Writing Children's Fiction

Writing children's fiction can be fun, but it is difficult too. It might seem easy, nevertheless, there are challenges an author needs to consider.

Children’s fiction has a wide audience from babies to early teens. There are different levels of children’s fiction to appeal to. Writers must think of their audience and write specifically for them. A children’s book for a first grader will not be considered the same book as one for a sixth grader. A first grader is starting to read and a sixth grader has mastered reading as a skill while still finding new words from time to time.

Children enjoy different things than adults and will have a different experience even during the same journey. Great children’s fiction features animals or subjects children deal with on a daily basis. It can teach a lesson or just be for fun, such as a trip to the zoo or a first vacation experience. Children’s books are often full of colorful pictures. The youngest children’s fiction will have only a couple hundred words as the maximum. When children start reading, books could have several hundred words up to a 1,000. Books for the older child will increase in word count.

When writing children's fiction, the language should be clean and simple. The characters need to be appealing, but they don’t need to have a lot of back story. Younger children do well with books that have a little bit of rhythm and rhyme. Often repetition is a good idea for books for the youngest set as well as those learning to read. This helps them learn to speak and having a word or phrase repeated helps them recognize it.

Some things to consider when writing children's fiction for publication:

1. Start out looking for story ideas children will enjoy. Look at the idea through the eyes of a child. Use your imagination because children have very vivid imaginations.

2. Develop an interesting plot or storyline as well as characters children can understand.

3. The story needs to be in an interesting setting a child can understand, such as a home, school, store or other areas they would understand or be able to imagine.

4.The words are always important, but especially for children’s books. They are learning and building on their language skills.

Writing Children's Fiction to Writing Children's Books