How To Write Children's Stories

Wondering how to write children's stories? This niche is an exciting one and it can even be a lot of fun. Even if you have experience in other types of writing, writing stories for young readers is very different. Children often have short attention spans, meaning you have to quickly engage them and then continue to work to keep their attention through your story. It's not as easy as you may think. To help you out, here are some secrets that make a difference when you're writing for children.

Secret #1 - Remember Your Own Childhood

If you want to know how to write children's stories, one of the first secrets to keep in mind is to remember your own childhood. If you don't remember what it was like to think and feel like a child, you'll find it difficult to communicate to children with your stories. Take time to connect to your childhood. Think about the memories; remember the feelings you felt and the pleasures that you enjoyed. The more you can connect to that inner child, the easier it will be to write stories that will grab the attention of children.

Secret #2 - Read Children's Stories

Another secret that can make a big difference if you want to write for children is to spend some time reading children's stories. This is especially important if you have never written in this genre before. Reading these stories will help you to learn how these books are crafted. You'll get to know more about your audience - children. This can even help you to further connect to your inner child.

Secret #3 - Have a Way to Write Down Ideas or Images

Some of the best ideas or images can come to you when you are nowhere near your computer. This means that you need to have a way that you can write down any ideas or images that come to mind. If you want to learn how to write children's stories, it's important that you make the most of all your ideas. Get in the habit for writing everything down. Have a system for keeping these images and ideas organized as well. This way you can incorporate them into your writing.

Secret #4 - Consider Taking a Writing Workshop

Attending conferences for writers of children's books is another great idea. There are also writing workshops for writers interested in writing children's books. If you don't already have experience in this genre of writing, you may want to consider taking a writing workshop. This will give you a great way to learn more about this type of writing from some of the best in the business.

Secret #5 - Invest in a Suitable Writing Course

There are many courses available that cover this topic. Go for a really in depth and comprehensive course to make sure that everything you need to learn is covered in the written material. A really informative course means that nothing is missed out and your chances of success will be greater.

Using these secrets can aid you in being successful, but there is more to learn. Make use of these great tips and ideas and be ready to do more research on this field of writing so you have all the information you need to become successful at writing books for children.

Following the right advice and information means you will know how to write children's stories and become one of the established authors too.

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To Write Excellent Children's Stories, Your Characters Must Evolve

Perhaps the act of forgiveness, true forgiveness, is the ultimate example of taking a second look. In this process three critical participants in the story evolve:

1. The character taking the second look evolves by opening his mind to another and to greater depths of the person "looked at"

2. The character being looked at also changes in the minds of the reader/observer as a newer deeper component of them is revealed to us

3. The reader evolves as he experiences these revelations along with the characters. Indeed the reader may well be brought along for this second look just like a character in your story.

Characters can "evolve" simply by revealing aspects of themselves that we may not at first be allowed to see. Although perhaps not a true evolution because the part revealed to us was there all along, the effect on the reader is much the same.

For example, in Katherine Patterson's wonderful Bridge to Tarabithia (a truly remarkable children's book that takes chance and delivers powerfully), I am particularly drawn to the character of the father. At first blush, he seems a somewhat heartless and unfeeling character - maybe even one of the "monsters" of Taribithia. Yet, when we see him respond to the tragedy of the death of Leslie and comfort his son Jess, a new side of him is revealed. We are treated to a similar wonderful revelation from Jess's teacher Mrs. Meyers.

After these revelations of true depth, tenderness, and feeling, we cannot think of these characters the same way again. Revealing a deeper side of a character who, it turns out, is not quite the character we first expected, can be one of the most powerful aspects of writing. It can only happen a few times in a given story, but if you reflect on various stories you have enjoyed, you will find that many of them have such eye-opening moments. Here are a few across genres:

-Literature. Ebenezer Scrooge awakening on Christmas morning a changed man.
-Film. Captain Von Trapp, whose heart is softened by the "sound of music."
-Pop Song. Leader of the Pack. "They told me he was bad, but I knew that he was sad."

I personally cannot write without character evolution, and my writing seems empty without it.

In my first published book, which was about stranger danger, a child learned that we could not judge people by appearances. In my second, a young dinosaur learned not to, quite literally, judge another triceratops by its stripes. In my third book, young Tommy and his friends open themselves up to possibilities both around them and within them that "older and wiser" minds may have shut out.

There might be some who would say that a children's story should be simple with stock predictable characters. I think this sells our (child) reader short. By the time a child can read, she has already come to understand learning, change, the complexities of friendship and relationships, the many components of friends (and certainly parents and siblings!). Give them characters that grow and evolve. They deserve them. They will understand them, and perhaps even grow with them.

Rick Alimonti is nationally and internationally recognized as an expert it Aviation Law, and his law firm has clients throughout the US and Europe. He has always loved airplanes and aviation and became a private pilot in 1994. He has a passion for teaching and promoting legal ethics and speaks and published several times a year on legal ethics.

Rick's children's books focus on character growth and understanding. It could be said that his characters evolve and learn to see the possibilities within themselves and others. In Tommy and the T-Tops, a picture book for children published in 2009, a young dinosaur learns that the striped triceratops from distant heard can teach quite a lot to his green-colored herd. In the Fix-It Shop, Tommy Jameson and other characters come to accept that life has possibilities beyond the ordinary. Tommy, in particular, learns of the strength and magic that was with him all along - even if he never escapes the confines of his wheelchair.
For more Information go to: http://www.alimontibooks.com/