Writing for Children, by Ashley Holloway
A craft article
At surface level, writing a children’s picture book seems easy. With only 500-1000 words, using simple, descriptive, age-appropriate vocabulary, what could be easier? In truth, while children’s fiction may be short, every word counts. And because children lose interest quickly, the story must be engaging enough to hold it. Further, children’s writing must satisfy both children and readers/parents. And that’s harder than it looks.
Understanding your audience is integral to writing for children. As such, it’s important to ensure the theme, storyline, vocabulary, writing style, and sentence length are aligned with and suitable for the target audience. Children use characters in picture books to help them understand the world around them and how they fit into it. Living vicariously through the characters helps children understand acceptable versus unacceptable behaviour. While it isn’t necessary to include a moral lesson or have the protagonist experience a complex personal journey, characters in picture books often learn a life lesson or virtue as part of the storyline.
Adult fiction generally has layers of plot and subplots. Writing for children requires a much narrower focus and a simple, linear plot. Whether you are writing for adults or kids, a typical story arc consists of an exposition, an inciting incident that causes a rising action, a climax at the midpoint, the falling action, and denouement (thank you, Freytag!). But, in contrast to adult fiction, the inciting incident occurs much sooner, and the climax occurs later in children’s fiction. The ending should also present a satisfying resolution. This, combined with the strategic use of tension helps to hold the reader’s attention.
The Rule of Three is also commonly used in children’s fiction, where a protagonist typically faces three challenges before prevailing. This storytelling device and rhetorical technique supports the idea that things that occur in threes tend to be more engaging and satisfying. For example, a character who solves a problem on the first try is not very interesting. Further, repeated attempts to solve a problem (i.e. three) demonstrate perseverance. This creates likeable characters that readers want to see succeed.
With children’s fiction, it’s important to draw the reader in right from the start. Use literary devices such as repetition, onomatopoeia, and alliteration to help with engagement, and avoid long blocks of text or dialogue. Illustrations can be leveraged to help tell parts of the story, along with a good balance between dialogue and exposition. Creating vivid, relatable characters that are slightly older than the target audience is also a good technique to keep readers engaged; kids are more interested in what bigger kids are doing.
While there are many do’s and don’ts, the biggest tip in writing for children is to read children’s fiction. This will help you discern who your target age group is, what kinds of stories are being told, and how to frame the language appropriately. And in reality, perhaps immersing ourselves in a world where learning to share and include others is something we could all use a little help with these days.
About the Author:
Self-proclaimed logophile and devourer of books, Ashley Holloway is a nurse, writer, and editor who teaches writing classes and healthcare leadership in Calgary, AB. She writes in a variety of genres with work appearing across Canada and the US and has co-authored three books. Ashley serves as Editorial Director at Unleash Creatives and her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.