Children's Book Week: Important things to note when writing for children

To celebrate Children's Book Week, I'm sharing another blog that explores the important things writers should note when writing for a younger audience.

Writing stories is a difficult task. Sometimes the ideas and characters can come to you easily and you may feel confident when it comes to achieving your word count.

But writing a polished book takes time and a whole lot of effort. There are edits and rewrites that need to be done in order to make your book the best version it can be.

And this is especially key when writing for children. Writing for different demographics and target audiences can impact how you go about writing your book and writing for children is a whole different ball game.

Children are the next generation and exposing them to the joy of reading is essential. However, it isn't always easy because there are specific things authors need to think about when writing for children.

So, as someone who is currently learning about writing for a younger audience, I thought I'd share some important things to note when writing for children.

Every word matters

When writing for children, you don't want to bore them with long sentences and phrases that they may gloss over. What you want to do is keep them hooked all the way through and to do that, you need to make sure every word is specifically chosen.

In writing, words are the most important thing. They are what the readers see and take in and for children, every word matters. This is particularly important when it is a picture book or a board book because they have very few, if any, words to tell the story and accompany the illustrations.

So if you're writing for children, make sure that every word matters.

Easy to comprehend vocabulary

When thinking about the words in your story, you need to be thinking about the vocabulary you use. Children begin reading from a young age and at that time, their minds are still developing. They won't necessarily understand certain vocabulary.

So, when you're making sure that every word counts, also make sure that the vocabulary you have used is easy to comprehend for your specific target audience and that it won't trip them up whilst reading.

You can have some complex words that can help teach the younger audience, but adding in words, such as tenebrous instead of dark and gloomy, can detract from the story and make it less accessible.

Be wary of the vocabulary and just make sure it's suited to the target audience; after all, a six-year-old's reading ability will be different from a 12-year-old's.

A gripping opening

This piece of advice is actually one I have become more familiar with recently. Of course, the opening to any story of any genre for any audience is important, but it is particularly key when it comes to children.

Children's attention spans are not flexed enough at a young age, and reading can help with that, but you have to make them want to continue reading. Therefore, you need to grab their attention from the very first line and keep them hooked through the characters and plot all the way through.

In medias res is a technique worth using but you could also use an intriguing line of dialogue or a striking sentence of description. Anything that piques a child's interest.

A balanced narrative

Whilst studying for my degree, I've learnt about audience requirements and whether younger audiences prefer an equal level of the five key narrative elements: action, dialogue, description, interior monologue and exposition.

As I mentioned above, younger audiences have shorter attention spans, thus, making action, dialogue and interior monologue more important than description and exposition. This is something to keep in mind when writing for children because you don't want to include too much description, whether that be of characters or locations, or too much exposition because children could be likely to switch off, especially when the passages are multiple sentences.

Action, dialogue and interior monologue are the elements that increase engagement because they provide conflict, move the story along and give an insight into the character.

A young, authentic voice

When writing my YA novel which is told from the perspective of a 16-year-old female protagonist, I was told the narrative voice felt a bit "too adult". As a 22-year-old, it can be challenging channelling my teenage self and it would be even more difficult if I was writing for primary school children.

But as a writer for children, you have to be in tune with your target audience and your protagonist's age. You want the voice to feel authentic and relatable, but it can be difficult to emulate that on the page if you don't know much about the specific age you're writing about/for.

So, try to get in tune with children. Learn how they speak, what speech patterns they use, and whether they use particular vocabulary, for example, 'Mummy' instead of 'Mum', and always remind yourself of these things when writing.

Think about your themes

Themes are a big aspect of books. When reading, you may notice themes such as friendship, loss, family, identity, etc., embedded throughout the story and it's no different when writing for children.

However, you need to really think about your themes because some are not suitable for children. For instance, themes relating to horror and death are not exactly favourable when writing for young children – teens perhaps, but not young children. Stories including monsters are more likely to suit children better, just like themes of friendship, family, adventure and growing up.

If you're aiming a book at the older end of the spectrum, so teenagers and young adults, you can then venture into more mature themes because they tend to like reading about characters a year or two older than them. Therefore, you could write about grief, romantic relationships, societal issues, etc.

So, if you're writing for children, I hope these things help you with your storytelling. If you have any other tips for writing for children, feel free to comment on this post. Otherwise, happy writing and happy Children's Book Week.

Until next time...