Writing a children’s book can be pretty rewarding, and it will help you make some money and make a significant impact on their minds. Writing a children’s book will help you get your foot into the market, and you can turn this into a long-term job for yourself.
Tips for Writing An Amazing Children’s Book Like A Pro
Writing a children’s book may look like an easy task at first. However, several tips can enhance your book writing experience and ease the process. Our team gathered a guide of the best tips you should follow to write an amazing children’s book like a pro and get it published without issues.
1. Find the Right Idea
The first thing you have to do is brainstorm a list of ideas that may be useful for kids. In addition, you should understand that millions of books exist for children in the market, or your selected ideas may already be on the market. So, you need to write down a couple of pictures, choose the right one, and do market research before finalizing a theme.
You can check your list of ideas on Google to ensure that it is unique. If you find similar books on the market, it can also be a good thing for you because you will already know there is a demand for this specific idea.
2. Pick the Right Age Group.
Many people think that all children possess the same mentality and like the same books. However, this is not true. You have to understand that there are three basic categories of children.
Ages 2 to 6 under young children are happier with visually stimulating books with little puppets and colorful characters. The middle-grade type is more advanced than young children and loves well-written books with good plots and exciting characters. The last category is young adults 12 and above, efficiently handling more profound stories, various twists, and challenging personalities.
This is why you have to understand the right audience for your book before finalizing the theme and further modifying your chosen idea. If you are writing a book for young children from 2 to 6, they will not be interested in character development or plots full of twists. Similarly, young adults will not be interested in puppets or colorful drawings and books. You have to figure out your target audience before starting the book.
3. Choose the Right Category and Template
This stage is where the modification process happens, and you finalize your chosen idea’s theme, category, and story development based on the target audiences. Once you have figured out the target audience and a decent idea for your book, it is time to select the right category and develop your story further before starting your book. Your characters can be the same for different types. However, you will need to reshape the challenges and storyline presented inside the text according to the target audience and the chosen category.
If your chosen category is social awareness or life development skills, the story should demonstrate an arc of the character and help kids develop personal life skills. On the other hand, if your category is fantasy or comedy, you do not need to tackle the real challenges, and you can write your characters in a fun way without taking out real-life issues. It will help you start writing the text correctly, and you will not have to rip out several drafts to get to the final version.
4. Plan Your Book Length
You cannot jot down a 20000-word novel for little children, and they will never be interested in reading such a vast book, which will go to waste. On the other hand, young adults will not be interested in a book with 30 pages and pictorial representations of characters. You should choose the right length and word count for your book, depending upon your underlying story’s target audience and theme.
The proper word count and book-length will help you start your story correctly and pace yourself with the storyline and character development without wasting words. You cannot begin your character development on the last page if you write a small book, and on the other hand, you cannot give away your twists in the first few pages if you write a big novel for young adults. Choosing the right length and word count will help you pace yourself and develop the story better. Hiring a ghostwriter can help you ease the procedure on a budget.
5. Start the Story from The Beginning
You are not George RR Martin, and those kids are not desperate “Game of Throne” fans. You must understand that you need to start the story as quickly as possible within the first few pages. Children are not interested in waiting for the big plot twists at the end of a giant book, and they are more interested in reading unique lines, funny jokes, and laughable incidents right from the very beginning.
Some authors mistake waiting until the book’s first half to introduce a plot twist or relatable incidents for kids. The kids lose interest pretty quickly, and your book will garner low ratings on online forums if you do not start your story soon within the first few pages. Another critical thing to understand is that kids are not interested in the backdrop of their characters or region. You do not have to write like Oscar Wilde to get the kids interested in reading your book.
According to professionals, you should reveal at least 40% of the story within the first five pages and start your plot or conflict as early as possible. This way, the kids will be interested in reading the following pages, and they will not have to wait until the first half of the book to understand what is going on finally. It would be best to remember that you are writing for little kids. Let them know what they will read throughout the book within the first few pages. Start with a funny or a relatable incident and introduce the characters as quickly and simply as possible.
6. Repeat, Repeat and Repeat Some More
You have to stop thinking like Sherlock Holmes and start thinking from a child’s point of view. If you are thinking of writing a children’s book, you must have read other children’s books beforehand. One of the most common styles and tones in children’s books is repetition.
You will never find a good children’s book without repeating sentences, phrases, storylines, or essential keywords. If you have ever read Dr. Seuss’s books, you must have noticed a lot of repetition of similar words throughout the chapters and the book. You must understand that parents, children, and publishers love repetition as long as it is subtly introduced into the book.
You also need to repeat the entire story structure every few chapters to keep them interested and aware of what is happening. While reading books, kids do not remember what happened in the previous chapters, and it can take a few days or even weeks to finish your book. So, you have to use the power of repetition to keep them interested and aware of the storyline throughout the entire book.
7. Think from an Illustrator’s Point of View
Whether you are writing for younger kids or young adults, most children’s books have illustrations. So, it would help if you thought from an illustrator’s perspective to describe your characters and the scenes in your book. The illustrator will have to draw fantastic imagery to depict what is going on inside your book. You have to focus on your material and write it so that illustrators will not have a hard time coming up with beautiful imagery and pictorial representations of characters and the backdrop.
When you describe a building, you need to come up with a description that will keep it to the minimum without sacrificing the integrity of the situation. If you add too many details to the reports, the illustrators will have difficulty finding the right images for your book. Moreover, it will also drive up your budget. It would be helpful to keep everything well-explained yet straightforward so that illustrators can quickly draw amazing pictures for your book.
According to professionals, you should not over-describe every scenario as writing for adults. When registering for children, you need to keep everything to a minimum and describe only the most essential objects or things in the room. Similarly, you only have to explain the outfit and other essential character elements and not detail their demeanor or irrelevant factors. It will allow the kids to understand the book quickly and enable illustrators to draw amazing visuals for the project soon.
8. Get to The End Quickly
Like starting the book as quickly as possible, you also need to end the book as soon as possible. You have to figure out how to present the challenges in your story and give it a proper ending before the readers get bored. For this purpose, you have to pace yourself throughout the story and continuously present enticing challenges throughout the narration.
Another important thing you need to understand is that you cannot abruptly end the story without a good outcome or moral. This is why your account should lead towards a good moral in the last two pages, and you need to present it to the audience so that they understand what the entire story was about and what they should learn from it.
9. Embrace Inclusion, Diversity, and Unique Ideas
There are millions of children’s books out there on the market. Even if you have a unique idea, you still have to make it presentable and acceptable for kids of different ethnicities and origins. Back in the day, authors were more focused on the plot or storyline than inclusion and diversity in the book.
However, if you want to expand your outreach and target as many audiences as possible, you must embrace inclusion and diversity in your book. This way, even the most repetitive idea will stand out among the rest. Your book will be a unique project with kids and characters of different colors, ethnicities, religious backgrounds, challenges, etc.
10. Invest in Marketing and Publishing
Once you are done writing your big masterpiece, it is time to choose the proper marketing channels, publishers, agents, illustrators, and other important factors to reach the target audiences. Just because you have a fantastic book in your possession does not mean that people will get to know it automatically.
Experts recommend choosing a descriptive title for a children’s book. The title should not be a long sentence. However, it should indicate what the kids will read about inside the book. Moreover, make it as catchy and mysterious as possible. Kids always love rhymes, and it will be fantastic if you can come up with a title with rhyming words in it. You can also take help from an editor or a publisher to modify the title and blurb for your book.
Professional editors will understand everything from the beginning, and they will know the right words and editing required to make your book more plausible and enticing for little kids. They will give you the right tips to get started with your next masterpiece, and they will help you with your journey.
What Is the Bottom Line Here?
You can easily overcome any challenges and create a masterpiece that will help sell your book like hotcakes by following the right tips and guidelines. You should always come up with a unique idea or modify your statement to be excellent. Try to embrace as much inclusion and diversity in your book and make the scenarios as simple as possible for the kids to understand. With the help of the right editors and illustrators, you can genuinely take your book to the next level and easily compile a fantastic children’s book.
