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?