,
California to spend the summer with the mother who abandoned them. They’re hoping
to go to Disneyland, but instead end up at a day camp run by the politically radical Black
Panther movement.
• ‘King of Shadows’ by Susan Cooper (McElderry) Age Range 10-14 - When Nat Field, an
orphan living with his aunt, is chosen for an all-boy acting troupe traveling to London
to perform Shakespeare in the reconstructed Globe Theatre, he hopes it will help him
escape from his family’s tragedy. Instead he finds himself switched in time with another
Nat Field, who carries the Plague.
• ‘Clash of the Gladiators’ by Catherine Chambers (Dorling Kindersley) Adventure 8 –
11yrs - In Clash of the Gladiators join DK Adventure’s exclusive SLIP club (Secret Living
In the Past) — a group of young history buffs who belong to a top-secret club that
allows them to travel throughout history to any time, any place through a phone app.
This time their journey takes them to Ancient Rome, where the mighty gladiators are
getting ready to stage a huge spectacle at the Colosseum. But trouble is stirring at the
amphitheater. Will the team manage to foil an evil scheme? More important, will they
ever see home again?
This is what the DK site says:
DK Adventures are an innovative mix of narrative and nonﬁction for kids’ ages 8-11 featuring
engaging, action-packed stories that help kids build their skills in vocabulary, grammar,
comprehension, and critical thinking while developing a love of reading. With diaries,
HISTORICAL STORIES

40
recipes, poetry, instructions, graphics, or songs, the genre spreads in each DK Adventures
title enhance the story and reinforce curriculum learning, while the expansive range of
entertaining nonﬁction subjects will appeal to boys and girls everywhere.
Many historical stories have an underlying ‘hidden agenda’ message of social comment – how
dreadful working conditions were in the eighteenth century, how awful the Berlin wall was and so
on.
If you are drawn to writing historical fiction for children and you want to have it published, you
will have to keep this fact in mind. Go gently, though, and don’t put uncharacteristically modern
thoughts into your characters’ heads.
For instance, our Civil War hero Marcus, whom we introduced in Module One, would be unlikely to
see anything wrong in militia men carrying rifles, so don’t have him tut-tutting at the lack of gun
control and waste of human life!
But you might introduce some ecological thoughts. He could see some trees being felled to make
way for farmland and think what a shame it was that the forests were getting smaller, or hear an
old soldier reminisce about hunting wolves in his youth and think it is a shame that there are now
so few wolves in his country that he has never seen one.
What used to be thought of, as adventure stories no longer exist as such. The old ‘group of
children who have a jolly adventure during summer vacation’, type of story which Enid Blyton
popularized, has been overtaken by the more structured modern mystery thriller.
There is one exception, though, and that is the growing market of the environmental adventure.
Ecology, animal welfare and conservation are prominent in children’s awareness today, and
publishers are keen to encourage this with both non-fiction and fiction.
Some examples include:
• ‘The Trouble with Dragons’ by Debi Gliori (Bloomsbury) - This a picture book for little
ones with a powerful, allegorical message about the need to look after our planet to
avoid extinction. This sounds serious, but the story (told in rhyme) is brilliantly effective
because of its lightness of touch, humor and gorgeous illustrations. The book is also
full of warmth and will be enjoyed whether or not you’re looking for a story with an
environmental message. (This is an interesting editorial. Can you spot the weakness? It
doesn’t tell us what the story is about!)
• ‘A Child’s Garden’ by Michael Foreman, Illustrator, Candlewick (Walker) - When a
young boy discovers a tiny green shoot amidst the rubble and ruin that has become his
home after a violent conflict, he nurtures the plant (a grapevine), until it grows so large
that…
• ‘The Tyrant’s Daughter’ by J.C. Carleson (Knopf) Young Adult 12+ - When her father
is killed in a coup, 15-year-old Laila flees from the war-torn Middle East to a life of exile
and anonymity in the U.S. Gradually she adjusts to a new school, new friends, and a new
culture, but while Laila sees opportunity in her new life, her mother is focused on the
past. She’s conspiring with CIA operatives and rebel factions to regain the throne their
family lost. Laila can’t bear to stand still as an international crisis takes shape around her,
but how can one girl stop a conflict that spans generations?
J.C. Carleson delivers a fascinating account of a girl - and a country - on the brink, and a
rare glimpse at the personal side of international politics.
• ‘Operation Redwood’ by S. Terrell French (Amulet), Ages 8-12 - Julian Carter-Li’s
uncle’s company plans to cut down some of the oldest California redwood trees, and it’s
up to Julian and a ragtag group of friends to figure out a way to stop them. This thrilling,
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