Everything I Need to Know About Writing, I Learned From Children’s Book Authors

I’ve spent a lot of years reading children’s books. Not only when I was a child myself, but the years I read to nieces and nephews, and the 15 I’ve been reading to my own children. For some of those years, I had little time to read anything written with an adult audience in mind. But that doesn’t mean I had to stop learning about writing for adults. Children’s books contain all the elements of good stories.

Dr. Seuss: Stories need rhythm. You can make up words, you can repeat entire phrases, you can even write utter nonsense, when the rhythm is there. The rhythm, the flow of the words, will carry readers through the story to the end. Don’t believe me? I challenge you to open Green Eggs & Ham or The Cat in the Hat and stop reading partway through. It cannot be done.

R.L. Stine: Watch a kid, even a reluctant reader, with an R.L. Stine book. Short chapters, quick action, lots of surprises and cliffhangers at the end of each chapter keep the reader turning the pages. Quickly. Chapter one of The Haunted Mask II from Stine’s Goosebumps series ends like so, “And then let out a long, high wail of horror.” Of course the reader is moving on to chapter two...which ends with, “Seeing Carly Beth, I knew exactly what I wanted to do.”  And chapter three? “And screamed and screamed and screamed.”

J.K. Rowling: I I fall firmly in the “pantser” category. My first drafts are written without outlines. J.K. Rowling? Clearly a plotter. I’ve read through the series several times, having read them aloud to a few of my kids, and each time I am astounded by the new things I find. The necklace that is so important in book seven, makes an appearance in book five. I barely noticed it the first time through, but Rowling made sure it was there.

Lemony Snicket:  If you don’t know what “voice” is, A Series of Unfortunate Events will spell it out for you. “If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book. In this book, not only is there no happy ending, there is no happy beginning and very few happy things in the middle.” Great opening because it establishes the author’s voice. Dry, no nonsense, and yet somehow so funny.

L.M. Montgomery: Anne Shirley is probably the most memorable character from my childhood. She’s wonderfully flawed: a “little” overdramatic, holds a grudge, and is extremely vain about her hair. She’s so much fun you can’t help but love her—probably because of her faults, not in spite of them.

What children’s authors have taught you about writing?

Links Tent

Resources:

• A big thank you to Suzanne Boles for tweeting this great resource: Freelance Writing Writer’s Guidelines.
• Last week, I told you to follow Elizabeth S. Craig, right? If you listened, you already know about the Writer’s Knowledge Base, the search engine for writers. She tweets links to the best content on writing and then adds them to this database.

Novel Writing:

• How much is too much character description? How much is too little? Janice Hardy at The Other Side of the Story answers this question in her post Tall, Dark & Handsome: How Much Do You Need to Describe Your Characters? 
• Here’s a post I found thanks to Write It Sideways. Roz Morris offers 3 Fixes to Make Your First Novel Fly, beginning with Hook Your Reader by the Head AND the Heart. Check this out along with the other two fixes on her blog, Nail Your Novel.

The Writing Biz:

• Jennifer Represents, a blog written by Jennifer Laughren, a literary agent who specializes in children’s and YA fiction, discusses when authors should discuss how long they’ve been trying to hook an agent, and who’s already rejected them. When to Keep Your Trap Shut? Almost Always.
• BubbleCow, another great resource for aspiring authors, lets you know that There Are Only Three Possible Reasons Why You Have Not Yet Been Published.

Why I Write

At a recent meeting of my local writing group, we were asked to write about why we write. Like everyone else, I wrote about how writing is a part of me, how it’s something I don’t really have a choice about.

What I’ve been thinking about since is why I write as a career, and why I aspire to one day see my novel published. There are so many other things I am capable of doing for a living that involve less rejection and fewer blows to my ego.

When I was a kid, I dreamed of changing the world with my words.

In reality, much of what I write is practical stuff that I hope is helpful to some people, but isn’t exactly the answer to world hunger or saving the rain forest. But sometimes I’m fortunate enough to write about something that really matters, something that truly helps someone.  One article I’m especially proud of, The Reality of Motherhood...What Nobody Tells You appeared in the July/August 2006 issue New Beginnings. Thanks to Google Alerts, I’ve found people who have posted new links to this article because they think it’s important.

If my article or story reaches one person who needs to hear my message, then I’ve made a difference. And that’s why I write.

Links Tent, Twitter Style

Not so long ago, I finally found my way onto Twitter, and discovered many of the people who write the blogs I follow, along with a whole bunch of other great information. I’ve been tweeting and retweeting some of the best info I’ve come across. Here’s the best of the best:

Great Resource:
The Bookshelf Muse blog: writing tools and musings about reading, writing and other randomness. There are two great thesauruses (thesaurusi?) in the right-hand column: an emotion thesaurus that lists over 60 emotions and and corresponding actions, and a setting thesaurus that will help you anchor your scenes using all of your senses.

Editing and Story Writing Information:

• If you’re not following Elizabeth S. Craig on Twitter, you should be. She posts great links to great content every day. I found many of these links through her tweets. 
• 6 Common Dialogue Mistakes to Avoid, written by Lynette Labelle at Chatterbox Chitchat.
• The Problem—and Reality—of Adding –LY, from The Muffin, brought to you by WOW—Women on Writing.com 
• Lessons From the Slushpile: Good vs Great from the Inkhaven blog.
• Janice Hardy, author of the MG fantasy, The Shifter, has a great post on her The Other Side of the Story blog about Edits vs. Revisions: One on One Death Match.
• The Blood-Red Pencil blog has lots of “sharp and pointed observations about writing,” including this post about Combining Characters.
• Ingrid Sundberg, self-professed writing conference junkie, shares what she learns on her blog Ingrid’s Notes. Here’s a great example 10 Tests to Prove Your Manuscript is Ready for Submission.
• This post, Are Filter Words Weakening Your Fiction? is a great reason to add the Write It Sideways blog to your blog roll.