How to Write for Children

"I wanted to include this because quite a lot of my students want to write children’s stories when they’re grown up and don’t have children the age they want to write for. I always tell them to write for the age that they are handling at the moment. So if you’ve got a five year old don’t write a book for a three year old because actually you’ve probably forgotten what a three year old’s like. Jordan talks about writing fiction for the education market which is one market where you can still get published. She says that many writers have a problem with the actual writing skills involved in children’s non-fiction and that it’s every bit as important for a non-fiction book to be written in a lively and interesting style. I agree with her; it’s what I have done in my own non-fiction. She talks about all different kinds of children’s books, from how to write series reads for eight to 12 year olds to picture books and teenage fiction. She also goes into subject matter, self-publishing, plotting and so on. I think it’s a different kind of market and one that is worth considering. Some people are absolutely certain they want to write adult novels and then don’t get published. It might be that they are better short story writers, or teenage writers or it might be that they’re non-fiction writers so it’s worth actually playing around with different genres."