Writing Childrens Books

Share Those Family Tales Writing Childrens Books

You sat near your grandfather’s feet at every family gathering listening to fabulous tales spun enthusiastically. Grandfather had that knack for illustrating with his spoken words the look, feel and even smell that story participants experienced as you sat there absolutely spellbound awaiting the next image he would paint out loud.

You inherit the knack for storytelling and continue the tradition retelling these old tales to not only your own children, but whenever kids seem to gather around, the tales emerge. “You ought to write these stories down,” people keep telling you. Your friends, your relatives and even parents of your kid’s buddies urge you to write them down, preserving them for all time.

However, before you put pen to paper, so to speak, there are some necessary factors to explore and consider. If your goal is mere preservation of tales told and handed down to the next generation, by all means, simply proceed sitting at your computer plugged into your favorite word processing program and have at it.

But, if along with all the encouragement you receive to write the stories, people keep telling you, “Write the story and get it published. You could be writing children’s book,” create a plan before you head down this road.

The first place to begin is to read a variety of children’s books published, say, within the past 10-20 years. Although there are quite a few well-honored and time-tested classics, a great many themes have emerged in modern children’s literature that were not necessarily written about years ago. Once children’s books were designed to reveal life-enhancing tales with moral messages, a trend began about a half-century ago with authors like Dr. Seuss who wrote about kids simply having fun.

Additionally, taboo items like coping with modern scenarios of divorce, unemployment, homelessness, hunger, bullying and even death emerged as acceptable themes in modern children’s literature. Furthermore, writing styles softened from academically directed composition to more casual, talking to voices adapted by people writing children’s books in the past few decades.

Unlike your predecessors writing children’s books before the advent of television, computers, video and electronic games, you now have a great deal of competition attracting today’s youth. Therefore, the primary purpose for writing down, and publishing, those heretofore oral traditions you’ve learned from older generations in your family should be to entertain. Unless you grab the interest of your targeted audience, from the start, and hold these young readers spellbound just as your grandfather had when you sat wrapped up in his storytelling years ago.

It will always be about the storytelling. Writing childrens books can be an extremely rewarding avocation, if not a financially rewarding pastime, also. Therefore, before you set out to write, follow these tips:

* Read at least 10 children’s books published in the last decade

* Read at least 10 “classic” children’s books discovering what themes and messages are timeless

* Compare the tale, or tales, you plan to write to these you’ve examined determining if they ”fit” into the style today’s publishers seek

* Decide if you believe writing children’s books based on your family tales will be popularly acceptable after conducting your research

You may find that writing childrens books may be the most enjoyable pursuit you’ve ever undertaken.

 

 

 

 

 

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